How much budget do you need to build an app in 2024.

To summarise, if you want to develop an App in 2024, even a simple App will most likely cost you $30K, but the average successful App ends up costing $170K in total. The ongoing maintenance budget can be anywhere between $2k and $100k+ depending on how you want to promote the app and continue development. Given this, I probably wouldn't recommend starting an App development project unless you had a total potential budget of at least $50K for a simple App and $200K+ for a complex App.

You can reduce this cost by clarifying and simplifying your idea, and finding a good developer to partner with.

What does research say

The answer you'll get everywhere is that it depends on the app, and how it's developed. (in $USD)

• $30K - $230k according to this cost breakdown

• $21K - $131K according to this global study.

• $16K - $72k according to this US Based study.

But these figures are for the very first version of an app. According to a recent survey, the average Australian agency ends up making AU$170K from the average app once revisions are taken into account.

In addition to development costs there are also:

• Design costs ~ $4k - $20k

• Maintenance costs ~$1k - $30K per year

• Marketing costs ~ $0 - $100k+

This article estimates that maintenance costs are often around $30K annually. The backend servers for a small app are generally quite cheap to run, but the money is spent on bug fixes and improvements. If you want to get large numbers of users, this article recommends spending at least $12k/year on marketing. This article estimates design costs may fall in the $4-$20K range.

So how much budget should you have secured before embarking on an App development project. This site does a good job of offering examples in different categories, this agency has similar examples.

How to reduce costs

Clarify your idea

The biggest reason for wasted effort is miscommunication and lack of clarity. Building an app means making 100s of micro decisions about exactly how the software should behave. If you can make these decisions up front, you can save developers time and effort.

Designs don't have to be beautiful, but if they're comprehensive, and you've considered as much of the app as possible, you will save the developers a lot of time and save yourself a lot of money.

Simplify your idea

When designing an app it's very easy to add features before knowing if they're going to really add much value. Cutting an app idea down to the MVP version can save you thousands of dollars while still proving your idea. Once the idea is proven, you can always invest more to add the extra features.

Choose a good developer

They say that the only thing more expensive than a good lawyer, is a bad lawyer. With developers too, a good developer can be orders of magnitude more productive and useful than a bad one, and the hourly rate usually isn't that much different. A good developer will also be able to offer advice and consultation on building a sensible roadmap and making the most of your money.

Freelance developer vs Agency vs Offshoring

Because an independent developer doesn't have any overheads, they are likely to be significantly cheaper than an agency. Offshoring has the potential to be cheaper, but building an app requires very good communication and trust which is hard to build with an offshore team. I've wrote more about this here

Conclusion

To summarise, in 2024 the typical cost of the first version of a simple app might cost you around $30-$50k, but most apps end up costing significantly more than that, the average was $170k all things considered. This discrepancy is because the first of an app is rarely the final one. I would suggest ensuring that you have budget to extend the project or deal with complications that might arise. Ongoing maintenance needs to be factored in as well and this might cost from $1k-$30k/year for hosting, bug fixes and support. Expenses are much greater for a complex or enterprise app.

Costs can be reduced by spending time up front to simplify and clarify your app design, and choosing a good developer to work with.

How we can help

I'm a freelance App developer and full stack software engineer based on the sunshine coast, Australia. I've been working in leading consultancies and tech companies for over a decade and have recently gone independent. Subject to availability, I'm offering a free consulting service where I can help you clarify and refine your app idea.