How much does it cost to build a mobile app?

A simple app with accounts, onboarding and a content feed typically lands in the tens of thousands; anything with payments, real-time features or offline sync moves substantially higher. Cost tracks feature complexity, not screen count.

Is it cheaper to build cross-platform or two native apps?

Cross-platform, generally — roughly 1.2× the cost of a single platform versus about 1.75× for two native codebases. Native still wins where you need deep platform integration or the highest possible performance.

What makes app development expensive?

Payments and subscriptions, real-time features, offline sync with conflict resolution, and needing a custom backend. Static screens are comparatively cheap — a ten-screen app can cost less than a one-screen collaborative editor.

Free App Development Cost Calculator — Real Ranges

Choose your platforms, pick the features you actually need, set a blended day rate, and see a range with the assumptions shown rather than a single confident-looking number.

Estimates are ranges. Anyone quoting a precise figure before scope is settled is guessing with more conviction.

What actually drives the number

Not screen count. Cost concentrates in a few places: anything touching payments, anything real-time, anything syncing offline, and anything requiring a backend of its own. Ten static screens are cheap; one screen with live collaboration is not. This is why two apps with identical screen counts can differ by an order of magnitude in price.

Why the estimate is a range

The spread between the low and high figure is not padding — it reflects genuine unknowns: how clean the API you integrate with is, how many review cycles the design takes, whether the store rejects the first submission. A single-number quote before scope is settled hides that uncertainty rather than removing it.

The cheapest change is the one before you build

Reworking a design costs hours; reworking shipped code costs weeks. Validating the flow as clickable screens before development starts is consistently the highest-leverage spend in the whole budget — which is precisely what floow.design exists to make fast.

How to use the app development cost calculator

Pick your platform strategy — cross-platform is roughly 1.2× a single platform, two native apps closer to 1.75×.
Select only the features you need for a first release, not the eventual roadmap.
Set a blended day rate that matches who will actually build it.
Read the range, not the midpoint, and treat the spread as real uncertainty rather than padding.
Export the breakdown so the assumptions travel with the number when you share it.

Use it with

App Name Generator — Describe your app and get name candidates that are short, sayable and plausibly available.
User Persona Generator — Turn a description of your audience into structured personas with goals and frustrations.
App Store Screenshot Sizes — Required screenshot dimensions for the App Store and Google Play, with counts and limits.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to build a mobile app?: A simple app with accounts, onboarding and a content feed typically lands in the tens of thousands; anything with payments, real-time features or offline sync moves substantially higher. Cost tracks feature complexity, not screen count.
Is it cheaper to build cross-platform or two native apps?: Cross-platform, generally — roughly 1.2× the cost of a single platform versus about 1.75× for two native codebases. Native still wins where you need deep platform integration or the highest possible performance.
What makes app development expensive?: Payments and subscriptions, real-time features, offline sync with conflict resolution, and needing a custom backend. Static screens are comparatively cheap — a ten-screen app can cost less than a one-screen collaborative editor.