A Snapshot of 2025 App Development Costs
Say you wanted to build an enterprise grade mobile app today–how much would it cost?
Without knowing your requirements, it’s like asking how many jellybeans are in the jar below.
Okay, we can do a bit better than that!
After looking at our fees for past and present Upstack Studio projects and researching mobile app development costs worldwide, it will likely be around these figures:
- USD30,000 – 70,000 for initial app development expenses
- USD1,000 – 8,000 per month for regular app maintenance costs
- Up to USD10,000 for major updates or changes
Of course, these are estimates and in reality your app project can cost less–or more!
But even the lower end of mobile app development is far from cheap.
And as we’ve yet to meet a business owner who wasn’t cost-conscious, we’ll be sharing X strategies to enjoy more affordable app development costs.
Understanding Where the Money Goes
To reliably and safely reduce development costs, you need to know the various expenses that contribute to that final bill.
We’re simplifying things, but it comes down to the hours developers spend on the following:
- Planning: Outlining app features, creating a project timeline, and choosing a tech stack
- Designing: Creating wireframes, mockups, and prototypes of the app’s interface
- Developing: Front and backend development, API integration, and testing
More features or more complex features mean more time spent in the design and development phases, and this drives up the cost.
In the next section, we explain how this (among other things) causes businesses to shoot themselves in the foot!
4 Unnecessary Causes of Cost Increases
We’ve dealt with businesses who were quite good at accidentally increasing costs.
To be fair, we’ve also seen developers bungle things rather badly – one of our clients paid their previous developer nearly USD 400,000 for a bug-filled app!
But we digress – here are four top contributors of unnecessary costs in app development.
- Feature overload: Trying to pack too many features adds a BOATLOAD of development time with minimal impact on how the app is received by users.
- Poorly defined scope: Vague requirements lead to scope creep where essential features are discovered later, requiring mid-development changes.
- Disregarding app maintenance: Some businesses with running apps ignore regular app maintenance until it breaks and damage control costs far more.
- Not going with a Progressive Web App (PWA): In many cases, a Progressive Web App (PWA)—a web-based application that functions like a mobile app—can provide the same business benefits as a mobile app at a fraction of the cost.
We’re sharing this because these are true low-hanging fruits–if you’re guilty of any, stop now.
While fruits are a great addition to a diet, eat a banana or some apples instead!
7 Strategies for Cost-Effective App Development
If you’re innocent of the app development crimes in the previous section, you’re not doing anything wrong, and here are seven steps you could take to do things RIGHT!
Do EVERYTHING you can do yourself
This is all about fully understanding the app’s functions and user profile.
Just because you can’t code yourself, doesn’t mean you can’t contribute in the following areas:
- Vision & Goals – Define what the app should achieve
- Target Audience – Identify ideal users and pain points
- Market Research – Analyze competitors and industry trends
- Monetization – Decide on app revenue model
- Compliance – Ensure legal and data privacy adherence
- Wireframing – Outline key screens and features
- User Journey – Map how users navigate the app
- Customer Feedback – Validate ideas with real users
Not only does this save developers the time needed to do research, it saves your project from getting bogged down by surprise changes down the road.
Bonus: If your business employs designers, get them to prepare some mockups.
Pre-sell the app
Use a landing page MVP or Kickstarter page to sell the app idea and use proceeds to fund development.
While this doesn’t reduce app development costs, if the app idea is valid, potential users will pay, and with more money in your account, development costs become more affordable.
Like your family members, development costs are all relative!
Outsource to offshore developers
Our research into worldwide developer rates shows that North American developers usually charge $100 per hour, while in India it’s $30 per hour.
And do you REALLY think India–with 1.5 billion people–has no competent developers?
Hire an offshore development team well and it will be the biggest cost reduction you ever enjoy.
Do NOT settle for hourly charges
Hourly rates incentivize developers to take longer because it means more billed hours.
Experienced developers should be able to estimate how many hours are needed and provide an estimate for the whole project upfront.
If the requirements gathering was done well, it won’t stray far from the initial quote.
Use no-code app builders
If you’re prepared to learn, build an MVP with a no code app builder at a fraction of the cost of custom coding.
Alternatively, hire a platform professional so you enjoy cost AND time benefits.
Bear in mind, no code apps come with innate limitations, and when the time comes to go custom, you’ll have to build your app from square one–but by then you’ll have the money and the certainty to invest it!
Affordable Does NOT Mean Cheap
If your goal is a mobile app with custom design and a scalable and sustainable codebase, not to mention a team of developers routinely updating it, it’s never going to be cheap.
And if it’s cheap, it’s unlikely to be as pretty or robust as you’re led to believe!
The strategies we mention will make your app development experience as cost-effective and affordable as possible, but at a certain point, it’s not possible to reduce costs without compromising too much quality.
And we don’t do that at Upstack Studio 🙂
Happy building!
If you’re looking to build a mobile application, check out our portfolio of past projects and contact us if you like what you see. Also, consider joining our mailing list for a one-stop resource on everything from micro-SaaS validation all the way to execution and promotion. Get a nifty list of questions to ask app developers when you sign up!
Download this template now so you know exactly what to ask App Development Agencies! Let us know where should we send it through the form below.
