React Native App Development Cost Breakdown 2024

React Native needs no introduction in the world of cross-platform mobile app development. It has secured the 8^th rank among all respondents and 5^th among professional developers in the Stack Overflow Survey 2022 report. It powers major companies such as Facebook, Discord, Instagram, Salesforce, and more. However, its reach isn’t limited to these top companies; many SMEs and mid-scale businesses are increasingly adopting it. Before we get down to the React native cost breakdown, we should first understand what makes React Native an ideal choice for SMEs and enterprises.

When is React Native ideal for your project?

Each platform has certain strengths and weaknesses. Their focus also differs from each other. If you are planning to build either one of these projects, React Native can be an ideal choice for you:

MVP App

If you are looking to develop a bare-to-bones proof of concept or a prototype before investing or committing fully to your project, React Native is an ideal choice. For instance, AirBnB leveraged React Native back in 2016 to power their mobile apps. However, once they understood what they wanted moving ahead, they shifted their projects from React Native to Native App platforms two years later.

Rewriting apps in new technology

If you have an existing mobile app based on other technology and what a fresh start or want to scale your app on a better platform, migrating to React Native is an ideal choice. The migration is seamless and can be undertaken gradually for better adoption.

You have an existing website/web app

If you have a traditional website that isn’t serving well to expand your market share and make your app more available in the niche, it’s time to go for cross-platform mobile app development with React Native. It mimics a native-like app development experience and also performs well.

Why is React Native a cost-effective solution for your project?

React Native is a cross-platform mobile app development framework which means you can build an app for iOS and Android using a single shared codebase at cost-effective rates and half the time to market. Apart from being cross-platform, it also offers many cost benefits that you should know about:

Low Maintenance Costs

If we compare the maintenance costs of native apps to React Native, it reduces drastically. With a native app, assuming you cover both Android and iOS, you will have to update and test your mobile app for each device separately. In contrast, apps built with React Native can leverage the benefit of avoiding versioning. In addition, since you share a single codebase when writing your app in React Native, you need to fix bugs and maintain only one codebase. Hence, you end up saving big bucks on maintenance.

Single Talent vs Dedicated Teams

Again, since your app will primarily use a single codebase, you don’t need to hire dedicated developers for dedicated platforms, which would have increased your app development budget by many folds. Besides, managing and establishing effective communication between large teams can be troublesome as it leads to inconsistent development and more chances of facing bugs and project delays. If you hire professional React Native developers from a trusted React Native App Development Company, you can rest assured that you will not have to hire/manage other talents.

Marketed-Tested Solutions and Industry-Standard Libraries

React Native has a massive community with maximum active participation. How does this benefit you? First, you have access to an oasis of pre-made solutions that might help you with any development hurdle you face. If there isn’t, you could raise a question or discussion of popular sites like Stack Overflow or DEV’s React community to get a plausible solution for your query.

Moreover, there are limitless React Native libraries for integrating specific functionalities or functions into your React Native app. And all these libraries follow the best industry coding standards and best practices. Hence you would save time and money since you won’t have to build your app from scratch.

Seamless 3^rd-party Integrations

If you are planning to build a B2C mobile app, you may require various features such as payment gateways, social logins, and other custom features per your business niche and requirements. However, react native makes integration of such services a cakewalk since you can integrate any third-party module to your React Native mobile app with the right plugin, such as React Native Modalbox, React Native Router Flux, and more.

Reduced UI Costs

React Native is the best framework for bringing consistent and uniform design standards to your mobile app across various devices. This consistency helps developers build better and more responsive user interfaces, leading to a seamless customer experience of using the app. So, you get a smooth user interface at an almost halved time and cost.

Factors Affecting React Native App Development Cost in 2024

While there are many cost-benefits of using React Native to power your mobile app, many factors will greatly affect how much you would be spending on getting your React Native app developed. Most of these factors would be based on your business requirements and chosen approach, so understand all available options well before making your next move. Here are the top factors that influence the overall React native app development costs in 2024:

React Native App Development Cost Factor #1: App-Related Costs

Let’s start with one of the most important and mandatory factors you’re bound to face when developing a mobile app, irrespective of any tech. Certain costs are associated with building/maintaining, and running an app; let’s see how React Native handles these cost factors.

App Category and Complexity

Which category your app falls under will heavily influence the overall cost of developing React Native app. For instance, a basic to-do app will be more cost-effective than setting up a basic m-commerce app. Why? Well, the scope of work in m-commerce apps is drastically more than a to-do app since you’d need to add payment gateways and product listings and create more screens and filters. Hence app category will greatly influence the cost of your React Native app.

The more complex your app, the more the cost. Generally, there are three demarcations in complexity – high, medium, and low.

Here are the estimated react native app development prices as per their complexity:

App Design

If you are building a social media app or an ecommerce app, your main priority is to keep your users hooked to the app and navigate all of your offerings or features. The best way to ensure customer engagement is to focus on app design. A proper app design strategy would include a well-articulated user flow with transitions and animations (if needed) when users move from one screen to the other.

Designing app screens and user experience requires precise attention to detail and a proper understanding of what you want your user to do on each screen. So, naturally, hiring app designers will come at varying costs depending on their experience level and your project’s complexity.

Here is an average React native app design cost breakdown:

App Maintenance

As we discussed earlier, app maintenance is one aspect where you can be at ease. Since you’d be developing a single codebase mobile app, you won’t need to worry about testing or updating your app for each mobile model. Yet, depending on your project scale and frequency of updates, the react native app development cost will vary. Design changes, updates, and bug fixes will affect your overall app maintenance cost.

Also Read: React Vs React Native

Here is an average React Native App Development cost breakdown in terms of app maintenance:

App Distribution

Google Play: $25 One-Time | Apple App Store: $99/year

Developing an app is great, but it’s of little to no use if you don’t publish it on popular mobile apps marketplaces such as Google Play and Apple App Store, especially if you are building a customer-centric app. Both these platforms levy a standard charge for publishing your app on their platform. For Google Play Store, you will need to pay a one-time fee of $25; in iOS, you will be charged $99 annually. For Android, you can still publish your app on other free third-party marketplaces; however, for iOS, App Store is the only option.

App Features

Naturally, your app will have many features, regardless of size and scale. Integrating each feature into your React native app takes its own time. However, combining each feature has an average timeline and associated cost, which can help you estimate your overall react native app cost.

Here are some common React Native Features and their Associated Costs:

Add-On Features

For any client-centric app, you might need your users to create a profile or provide them with ways to pay for your products/services. Therefore, you should give social media logins and payment gateways to meet such requirements. Moreover, if you plan to add any other custom functionalities, they will contribute to the overall React native app development cost.

Here are some of the most popularly used add on features and their cost:

Admin Panel

If you need an admin panel for managing your app and tracking insights, you will also need to build an additional admin panel with your mobile app. Depending on what level of features and insights you need, the cost of React native app development will vary accordingly.

Here is an example of how a basic admin panel would be structured and the associated prices of each feature:

React Native App Development Cost Factor #2 – Development Team Costs

The second big consideration to keep in mind is where and from whom you are getting your app developed. Also, when do you want it? Let’s see the possible answers to these questions before moving forward.

Who is working on your project?
Individual Talent vs Remote Team vs In-House Team

First, react native app development cost consideration would be who is working on your project. Do you need an entire team of React developers, or do you already have an existing tech team but need a project manager or additional developer to meet your deadlines? Your overall cost to develop React Native app will vary greatly depending on your situation.

Here is a quick summary of all three approaches:

• Freelancers: Quick to get, extremely cost-effective, but with higher project risk. Should be assigned/hired for low-level development needs
• In-House Team: Initial Time-consuming setup, additional training costs, slower onboarding. You should be hired if you have recurring IT needs
• Dedicated Developer Team: Quickest setup, no additional costs, quick scaling, and lowest project risk. You should be hired if you want the most cost-effective, assured method of developing an industry-grade react native app

How experienced are the React Native Developers?
Entry-level vs Middle-Level vs Full-Stack React Native Developer

Once you have decided how to hire react native developers, you will also need to figure out what level of expertise is needed to carry out your project. It is given that an entry-level React Native developer will cost lesser than an experienced certified React Native developer. In addition, depending on your requirements, you will need different team compositions to work on your React Native project.

Here is the average React Native App Developer Cost – Hourly Rate Breakdown:

• Junior React Native Developer ($50,000 – $70,000)
  • 1-3 Years of React Native Experience
  • 2-3 Projects Completed
  • 300+ Development Hours Completed
• Senior React Native Developer ($70,000 – $120,000)
  • 4+ Years of React Native Experience
  • 5-6 Projects Managed
  • 1200+ Development Hours Completed
• React Native Full-Stack Developers ($120,000 – $200,000)
  • 5-8 Years of React Native Experience
  • 8-10 Projects Managed
  • 1400+ Development Hours Completed
  • Ability to combine React with Redux, MobX, and other libraries
• React Native Project Manager (Depends on the project)
  • 8+ Years of React Native Experience
  • 10-12 Projects Delivered
  • 1800+ Development Hours Complete
  • Ability to manage different project dimensions

Also Read: React Native Developer Tools

Where is your React Native project being developed?
Onshore vs Nearshore vs Offshore App Development Agency

Next, we will focus on where is your React Native App Development Company /developer located. This greatly impacts the native app development cost since the living cost and minimum wage rates differ from country to country. There are three approaches you should know about –

• Onshore Development refers to outsourcing your project to a dedicated React Native agency within the geographical confinement of your country. The main benefit of this approach is direct and instant access to your developer team and shared work ethics. However, this convenience comes at exorbitant prices compared to the hourly React developer rates of nearshore/offshore developers
• Nearshore Development refers to outsourcing your react native project to a React Native company near your country/neighboring countries. With nearshore development, you’d still retain cultural and work values to an extent and still be in the same time zone as your team However, the talents are still highly-priced, and the supply of professional talents is limited.
• Offshore Development refers to outsourcing your project to a React native agency far off your country/location, mostly in a different time zone than you. The benefit of outsourcing to offshore locations is that React native app development cost in India or Ukraine is significantly lower than any onshore, nearshore companies while retaining sub-par skills and professionalism

When do you want your project delivered?
Immediately vs In Adequate Time

Another important consideration that will greatly affect your React native app development cost is the project’s urgency. For example, suppose you have an enterprise-grade complex app requirement that needs to be published to the market as soon as possible. In that case, your React development agency will need to deploy more dedicated talents to your project to compensate for the lack of time. Hence, you would be paying for more talent, increasing your overall react native app development cost.

Mistakes to Avoid: Practices that can increase your React Native App Cost

We understood the cost-benefits of using React Native and the various factors affecting it. However, you should also beware of the most commonly committed mistakes that can lead to increased react native costs. Ensure not to follow these practices to keep your react native app development costs optimized:

Trying to mimic native-like performance

React Native can help make your app look like a native app, but to expect it to replicate the performance of native apps can be harmful. There is a reason for the massive price difference between an average native app and vs react native app. While you can rely on native app developers to add one or two native features in your React native app solution, if you find yourself doing it for most parts, you should rather shift to native platforms like Swift or Kotlin.

Adding Security Assurances

React Native has standard security capabilities out-of-the-box, but they can still lack majorly compared to native apps built on Swift or Kotlin. However, many developers suggest adding native-like security features to React Native app by integrating native code into your project. While this is possible, it can increase the overall cost of react native app significantly.

Wrapping up!

This is your ultimate guide to React Native App Development Cost. Consider these pointers before choosing the right platform, technology partner, and approach to building your mobile app.