Mobile App Development Cost in 2026

A straightforward mobile app costs $20,000 to $60,000 to build in 2026. Apps with accounts, payments and a backend run $60,000 to $150,000. Simple single-purpose apps can be delivered for less, and marketplace or social products cost considerably more.

Quoting by platform is the wrong frame. The question is not whether you need iOS, Android or both — it is which features you need, because features drive the cost and the platform decision changes it by perhaps thirty per cent.

Cost by feature, not by platform

Rough US build costs, on top of a base app:

• User accounts and authentication — $4,000 to $10,000. More with social login or single sign-on.
• Payments — $5,000 to $15,000. Subscriptions cost more than one-off purchases, and both stores take a cut.
• Push notifications — $2,000 to $5,000, more if they are personalised or scheduled server-side.
• Offline mode — $5,000 to $15,000. Frequently assumed to be free. It is not; syncing conflicts are genuinely hard.
• Maps and location — $3,000 to $10,000, plus ongoing API fees.
• Chat or messaging — $8,000 to $25,000.
• Admin dashboard — $8,000 to $20,000. Almost always needed and almost always forgotten at quoting time.

One codebase or two?

Cross-platform using React Native or Flutter typically costs 60 to 70 per cent of building both natively. One team, one codebase, both stores. It is the right default for most business apps.

Native — separate Swift and Kotlin builds — earns its extra cost when you need heavy graphics, tight hardware integration, or platform features on the day they launch. Games and camera-centric apps generally belong here.

The honest version: most business apps do not need native, and most agencies that insist otherwise are describing their own team’s skills rather than your requirements.

The costs after launch

An app is not a one-off purchase. Annually, expect:

• Apple Developer Program — $99 a year
• Google Play — $25 one-off
• Backend hosting — $50 to $500 a month depending on users
• Maintenance — budget 15 to 20 per cent of build cost per year. iOS and Android both ship major versions annually and things break.
• Store compliance — privacy labels and policy changes need work whether or not you shipped a feature

An app you cannot afford to maintain will be removed from the stores within two years. Factor maintenance in before you commit to the build.

How to reduce the cost honestly

• Ship fewer features. The most effective lever by a wide margin.
• Launch on one platform. Check your analytics; if 80 per cent of your web traffic is iOS, start there.
• Consider a web app first. If you do not need camera, offline or push, a responsive site does the job for a fraction of the money.
• Supply the design. If you already have a design system, say so — it removes real hours.

Common questions

How long does an app take?

Three to six months for a first version with a realistic feature set. Anyone promising six weeks is either building something very small or planning to cut testing.

Do I need an admin dashboard?

Almost certainly. If any content, price or user in the app ever changes, something has to change it. That something is a dashboard, and it should be in the quote.

Who owns the code?

You should, along with the store listings and the developer accounts. Register the Apple and Google accounts in your company’s name, not the agency’s.

How we price it

Our app development quotes are built feature by feature so you can see what each one costs and remove it. Where cross-platform is right we use React Native or Flutter, and we write native modules only where cross-platform is genuinely the wrong answer.