“How much does an app cost?” is the first question most founders ask, and any honest answer starts with “it depends”. That’s frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be vague. The price of a mobile app comes from a handful of decisions, and once you know them you can predict which way your quote will move, and why two quotes for “the same app” can be so far apart.
These are the drivers I see most often when I quote apps for Indian startups and product teams.
1. Android, iOS or both
One platform costs less than two. In India, many products can start on Android alone, because that’s the phone most of their users carry. If you need iPhone users from day one, the question becomes how much of the work can be shared:
- Two native apps give the best result on each platform, and cost the most.
- React Native shares most of the app across both platforms.
- Kotlin Multiplatform shares the logic and data while each platform keeps a native screen layer, so you can start on Android and add iOS later without rewriting the core.
The right choice depends on your users and your team, not on what’s cheapest on paper. But it’s the first thing that moves the price.
2. Backend and logins
An app that works on its own, with data kept on the phone, is far cheaper than one that needs accounts, a server, and an admin panel for your team. If you do need a backend, a simple one on Firebase or Django costs much less than a custom system, and is often enough for a first release.
Ask yourself: does the first version really need user accounts, or would a simpler start do?
3. Working without signal
If your users are in the field, in warehouses, on sites or travelling, the app has to keep working with no network and sync later without losing anything. That is real engineering work: a local database, a queue for uploads, and rules for what happens when the same record changes in two places.
It’s worth paying for when your users need it. I engineered this kind of offline-first data layer for an inspection platform, handling inspections of 500+ questions and 1,000+ photos. But if your users are always on Wi-Fi, you don’t need it, and leaving it out saves money.
4. Integrations
Every connection to something outside the app adds work: payments, maps, notifications, the camera and video, or another company’s API. Some are quick. Others, like recording and uploading video reliably, take real time to get right on every kind of phone.
List the integrations you need before you ask for a quote. They’re the most common reason a “simple app” turns out not to be simple.
After launch: the cost people forget
An app isn’t finished when it reaches the store. Android and iOS release new versions every year, store policies change, and real users find bugs no test did. Plan for regular updates. At one company I introduced automated releases on a bi-weekly cadence, with same-day hotfixes when something broke.
Ask any developer how they handle this. A monthly retainer, a set number of days each month, is one common way to keep upkeep predictable.
How to get an estimate you can trust
A quote based on a one-page feature list is a guess. Before committing to a build, it’s worth paying for a short scoping phase that turns your idea into a written plan and estimate.
I start every project with a paid discovery sprint: a fixed ₹60,000 for about a week, ending in a written plan and an estimate that you can use with me or with anyone else. After that, a well-defined first release can be a fixed-scope project, while a rescue of an existing app is usually billed by the day or week, because the scope becomes clear as the work goes on.
If you’re preparing for that first conversation, here’s what to have ready.