iOS App Development Cost - A Detailed Guide

It is crucial to gain insights about all the cost-related factors before developing iOS mobile application. Although, iOS app development cost can vary from $15,000 to more than 2 hundred thousand dollars. It is entirely depending on several factors that will be discussed in this blog.

Before proceeding further, it is important to understand that iOS app development can pave the way for various business opportunities. As, in the year 2022 – apps on the “Apple App Store” generated $ 336 billion of revenue through “mobile ads”.

In 2022, iOS applications hold a market share of 67% in overall app consumer spending. Not only this, $17.1 billion in subscription revenue was generated by the iOS applications in the previous year.

Many businesses are eager to build ios apps for their business. They are also curious to know about the estimated cost of ios app development. So, this blog will reveal all the factors related to the average cost to develop applications for Apple users.

Factors Affecting the Cost of iPhone App Development

In reality, each business sells different products or services, so each business requires different types of applications to satisfy its requirements. So, there are diverse underlying factors that impact mobile app development costs.

Factor 1: Size of the application

The size of the application incorporates a huge impact on the overall app development cost. For example: if the size of the application is small then the average cost of development will range from $5,000 to $25,000. A medium-sized application will range from $25,000 to $100,000. A full-fletch application may cost more than $100,000.

Now, a common situation frequently arises in which entrepreneurs or corporations decide to make small applications with fewer functionalities. Later on, they decided to add more functionalities which resulted in increasing their application cost.

Thus, it can be analyzed that the size of your iOS application depends upon the specific functionalities you want. More functionalities will lead to more deployment time and higher costs. In the future, it will also lead to higher application maintenance costs as well.

Factor 2: The decision to select an in-house team or staff augmentation

Your decision to select the deployment approach also impacts the cost of the application development. After COVID-19, many companies are actively switching towards staff augmentation services to reduce their cost of operations.

In reality, hiring remote developers can help you to save up to 50% cost on iOS application development as compared to hiring in-house developers. Thus, companies are actively switching to staff augmentation services instead of hiring in-house staff members.

Factor 3: Specific functionalities requirements

Now, almost all companies are aiming toward digital transformation (DX). Companies want to incorporate advanced functionalities in their applications to gain more competitive advantages. For example, corporations now want to provide new-age functions in their applications – such as chatbots, facial recognition features, and many more.

More advanced functionalities require more time & effort which leads to a higher cost of operations. The official data from “Business of Apps” stated that the development cost of applications with simple or basic functionalities ranges from $16,000 to $32,000.

On the other hand, applications with complex app functionalities can cost more than $72,000. This cost can even be higher depending upon the utilization of specific APIs that developers decide to utilize during the mobile app development process.

Factor 4: App security and data privacy requirements

iOS Developers and project managers tend to keep the security standards of their applications profound. To keep iOS applications secure there are several areas which developers cannot afford to compromise – such as:

#1. App Code obfuscation: This technique is used by developers to obscure the code of an app which makes it difficult for hackers to enter the system. There are some paid tools for app code obfuscation – such as DashO, Jscrambler & PreEmptive Protection.

#2. Penetration testing: Under penetration testing, software developers tend to focus on creating hypothetical attractions that incorporate a high probability to arise in real-time. It helps them to identify potential vulnerabilities and threats in advance.

#3. Advanced authentication & authorization: developers tend to use different authentication & authorization options to keep their applications highly secure.

Factor 5: Planning for maintenance

This factor impacts on the cost to develop iOS mobile apps and during android app development. As each app (irrespective of its platform) requires a complete maintenance process to run the operations smoothly.

It is always a great practice to compute an estimated cost of maintenance at the beginning phase. Investing money into consistent application maintenance helps the company to overcome frequent bugs or errors that can ruin their user experience.

So, by combining all the above factors the cost of iOS application development can range from $25,000 to $200,000.

Formula to calculate the iOS app development cost

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for calculating the cost of iOS app development because it depends upon various key factors – such as the scope of the project, the level of customization required, the development team’s location, and more. However, you can use the following approach to estimate the cost:

#1. Determine the hourly rate of the development team – Find out the hourly rate of the iOS development team you plan to work with. Rates can vary depending on the location and experience level of the team.

#2. Estimate the number of hours required for development – Based on the scope of the project and the features you want to include, estimate the number of hours the development team will require to complete the project.

#3. Calculate the total cost – Multiply the estimated number of hours by the hourly rate of the app developers. This will give you the total cost of iOS app development.

Let’s understand with the help of an example – if the hourly rate of the development team is $25, and you estimate that the development will take 1000 hours. The total cost of iOS app development will be $25,000 (25R x 1000H).

Hidden Expenses Involved in Developing an iOS App

The actual cost of mobile app development can vary from your estimated cost of development because you may miss out to compute the expenses for some hidden but essential elements. Below are the certain criteria which you should consider in advance to land up on a final cost of iOS app development:

• Storage expenses: average cost of data storage can be $500 to $700.
• App developer account expenses: according to Apple.com – the app developer program cost $99/per year.
• Content Delivery Network (CDN) expenses: The cost of using a CDN for delivering content to users is estimated to be $150.
• Annual iOS Updates: Expect to pay around $1000 annually to keep your app up-to-date with the latest iOS version.

The Final Words

To build a cutting-edge application with advanced functionalities under your budget then you need to connect with a reliable iOS app development company like Competenza Innovare. We are known in the market to deliver reliable solutions to support businesses in enhancing their ROI.

At Competenza Innovare, our developers incorporate top-notch technologies to build applications that will fascinate your users. So, connect with our project managers to share your requirements. After getting your requirements, we will design customized solutions for your business needs.

Source: This content first appeared on The Competenza blog.