Before knowing more about how much does it cost to make an iphone app, let’s just agree on the fact that what Apple brings to the table is worth the praise. Targeting the iOS users is definitely the right call as they are the premium customers driving the paid app market smoothly. There are around 1.8 million iOS device users. Although the android market draws the attention of many users, some users never want to experiment with the wonderful experience that Apple offers. Undoubtedly, the apple store is worth the investment.
Curious to know why the Apple market is a class apart? Let’s understand the customer segmentation in detail:
Customer Segregation of Apple Market:
1. The loyal friends:
Due to the excellent data security and exceptional User experience, iOS users never want to compromise these offerings hence they are always in the favour to pay extra bucks in order to browse some features. This category remains the real die-hard fans of the Apple brand. They almost love all the Apple products.
2. The tech-oriented amigos:
Now comes the customers who are driven by the tech charm these apple products have. They are usually adults and are curious about the new high tech products. As these customers appreciate the features well and they always keep searching for the superior-tech products which can simplify their lives. This leads them to find the home for their requirement in the apple products.
3. The social acceptance fomo fellas:
These segments of Apple customers usually chase social acceptance and fashion. As a result, these customers are the ones buying the latest Apple products, once they are out in the market.
‘How much does it cost to make an iPhone app’, this question hits your mind because we all know that it is important to launch the app in the iOS market because of the following reasons:
- It has a better revenue system.
- Upgraded security
- A great customer base
- Exceptional User Experience
- A lower fragmentation and ease of testing
- Great market penetration
- Lesser development time
Now that we are pretty clear about the features and the targeting of the iPhone market. Let’s now go through the drivers that determine iPhone applications cost.
Read here: How much does it cost to build an app
Factors Driving iOS App Development Costs:
1. Market research:
Are you jumping to a new market? It is important to know what your market looks like. It is always a great idea to know the details about what your competitors are doing and what the customers absolutely love about their apps. This includes finding the loopholes as well. Inspect the products that your competitors have and you already know half of the game. Detailed market research makes your way to target customers and clients pretty clear.
2. Walking into user’s shoes:
Creating a user’s persona helps you to understand the customer expectation, plan of actions, experience, behaviour and goals better. Being a user, you probably will seek the answer to a single basic question, i.e. what problem is it solving and at what ease keeping the iPhone app development price in mind. Here you need to honestly analyze these problem statements and come up with the easiest possible solution. This user-based persona makes the design task less complex, the ideation processes smooth, and helps to create a good user experience for your target user group.
3. Determining the type of app you want to make:
Deciding on the type of app you want to launch with the functionality is a tough decision to make. There are several types of iOS applications out there in the market with several functionalities. More the complexity an app holds, the more will be the iOS app development cost. Listing some of them below:
- E-Commerce apps: We all are aware of the Amazon success story and the way we all have adapted ourselves through e-commerce shopping. All thanks to Amazon. If you want to launch an app in a similar storyline you will be needing a good User experience, a great security & privacy system along with a strong backend.
- Gaming Apps: Game applications remain the favourite amongst other applications for the users. Knowing the popularity of the gaming app, if you have another great idea to launch your own gaming application, you will be needing great sprinkles of virtual reality and AI, depending upon the features you want to opt-in.
- Lifestyle apps: Being a Gen-Y, we all have various applications in the mobile phones installed. Our life somehow revolves around a tap for the reasons when we need food, tickets, stay, dates, music and many more. With lifestyle apps, you can collaborate with other brands also and can have a supercool revenue model.
- Social Networking apps: As we all use social media networking sites almost every day, how about creating amazing social media apps that have amazing features and are more catchy than Instagram? These exciting apps have to have a real-time environment that allows the apps to use the device features like, sound recognition, recorder, camera, file directory and many more.
- Utility Apps: If you are planning to design an app like a calculator, notes, weather apps and many more that makes the day to day work easy then you need to think about introducing features like navigation, a smooth UI, advanced mathematical algorithm and similar such features into your app.
4. The complexity of the app:
As far as the iphone app development cost is concerned, the complexity that an app holds plays a vital role. Have you decided on the complexity yet? Let me make it clear for you, what I mean when I say complexity.
- Simple Apps: Simple apps are designed without any added benefits. You will get some basic features and the needed UI options. The basic iOS mobile development cost varies from $25,000 to $50,000
- Mid-level Apps: Mid-level Apps comprises some interesting features, such as integration with API, custom UI, and real-time message exchanging platforms. The lump-sum cost for developing a mid-level iOS app lies between $50,000 – $100,000
- Complex Apps: As the name signifies, you will get the advanced features when you will be developing a complex iOS app such as media processing, real-time sync, custom animation, payment getaways, AI-based automation and more with this app. When it comes to the cost of a complex iOS, it usually takes more than $100,000.
Below is the summary table for the complexity of the apps with the offered features associated with them with the estimated iPhone app development price. The average cost to develop an iPhone app lies between $30k to $700K.
Table of complexity for iOS app development cost:
| Type of iOS app | Features | Cost | Estimated development time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | basic feature, UI, simple backend | $25,000 to $50,000 | 3-6 month |
| Mid- level | API Integration, Custom UI, a middle ground backend | $50,000 – $100,000 | 6-8 months |
| Complex | Animations, media processing, real-time environment, a strong backend game | $100000 + | 9-18 months |
5. Features you want to keep:
iOS apps have mind-blowing features which makes the browsing interesting for the users. As a result, the users engage more with the iOS applications. iPhone application development cost increases with features like dark mode, secured payment getaways, message exchanging platform, GPS locations, bookmark, add to cart, advanced search, 360 previews, log in via apple account and many more. These features make the iOS apps in demand. Every advanced feature requires a rigid backend and has a particular iPhone application costs associated with it. It is important to have a fair idea of all the complex features you want your app to have.
Listing some of the iOS application features below:
| S No. | Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sign-up |
| 2 | Log-in |
| 3 | Push-app notification |
| 4 | Multi payment gateway |
| 5 | Virtual reality |
| 6 | Refer a friend |
| 7 | buy a coupon |
| 8 | Google map integration |
| 9 | Browse gallery |
| 10 | QR Code scanner |
| 11 | Video streaming |
| 12 | Bluetooth compatibility |
| 13 | Share the location |
| 14 | Voice search |
| 15 | Advance search |
| 16 | Voice recognition |
| 17 | 24/7 support |
6. Deadlines:
When you raise a question like ‘how much does it cost to make an iphone app’, you also consider the standard timeline in mind, right? A well-planned iOS app takes a minimum of 3 months to develop. The time taken by the app to complete production, designing and testing are directly proportional to the number of professionals working under the project. Sometimes the complexity of the app involved also gives rise to the need of hiring more software professionals in the project. The complexity of the features and the number of hours involved in the development of the project plays a crucial role.
7. Team and their hourly rate:
If you have an amazing team in place, all you need is to give them a clear brief. Your awesome team will then work with quality and smartness to present what exactly you were seeking. Since the question here is how much does it cost to make an iPhone app, let’s dig deep about what the app development team looks like during the pre-production, production and post-production stages.
Pre-production:
Business Analyst: Business Analyst is the front face for the client as they are the one who interacts with the clients often. They are responsible for understanding the requirements of the client, performing some research around it, analyzing the results and accordingly selecting a business model that fits the requirements.
Project Manager: Project managers are the ones who allocate the team, assign tasks and deadlines, coordinate amongst the team, handle the expense and quality of the project that needs to be delivered.
Production:
UI/UX designers: The designers perform the competition analysis of the applications, sketch the wireframe for the developers. They must ensure that the customer must be feeling great while using the applications.
Software developer: Once the design is finalized, the other step is to implement those. Here is where the software developers play an important role. They replicate the designs and build the features as specified by the Business analyst. They are also responsible for Identifying and correcting bottlenecks and bugs. There are two types of software developers, one who does the front-end designing and they are known as Front end developers and the other who ensures everything goes well in the backend. They are called the backend developers.
QA Team: The QA Team is there to test how the app functions in all OS and devices. They ensure that the features are behaving appropriately in respective platforms and devices? They also investigate product quality to make improvements to achieve better customer satisfaction.
Post-production
Marketing team: Once the Application is up in the app store, the market strategists draw several plans of action provided for creating awareness about the app with various ways of promoting the app by creating advertising materials to make it a hit in the market.
Below is the rate of the iOS team on an hourly basis:
| S.No. | Professionals | Mobile cost per development | Cost | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Business Analyst: | 10% | $30 – $75 | Conducts research and analysis based out of which they make a business model |
| 2 | Project Manager | 15% | $35- $110 | Based on the business model they log requirements, allocate a team, estimate the budget and define timelines. |
| 3 | UI/UX Designer. | 15% | $25 – $75 | creates the prototype and wireframing of the applications based on the research |
| 4 | Software Developers. | 25% | $40 – $115 | Finds the appropriate programming language, integrate API, scales architect |
| 5 | QA team. | 20% | $35- $90 | Tests the applications in all possible devices and OS to check the features and reports the bug if any |
| 6 | Marketing team. | 15% | $30 – $80 | They make a marketing plan for awareness, lead generation and conquering some market shares without compromising on customer’s satisfaction |
8. Technologies and platforms involved:
The technologies involved in developing an iPhone app also plays an important role in iOS app development cost. Before you move towards the development the first and foremost step is to decide on the fitting technologies to develop an iOS application.
Listing down few things which will help you to make an appropriate call:
- XCode. For developing an iOS app, especially the native apps, we require XCode. XCode is Apple’s integrated development environment that imports the app designs. This tool is a powerhouse of certain useful features, like editing source code, UI, debugging, and exporting the application to the App Store.
- iOS Programming Languages. For iOS development, the programmers or the developers need any of the two languages – Objective-C and Swift. Objective-C is a superset and advanced version of the C language. Another fascinating option you have is Swift. It is Apple’s newest programming language launched back in 2014. Swift is faster and lighter than Objective-C, according to Apple. It is much in demand nowadays because it is more concise, sustainable, safer and supports the majority of modern hardware units.
- Agile Development. Considering the rapid changes in mobile platforms, it’s always a good call to choose an agile development approach that ensures timely delivery of quality software and helps in sticking to the desired timelines.
Conclusion:
You must have unlocked your answer for how much does it cost to make an iPhone app. You know what, it is always a good call to hire an ios development agency to avoid the chaos of building an in-house team. Trust us, building a technical team for developing an application will add more expense to your estimated iPhone apps development costs.
Hiring the required skill set and syncing with them takes a ton of time. Agicent has a team of expert developers with plenty of experience and desired technical requirements as per market standards to make your app a big success and bring home the good revenue, you are dreaming of. All you need is to reach out to us, as we have 50+ app developers professionals who already have created apps with kickass features. Now, don’t worry about the apple app development cost. Pick up your mobile phone or laptop and send us an email at [email protected] with your project query, or fill up a simple form by clicking on getting in touch, or call us at +1-347-467-1089 and our team will get in touch with you within 12 Hours! You can also roll your eyeballs on our portfolio.
