Published on April 14th, 2016 | by Guest

How Much Does it Cost to Develop an iPhone App?

How much is the application?

How much does it cost to build an iPhone app? This is usually the most important question that interests everyone. While everybody is generally aware that excellent solution cannot be cheap, people are still surprised to learn that to develop an iPhone app is worth notable money. The secret lies in the fact that only a genius could alone create a high quality application: a team is needed. 3-4 people at least:

Project Manager – he is the project executive; coordinates the work of the development team, is responsible for interaction with the customer, documentation and much more.
UI / UX Designer – designs appearance of the application and the user experience.
IOS / Android Developers – develop and implement the business logic of the application.
QA-engineer. Testing is an iterative, complex and painstaking process, which has no effect without the use of professionals with appropriate skills and training, and strict compliance to the industrial testing standards.

While we’re discussing the cost to make a iPhone app, it should not be surprising that each of these professionals requires considerable investments, when it comes to hiring. Therefore, it is always better to hire a contractor that has their own staff of trained professionals and takes care of all the organizational difficulties.

Let’s make a review an average cost to develop an app for iPhone a bit closer.

A bit about prices on iPhone apps

So how much will it cost?

Every customer is different and has varying needs, so the price varies depending on the complexity of the project:

Simple applications usually include basic functionality and simple interface. The estimated average cost of application development is $25000 – $35000.
Middle-level complexity applications include the more advanced features, more elegant interface, support for tablets, integration with payment services, bank cards and so on. The estimated average cost of application development is $45000 – $55000.
High level of difficulty applications include the best features such as audio / video processing, real-time synchronization, custom animations, integration with third-party services, comprehensive backend with multiple database types, etc. The estimated average cost of application development is $55000 – $100000.
Innovative applications in addition to the high complexity features include high-tech components and unique elements. The estimated average cost of application development is $75000 – $150000.

An example can serve social events app – Scadaddle, a social network event-oriented application for the California startup. The initial idea was to organize a social network of pro-active lifestyle. Supplies a user with push notifications about all the events happening near his current geolocation containing the profiles of all the participants. Its development took 8 month, a team of 5 and iPhone app development price total was $100000.

What is MVP and why is it needed?

Many people believe that they should only release the final version of the product. However, it will take a lot of time, during which the situation at the market may change dramatically. Therefore, it is necessary to think about the MVP – Minimal Viable Product. What is it and when to start thinking about the full product?

In fact, the final product often is the sum of several MVPs. Suppose you have an idea and a certain number of hypotheses to it. For your first MVP, you simply choose the most meaningful hypotheses and conduct an experiment to test their viability, their pros and cons.

A few examples of tests that can be conducted before creating the first MVP:

Interviews with the representatives of the target audience.
Blog or page at Facebook.
Presentation for feedback from investors (if the big boys approve your idea, you’re golden!).
Simple landing page with a registration form.

Your tests will clearly demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of each hypothesis and positive results might be the impetus to engage the project tightly. Then you will be ready to build the next MVP or even a basic version of the product.

Since the development for iOS goes much faster than under Android, the first MVP will be developed in no time.

Summing up

As paradoxical, as it may sound, the applications for iOS bring greater financial benefits (Source – comScore, and at the same time are written faster, iPhone app development cost is lesser and maintenance price is lower than Android analogues. There are several reasons for this:

iOS platform is more stable and is deployed on a far smaller amount of hard-interoperable devices from the single manufacturer, whereas smartphones and tablets running Android are made by dozens of companies and, often, even the products of single company are incompatible with each other;
Apple requires developers to adhere to rigid directions and interface design guidelines;
Apple postulates and maintains backward compatibility between iOS versions, whereas in order to keep the application active in the new version of Android, in individual cases it is necessary to rewrite them almost from the scratch;
Programs for iOS are written in platform-specific high-level languages, ensuring a stable and smooth operation of the compiled application, the code in listings is succinct and concise, while as Java-based applications on Android must undergo a process of pre-compilation into an intermediate byte code before and, as mentioned already, their code listings, on average, occupy 40% more space.

In addition, Apple carefully moderates content for the App Store, and combats software piracy with a firm hand, while in the Play Market the trojan applications are relatively frequent, and there are cases of unlicensed use of paid applications.

We hope this information about iPhone app development pricing will help you determine the platform for your application. iOS is a good option, the rest is to find a good development team if you don’t have one.

About the author:

My name is Oliver Dodson, I’m an app developer, currently working at Erminesoft.com. Book and coffee lover, passionate about AC/DC and hockey.

Tags: app, cost, develop, iPhone