How much does mobile application cost in 2019?

If you ever wondered how much it would cost to develop an application for iOS or Android this will be a must have article for you to get your eyes on. As a company with more than 10 years of software development experience we want to share with you our expertise and help you with budget estimates for mobile development. 

At first let us introduce ourselves and prove that we have enough expertise to talk about mobile application development and its time and money issues. Here, at the OS-System, we have been developing web, mobile and software applications from 2007. Throughout our development experience we have worked with different companies and startups from all over the globe. Our experience let us work with all kinds of projects and engagement models. As a development company, we strive to create the most transparent environment to help our customers solve business tasks with both quality and delivery dates guaranteed. That is why today we want to share with you our knowledge about mobile software development and the time and money efforts that you will need to  make to produce one for your business with a software developers team.

How much will it cost to develop a mobile application? We’ve heard this question numerous times throughout out outsourced software development experience. It’s obvious that everything in our world has its price tag that varies on a different aspects. For the outsourced mobile development rules are the same as for every industry out there – you always get exactly what you are paying for. 

How much does a mobile application cost?

The price for mobile development may vary from 2000$ to 2 000 000$.

If you are wondering why there is such a huge gap between those two numbers we have everything covered. In this article we want to break down all of the minor and major points which affect the cost of the mobile software development. But, if you are not looking into looking through all of  the important details and aspects that affect the cost of the mobile application development – the average price for general mobile application will be around 25 000$, the average price for mobile application with medium complexity will be around 50 000$ and the average price for mobile applications with high level of complexity will be around 75 000$.

How much time does it take to create a mobile application?

Before making any thoughts on the provided information, we want you to notice that every application has its own requirements and these time frameworks does not apply to every mobile application project out there. Also, you should notice that as for iOS, publication of your mobile app can take some time to be accepted by Apple. So, to give you general overview on the mobile development time frames we have these basic scopes:

Basic mobile application often takes about from 1 to 3 months of  development.

Medium complexity mobile application often takes about form 3 to 6 months of development.

Large and complexed mobile applications can take up to 6+ months development.

For those business and startup entrepreneurs, who want to get more knowledge of the software development industry and to understand the factors that are affecting time and costs of the mobile development, we have prepared following information.

What are the major points that are affecting the time and cost of mobile application development?

It is common for most of the businesses and startups to have fixed budgets and time limitations for their project to be developed by in-house or and outsourced team of software developers. But, when you are planning to develop mobile application you cannot expect for the clear estimates of the time and money that you will need to spend on the development side of the project.

The most important cost influencers for mobile software development are: 

  • Your developer’s location
  • In-house or outsourced developer’s employment
  • Size of the development team
  • Features and functionality that must be delivered
  • Visual design complexity level
  • Platforms
  • Backend infrastructure complexity and application administration
  • Application testing

What are the pricings for mobile development worldwide?

There are a lot of different software development agencies all over the world for any kind of purposes with different level of expertise and pricings.. The most common mistake between the most of the entrepreneurs is the price and quality equalisation. Often, mobile development depends on the hourly cost of the development process. This number can vary depending on the  country, which your developers are working from. Regarding of the hourly development cost, it doesn’t affect the average level of the developers expertise in the country. So, as we have previously mentioned, high prices do not always mean high quality of the developed product. If you are wondering how to define a perfect contractor for your specific project, check out our article about choosing a right partner for software development project.

Here is a list of hourly rates for mobile development worldwide:

Application development cost rates worldwide


Outsourced vs local developers

Choosing a right partner for mobile software development is one of the biggest and influencing aspects in the IT industry. The first question which you need to clarify is whether to choose outsourced or local/in-house developers.

The only applying argument for the local in-house developers team is an ability to easily communicate and control the development processes. While the local time is easier to manage because of the face to face communication, remote developers can deliver you more value for reduced costs or get better expertise. Instead of searching for local specialists you can hire an outsourced developers with high level of expertise while also  saving some of your budgets.

If you want to learn more about outsourced development and establish one for your business – check out our ultimate guide to successful outsourced software development

Visual design complexity level

The quantity of the screens for mobile application is also an important cost forming factor. Unique design decisions also mean that your developers will need to integrate this unique features to your project which will take more time and efforts compared to a simpler decisions.

Features and the functionality of the mobile development project

To correctly estimate the cost of your mobile application you must understand features and functionality that must be delivered to your product. These two aspects are the main cost driving factors in the mobile software development industry. Depending on the requirements of the value that must be delivered developers will have to spend more or less their time regarding on the complexity and number of the features. Simpler features often means smaller costs and time efforts for mobile application development.

Platforms

Before making any application you must decide which platforms will be a perfect fit for your business and your mobile application idea. This affects the development part because different platforms require different approach to mobile software development. If you are not sure  whether to develop your mobile application for iOS or Android or you want to make your application working on both platforms we suggest you developing a cross-platform mobile applications. One of the best and stable cross-platform decisions as for 2019 is the React Native technology developed by Facebook. 

Back-end development and administration

Backend development allows your mobile application to establish and provide data exchange between mobile application and the database. Depending on the complexity of the database and backend code involvement costs for the development may vary. The same goes with the mobile application administration. The more features are implemented to the admin panel the higher the cost of an application with such panel.

Top 3 most popular mobile application cost requests and answers to them:

  • How much does it cost to make a dating mobile app like Tinder?

Dating applications has become a growing trend and many of the entrepreneurs are looking forward these mobile social applications. Depending on the functionality of your application it may cost more or less, but the average dating mobile application with medium functionality will cost around 50 000$. 

  • How much does it cost to make a taxi ordering Uber like mobile app?

Uber definitely has established a meaningful presence on the taxi driving mobile applications all over the globe. But still many of the entrepreneurs are looking forward these kind of mobile apps. Based on our commercial development experience, we can tell that the average mobile application for taxi industry with medium functionality will cost you around 60 000$. 

  • How much does it cost to make a food delivery mobile app?

Food delivery services are spreading rapidly these days. If you want to establish a mobile application for food delivery services you will need about 20 000$ budget for the development of such app. Based on our experience, we believe that this budget will be enough to deliver all the needed functionality for such services. Depending on which value you want to be delivered by your food delivery application, the development process may take from 1 to 3 months. 

Total cost for mobile development

As a conclusion, we can say that the final cost for mobile application development always depends on the design, requirements and scope of work that must be delivered. Depending on the features that must be implemented into the mobile app the development time and costs may vary.

If you want to develop your mobile application and still do not understand how to establish a successful development process – we are always ready to give to our clients high-quality consultation based on our 10+ years of web and software development experience. OS-System provides full-cycle development from initial concept to a live application. If you are looking for a software company to outsource the development of your mobile application idea – contact us!

We are committed to providing the highest levels of development service that we can deliver. We continually assess our performance to the evolving needs of IT-business in general and our client base in particular. We are always adapting and improving  our processes and performance to ensure that can deliver a product or a service that meets or exceeds the needs and expectations of our clients and partners.

OS-System. We build your ideas.

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