Understanding iOS app Development cost: Factors governing the estimations

In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing digital landscape, Generative AI makes headlines every other day with discoveries and excitement. We want to draw your attention to iOS mobile apps. Yes, they are very important to businesses because they bring much higher customer engagement, operational efficiency, drive growth and competitive advantage among peers.

However, creating an iOS app isn’t simple unless you fully understand the ecosystem or you engage a competent development partner with expertise in iOS mobile app development services. In this blog, we would like to explain the custom iOS application development process, factors affecting costs and efficient strategic planning for a successful ios app development project.

How to create an App for Apple iOS: Cost and process breakdown

                           iOS App Development Cost     =   App Complexity × Features) 

+ (UI/UX Design Effort) 

+ (Team Expertise × Time) 

+ (Platform & Tech Stack Choices) 

+ (Testing & QA Cycles) 

+ (Maintenance & Support)

There’s no one-size-fits-all price tag for building an iOS app. The cost of a custom iOS app depends on many factors, like the complexity of your app, the features list, the UX/UI, the expertise of the team, and even the tech stack you choose.

Factors Influencing the Cost of Custom iOS Application Development:

How much does it cost to make an app? This is one of the most important question when considering a custom iOS app. Understanding the factors that can affect the development cost, like the type of application, the complexity of features, design and development time is crucial. By understanding these early on, budgeting becomes easier, making better choices and avoiding unexpected costs while in the development phase.

If you’re planning custom iOS application development, having a clear idea of these variables will help streamline your journey and align your expectations with the investment required.

Let’s break down a few of these factors.

UI/UX & Discovery:

They play a key role in shaping the cost of developing an ios app. While investing in a strong UX can raise upfront costs, it significantly boosts how users connect with your product. It’s important to weigh design decisions carefully, considering impact and budget. In the long run, a well-crafted app often sees higher user retention, making it a worthwhile investment.

For those engaging with professional iOS mobile app development services, this phase often sets the tone for how efficiently your project progresses.

Here’s how the cost typically breaks down:

• User Research & Discovery: Understanding user behaviour through interviews, competitor analysis and feature prioritisation. This phase lays the foundations of your app’s direction. It may cost around $2000 – $4000
• Wireframing: Creating mockup designs for user flow and app structure. Helps align the team early on design expectations. Estimated Cost: ~ $2000.
• UI/UX design: Flow creation, interaction, app navigation, Accessibility planning cover the UX part and App theme, colour design comes under UI creation. This cost around $2000 – $5000.
• Assets and Prototyping: Export assets, interactive prototypes using Figma, Adobe XD. They are important for pixel-perfect App UI creation. This costs around $1500 – $3000

At the end of this phase, you’ll have a clear visual roadmap and an interactive prototype that reflects the user journey, app structure, and final design ready for development.

To sum up, in most iOS app development projects the total design phase may cost between $6000 to $15000.

App Complexity and Features:

App complexity is the biggest factor influencing the cost of the app. Simpler apps with basic functionality like note-taking apps, habit tracking or product listing kind of apps usually require less research and development effort, fewer design elements, and a smaller team. These types of apps are more affordable, typically ranging from $10,000 to $20,000, depending on the specifics.

But once you start adding in more advanced features like video streaming (OTT), voice or video calling (VOiP), or handling financial transactions, the game changes. These apps usually need a more sophisticated tech setup, robust security, and a well-thought-out user experience. They also demand more from your custom iOS application development partner in terms of time, expertise, and testing. Costs for apps in this category can range anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000+.

Let’s check some realistic downloads of the app category-wise and the development cost.

As per Statista, the downloads of apps worldwide between 2023 and 2024, category-wise.

Note: These are ballpark figures. The actual cost may vary based on complexity, features, and infrastructure.

Platform and device compatibility:

At this stage, many businesses begin exploring how to create an app for Apple that aligns with their user needs, budget, and timeline. The decision of the platform may significantly affect the cost of the development of a mobile app. Do we need Android, iOS, or both? What tech stack can be used for development? Native or cross-platform?

Building a single platform using native technologies will cost less. When targeting a broader audience, cross-platform solutions like Flutter, React Native, and Ionic can reduce development cost, time, and effort.

However, the decision of using native or cross-platform can depend on the app’s functionality, performance and budget. Native platforms usually provide better performance compared to cross-platform.

When we are talking about tech stack and app features. Let’s point out the steps of development to break down the cost involved.

• Architecture and Tech stack setup.
• UI/UX development that includes animation, app navigation, and user story flows.
• Feature Development on App and Backend.
• Backend Infrastructure set up. E.g. Cloud services
• Testing of application features and API testing.
• Security Testing.
• App deployment
• Maintenance and support.

Consider these phases of app development as significant cost-adders. For a Moderate application, the cost would be around $40,000, which includes development, testing, and Deployment.

Development Team Location and Expertise:

The geographical location of the development team significantly affects the cost of custom iOS app development services. Any moderate iOS application outsourced to a Mobile app development services company in the US or Europe may cost around $120,000, whereas the same development in Asia (India) is significantly lower, around $40,000.

If you are looking to hire an iPhone app programmer and associated services, here are some indicative hourly rates for different expertise levels for iOS App Development:

App development hourly rate card.

Other Factors and Hidden Costs to Consider:

• Marketing Promotion: This depends on the marketing strategy and how much you are willing to spend on capturing new users.
• App Store Fee: Annual Fee of $99 and $199 for an enterprise account.
• Maintenance and support costs: Once the app is live, maintenance and support become essential to ensure smooth operations. Businesses can anticipate somewhere 10% of development cost per annum. This includes regular updates of OS versions, fixing bugs, improving performance and adding minor features based on user feedback..
• Infrastructure: Backend infrastructure, including cloud services and other recurring charges.

We have covered what goes into the cost of app development, but that’s not all. This article is incomplete without discussing the cost optimisation strategies.

Few practical tips for Cost optimisation:

• Choose the Right technology stack: Development Services should approach choosing the technology stack based on the target audience, features, performance, and technology support for the future. Cross-platform technologies like Flutter and React Native have evolved many folds since their inception and provide native-like performance if not better.
• Agile Methodology – Build smarter, Iterate faster: Agile breaks the project development into smaller chunks instead of delivering in one go. This helps to prioritise the MVP and deliver bug-free products.
• MVP first Approach: a Minimal Viable Product with the core feature that solves the user problem, followed by full full-fledged product based on user feedback will save Dollars and time.
• Outsourcing Vs In-house development: Outsourcing isn’t about just optimizing the cost but also accessing the special resource without long term commitment to building an in-house team. But businesses should consider points like Communication, Expertise, Pricing transparency and a solid portfolio while outsourcing.

Impact of AI:

Generative AI has already significantly impacted the cost of iOS app development. On one hand, developers can automate many parts of the design, development, and testing of mobile applications. On the other hand, if you plan to include advanced AI-driven features like smart chatbots, personalised recommendations, the complexity and investment required may increase. In short, Gen AI can be a cost-saver in development efficiency, but incorporating AI features into your app may require additional budget and planning.

Conclusion

Finding the right iOS application development services and ios mobile app development company can help businesses to understand their Custom Application vision and drive the application development easier by many folds. Whether you’re building in-house or planning to hire iPhone app programmer services externally, understanding the cost dynamics and expertise needed is key to project success.

To The New has extensive experience in developing iPhone apps with a portfolio of over 100 custom mobile applications, including projects for renowned clients like HDFC, TATA PLAY, and many more.