How Much Does it Cost to Develop an Android App?

On average, Android app development costs can range between $15,000 – $500,000. This is not to say that you can’t develop an Android app for lesser than $15,000 or that it can’t exceed the $500,000 mark. However, given the market average Android developer rates and all Android app development factors, it acts as a relevant guideline if you’re looking to develop a fully-functional, industry-grade, and market-ready Android app.

As you can see, that’s still a wide range and nowhere near helpful to estimate the overall cost of developing an Android app for your project. Let’s get to the good part and figure out how much your dream is. Android projects can cost in reality, and how you can reduce the overall costs to fit your Android app development budget.

Android App Development Cost Guide: TL;DR

If you are in a rush or need an immediate Android app development cost estimate, we have highlighted all the important Android cost factors here. You can directly jump here if you wish to dive deeper into detail.

Android App Cost as per App Complexity

• Basic Android App Cost: $5000 – $10,000 | 3-4 months
• Medium Android App Cost: $10,000 – $50,000 | 2-6 months
• Enterprise Android App Cost: $50,000 – $50,000 | 6-9+ months

Average Hourly Rates of Android App Developers as per Location

• Hourly Rates of Android App Developers in India $18 – $40/hr
• Hourly Rates of Android App Developers in Ukraine $100 – $150/hr
• Hourly Rates of Android App Developers in the US – $60/hr
• Hourly Rates of Android App Developers in the UK $200/hr
• Hourly Rates of Android App Developers in Canada $60/hr

Average Android App Outsourcing Costs as per Location

• Cost of Outsourcing Android App to USA: $20,000 – $150,000
• Cost of Outsourcing Android App to Germany: $40,000 – $120,000
• Cost of Outsourcing Android App to UK: $30,000 – $250,000
• Cost of Outsourcing Android App to Canada: $10,000 – $120,000
• Cost of Outsourcing Android App to Ukraine: $10,000 – $150,000
• Cost of Outsourcing Android App to India: $10,000 – $100,000

Android App Cost as per Development Phases

Android App Development Cost based on App Categories

Android Developer Cost as per Talent Required

• Android App Developer: $20 – $120
• UIUX Designer: $15 – $100
• SCRUM Master: $50 – $200
• QA Engineer: $15 – $120
• Business Analyst: $45 – $180

Cost to Develop Android App: Average Hidden Costs

• App Hosting Cost: $70 – $320/month
• Monitoring and Maintenance: $5000 – $10,000
• Updates and Upgrades: $1000 – $50,000
• Licensing: $25/One-Time Fee
• SMS Notifications: $20 – $30/month

Additionally, depending on the platform, the type of app, and the location where your team is located, development expenses can vary significantly. Since India has enormous resources, many businesses from over the world turn to it for its mobile app needs. This post is for you if you’re also curious about how much it costs to develop mobile apps.

 The Android app development industry has been experiencing an unprecedented rise in popularity and demand in the business world. Following stats back the popularity of android:

• Almost 8 out of 10 smart devices are powered by Android in today’s technological era.
• On the Google Play Store, there are more free apps than there are paid ones. Free apps made up more than 96.8% of all downloads in June of this year, while premium apps made up only 3.2%. (Statista)
• 2020 saw a $581.9 billion revenue increase for the mobile app sector. The industry’s sales will almost certainly hit $1 trillion in 2023 if this trend continues. (Statista)
• Google Play has seen a massive generated increased revenue of 58.2% to $10.6 billion in 2021. (Business of apps)
• In the second quarter of 2022, gross app revenue in the Google Play store amounted to almost 11 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, a small decrease compared to the previous quarter. (Statista)

Android App Development Cost Calculator

Any business owner’s first question for creating a mobile app would be – how much does app development cost? While there are various factors affecting the cost of Android app development, there are two primary factors that one needs to consider for getting a quick estimate:

Android App Cost = Development Time x Developer Hourly Rate

Development Time: The overall time taken or estimated for completing the project, depending on its complexity, time, urgency and talent requirements.

Developer Hourly Rate: The average hourly rate of Android developers that are working on your project. Their hourly rates would depend on how many developers you hire, their experience levels and other such factors.

Factors that Affect Cost to Develop an Android App

When it comes to evaluating the cost to build an Android app, there are multiple factors that you should consider before planning your app development budget. We have broken down the various important factors that you can use as an Android app development cost checklist for your reference:

#1. Android App Development Cost Factor – App Size

Naturally, the size of your app is directly going to affect your Android app development cost. The larger the Android app development projects are, more the resources go into building them and maintaining them. Confused about the Android app size category your ideal mobile app will fit in? Here, let us help:

#2. Android App Development Cost Factor – Online vs Offline

If you think offline apps have no value and all apps need to be online to be relevant in the market and useful to your business needs, then you are mistaken. Creating an online Android app attracts more development time and efforts, resulting in higher Android app development costs. In contrast, creating an offline Android app is cheaper and quicker to develop. For coming to the right decision regarding online vs. offline, you need to think about your android app development requirements.

When to choose Online Android Apps

• Access to real-time data and content updation
• Higher flexibility in comparison to offline android apps
• Allows various user transactions through online connectivity

When to choose Offline Android Apps

• Quicker to present data as it uses cached record sets
• Continuous operation without dependency on internet
• Easier to gain customer loyalty

#3. Android App Development Cost Factor – No. of Features

For deciphering any Android app project cost, you need to list down all the features you expect your Android app to have. Adding more and more features adds on the overall development time, and some features are more complex than others. Going with a list of features that best suit the interest of your target audience is the best way to ensure app success in the longer run. If you are unsure of all features your Android app could benefit from, you could always avail services of a top Android mobile app development company that could assist you in making the right choices.

#4. Android App Development Cost Factor – Complexity of Features

While number of features is directly proportional to your app development costs, there is another aspect that we must consider – complexity of these features. Basic Android app development projects like creating a simple photo app with multiple features like crop, filters, aspect ratio and other editing tools costs far lesser than creating a full-stack scalable Android app that needs cognitive technology integration such as Pokémon Go, IKEA furniture and more.

Android App Development Cost Breakdown – Complexity of Features

#5. Android App Development Cost Factor – Type of App

Your Android app development cost also greatly is impacted by the kind of Android platform you choose. Broadly, there are three choices to go with – Native, Cross Platform, Progressive Web Apps.

What is Native Android App Development?

By definition, native apps are designed for a specific OS by utilizing the operating system’s specific programming language. For instance, iOS native development is done on Swift, and Android native development can be done on Java or Kotlin.
Reasons to choose Native Android App Development

• Fast and Reliable
• Unique Features
• Sharper User Experience
• Higher chances of ranking better on Play store
• Increased scalability

Reasons to avoid Native Android App Development

• Highly expensive Android App Development costs
• Time consuming and tedious

Use Native Android App Development if

• Your application needs access to all phone resources and services.
• Your Android app needs to be more responsive.
• You want to leverage the mobile phone’s hardware potential to the fullest.
• You want a scalable app that can be easily updated and enhanced with additional features.

What is Cross Platform Android App Development?

As the name suggests, cross platform app development should be considered when you want to create an app that works on multiple platforms. For this there are many cross platform mobile app development frameworks like Flutter, React Native and others that can be used for creating an app that can be deployed on both – Android Google Store and Apple App Store.

Reasons to choose Cross Platform Android App Development

• Saves time and cost
• Quicker to market
• Utilizes single codebase

Reasons to avoid Native Android App Development

• Slower app performance
• Functionality limitation
• Limited User Experience

Use Cross Platform Android App Development if

• You don’t need a very responsive Android application
• The Android app doesn’t require complex animations or logic
• You are trying to test an app idea quickly in a niche app market

What is PWA Android Development?

PWA – Progressive Web Apps are web applications that create a native Android app-like experience that are fast, reliable and engaging. It is the amalgamation of design and functional elements of native Android app and bringing it to users’ mobile browsers at half the cost and development time.

Reasons to choose PWA Android App Development

• Progressive :- works for every user and browser
• Responsive :– easily adapts to various screen sizes and devices
• App-like :– behave like native Android apps
• Updated :– information can easily be updated at all times
• Secure :– uses HTTPs protocol for preventing connection from displaying/altering the information.

Reasons to avoid PWA Android App Development

• High battery consumption
• Not all devices provide support for full range PWA Android features
• Limited offline execution support
• Can’t be linked to Google play store
• Limited access to hardware components of the users’ devices

Use PWA Android App Development if

• You are in the initial stage of your business and want a simple Android app solution for your users
• You are on a time and budget constraint
• You aim to improve brand awareness and SEO

#6. Android App Development Cost Factor – App Design and Number of Screens

The number of screens your app will need will directly affect the work hours of your Android app designer. Secondly you need to also consider what kind of screens do you need for your app. Are you planning on adding many graphic elements in the UI and smoothen the UX by adding subtle animations? Such screens would cost a little extra. Most of the times, the number of screens needed for your Android app is directly related to its features and the coherence between them. If your app has many features that don’t have a logical coherence with each other, you will need to develop an app with multiple unique screens.

#7. Android App Development Cost Factor – API Integrations

API integration is a messenger that establishes seamless connectivity for organizations to automate various business processes. It helps two or more apps connect via their APIS which enables them to exchange data. When you create any android app, there are many possible ways and user cases where you would need to establish different API Integrations for adding various features to your app.

1. Payment Integrations – Payment APIs

If you are planning on developing an ecommerce Android app, or adding any product or services that you want your users to buy, you have to integrate a payment system that enables them to make payments through net banking, wallets or any other methods. There are many payment systems for Android to choose from:

Android developers can integrate most of these payment gateways directly in your Android app by utilizing payment APIs.

General time taken for integrating payment gateways in your Android app is 50 hours or more per payment system. Considering you’d at least use two payment systems in your Android app, the average cost of this feature would range from $2400-$5000.

2. 3rd Party API Integrations

There are many popular third party APIs that allows you to fetch their data and resources and use them for your Android mobile app. These integrations can help you elevate your app offerings tremendously. Some of the most popular 3rd party API integrations are –

3rd Party Integration Service Feature Cost

#8. Android App Development Cost Factor – App Development Stages

There are many steps in Android app development that must be followed thoroughly to get a properly functional, usable and appealing app on the Play Store. Each step in Android app development needs various inputs and processes to be carried out. All these processes have some or the other cost associated with them. Hence, by getting a clearer idea about the entire Android app development process and cost associated with each development stage, you can better estimate the overall cost to publish Android app on the Play Store or other marketplaces.

#9. Android App Development Cost Factor – App Categories

Another important factor to consider for getting a better idea of your Android app development cost is to identify the app category it belongs to. Different kind of apps serve different purposes in the daily lives of users. Some of them are more frequently used for day-to-day activities whereas some apps have lesser user visits like travel or holiday apps which would be used only when the users are planning to travel. Gaming apps generally require higher level of coding and skillset from the developers as opposed to a lifestyle app, so Android costs vary there too.

Note: We have broken down the costs of each app category for your quick reference. However, these are rough estimates and aren’t to taken as an absolute reference point.