Know what your app will cost
before you build it.
Estimate by platform, industry and app type — then by features, traffic, compliance and team. Itemised in engineering hours at US rates, not averaged into a number that applies to nobody.
- 128
- Cost combinations
- 8
- Platforms
- 16
- Industries
- 13
- App types
Three things decide the number
They are independent, and every honest estimate has to price all three. Most calculators price one and guess the rest.
The whole priced space
Every figure below is read from the model, so the catalogue cannot drift from what the site actually prices. Each one is a way in.
What a build actually consists of
Seven phases, and they overlap: design is still running when the backend starts, and QA starts before the client build finishes. That overlap is why a schedule is shorter than the sum of its parts — and why a five-step strip labelled discovery to launch is a picture of a process nobody runs. The calculator puts weeks against each one.
Discovery & definition
Requirements, flows, technical approach, acceptance criteria.
Design
Wireframes through production screens and a design system.
Backend & platform
Data model, APIs, auth, cloud environments, pipelines.
Client build
Building every surface in scope, screen by screen.
Integrations
Third-party systems, reconciliation, failure handling.
QA & hardening
Functional, device, performance and security testing.
Release
Store submission, production cutover, monitoring.
Platforms
Where software runs decides how many client surfaces you build, how large a device matrix you have to test, and what stands between a finished build and your users. Each page sets out all three.
Industries
Grouped by how they behave commercially rather than alphabetically, because the regulatory environment predicts cost better than the sector name does.
Regulated
The regulator, not the feature list, sets the budget.
Commerce
Software that exists to complete a transaction.
Operations
Software that coordinates people, vehicles and machines.
Product & audience
Where the software is the product and adoption is the constraint.
Or start from an app you already know
Most people arrive with a product in mind rather than a specification. 128 recognisable apps are priced here the same way everything else is — what it would cost to build something of that shape in the US today, itemised in engineering hours.
What is actually in the model
Every rate, multiplier and threshold is published, because a cost model you cannot inspect is an opinion with a dollar sign in front of it.
Platforms
8
Industries
16
App types
13
Features
104
Integrations
75
Compliance regimes
23
Questions
How much does it cost to develop an app in the US?
It depends on three independent things — where the software runs, who it serves, and what it does — and the spread between the cheapest and dearest honest answer is several-fold. That is why there is no headline figure anywhere on this site: an average across those three axes produces a number that applies to nobody, and quoting one would be the least useful thing we could do. The calculator prices your specific combination and itemises it by discipline, so you can see which part of the answer is doing the damage.
Why price by platform AND industry rather than just "app type"?
Because they are independent, and both matter. A booking tool for a clinic and a booking tool for a restaurant look identical on a feature list, but one carries HIPAA obligations, audit logging and an EHR interface. An Android app and an iPad app for the same workflow differ by device matrix, store review and interaction model. Multiply one base figure by two coefficients and you cannot express either. Each axis contributes its own hours here.
Why does adding a second platform not double the price?
Because most of a project is not platform-specific. The backend, data model, API, product logic, design system and test scenarios are built once and shared. Only the client implementation, the store submission and the device test matrix repeat. In this model a second native mobile platform adds roughly 66–70% of the first, and one cross-platform codebase covers both for about 24% over a single native app. Anyone quoting 2× for two platforms is either building it wrong or pricing it wrong.
Are hosting and maintenance included?
No, deliberately. The headline is one-off development cost. Monthly cloud infrastructure, metered vendor fees and annual maintenance are calculated separately and shown beside it, because they are recurring operating costs rather than capital build cost. Maintenance typically runs 15–25% of build per year, and an app that receives none stops working within about a year as OS releases and SDK deprecations accumulate.
Do I have to give my email to see the result?
No. The whole estimate — the itemised disciplines, cost drivers, timeline, team, architecture, running costs and every assumption — is on the page without any signup. The calculation runs in your browser; your configuration is stored only in your own browser and is never transmitted.
How accurate is this?
It is a planning estimate with a stated confidence band of ±15% to ±30% depending on team model, and that band assumes a reasonably well-defined scope. Use it to work out the order of magnitude you are dealing with and where the money goes, then spend two to four weeks on a technical specification and get a real quote against that. No calculator replaces that step.