iOS app development cost for e-commerce & retail

There is no single figure, and quoting one would be the least useful thing this page could do — the same pairing spans several-fold depending on scope, compliance and how many surfaces you ship. What this page gives you instead is what the pairing demands: the regimes that may apply, the systems of record you will be asked to integrate with, the device matrix and the release path. The calculator below is already fixed to iOS and e-commerce & retail — answer what is left and it returns a cost range, hours, timeline, team and running costs for your scope.

Because e-commerce & retail brings its own obligations before you write a feature: PCI DSS, ADA accessibility, CCPA / CPRA may apply, you will be asked to integrate with systems like Stripe and Shopify, and there are typically 6 distinct roles rather than one. The platform contributes its own separate costs — the device matrix, App Store review — and those are independent of the industry.

Slightly, and almost entirely because of testing. The engineering itself is comparable, but iOS has a handful of screen sizes and two or three OS versions in play, versus 20–30 meaningful Android configurations. That difference is typically 30–50 hours per release cycle. Against that, iOS adds App Review as a schedule dependency and a $99 annual account, and requires Mac hardware to build on.

Budget one to four days per submission and expect at least one rejection on a first release. The common causes are predictable and worth designing around up front: no in-app account deletion, offering third-party sign-in without Sign in with Apple, unclear subscription pricing, and privacy labels that do not match actual data collection. Each round trip costs a day or two, so a first submission three days before a launch date is a real risk.

Use a platform unless you have a specific reason not to. Shopify plus a headless front end covers what most stores need, and it absorbs PCI scope, tax calculation and fraud screening. Build custom when your pricing, bundling or fulfilment logic cannot be expressed in a platform, when you are running a marketplace rather than a store, or when the buying experience itself is your differentiator. A common middle path is a platform for commerce plumbing and a custom app for the experience.

Against an existing web store, native apps typically add 50–70% rather than doubling cost, because the catalogue, cart, orders, payments and admin already exist — you are paying for client surfaces and store distribution. What you get is push notifications that actually reach people, saved payment with biometric confirmation, and better repeat-purchase behaviour. For a store with meaningful repeat purchase it is usually worth it; for a considered one-off purchase it usually is not.