📱 Mobile App Development Project Pricing & Cost Structure
The advantages of having a dedicated app, such as improved customer engagement, increased accessibility, and enhanced brand loyalty.
average data among 100 mobile app designers indicating how long they believed it would take to build the major components of Android or iOS app. an "MVP" would require approx 18 wks or 4.5 months. 10 wks goes into back-end alone.
The Next Web published the following MVP costs of top products quoted by top US CTOs:
- Twitter – $50,000 to $250,000
- Instagram – $100,000 to $300,000 in 3-6 months
- Facebook – $500,000 in 9 months
- WhatsApp – $250,000 in 9 months
- Uber – $1M to $1.5M
- Pinterest – $120,000 in 4 months
- Shopify – $250,000 and $300,000 in 4-6 months
- Vine – $125,000 and $175,000 in 4 to 6 months
In the US, to build an App now you need to hire a team at an hourly rate of 150 USD according tothis Techcrunch article that is a handsome 100,000 to 150,000 USD assuming 4 people and 4–6 months.
To illustrate further, in a2013 article of The Next Web a simple MVP of Instagram would have costed 100–300,000 USD and would have taken 3–6 months.
Fast forward to 2017. The folks over at Gigster say that amid complexity Web + Android + iOS project will set you back around 130,000 USD and take about 4–6 months.
An Indian to Eastern European high standards agency will set you back roughly a third of US rates (40–60USD/ hour) according to this Techcrunch article . Hence 35,000 to 60,000 USD for your iOS, Android or Web App. If you want all three together you will have to multiply time and cost.
Hence developing a mid complexity App can cost anywhere between 35,000 to 150,000 USD and take up to 6 months which for a lot of entrepreneurs means too much money, too long a wait and discouragement to keep on.