But why India only? Before finding the answer to this question – “How much does it cost to build an app in India?”, you must have read and heard a little about India which influenced you and made you search this question.
If you are living in the UK, North America, or parts of Europe, you may have noticed that many large, medium and small-sized enterprises outsource application development projects overseas.
Why do they do this? So, their development, as well as operating costs, can be reduced. Check out all the details here in the blog.
Let’s take a look at the estimated cost of developing an app for different countries:
- North America – $20 to $250 per hour
- UK – $35 to $175 per hour
- Australia – $35 to $150 per hour
- India – $10 to $ 75 per hour
- Eastern Europe – $20 to $110 per hour
In today’s world, more and more companies are turning to India for application development due to the high availability of experienced and qualified developers providing services at a significantly low cost.
So, if you have decided to build an application via an Indian application development company or Indian developers, then you have made a decision that is going to save enough money for you.
And yes, even for a second, if you felt that you are compromising on quality with Indian developers. Let me highlight the fact that there are many situations where Indian developers not just matched but superseded their western peers in terms of work experience, quality, and qualification. The only thing that needs to be taken care of most, in the beginning, is to tie up with a reliable outsourcing firm.
How much does it cost to make an app in India

There are not only one or two, but miscellaneous factors that determine app development price in India.
If you want your app to stand out from the crowd and perform best among all, you will need to create a unique application. And building such an app is indeed a challenging task. It involves many processes, and each step of the development requires significant amounts of effort and cost.
It is good to have an idea about app development effort and time investment as it will help you comprehend the cost of making an app in India.
Now, let’s consider the features that affect the cost of building mobile apps as a whole:
1. Application Features and Complexity
It is the type of feature that decides the time and complexity of app development. Executing certain features makes the app complex or simple. The more complex the feature is, the longer it takes developers to install that specific feature, this means, it will cost bigger. Project complexity and development time are determinants of app development cost.
For instance, you are going to develop an application like Snapchat. It would take about 15 hours to develop a simple home page for an app like Snapchat. This amount of work is optimal for MVP (minimum viable product). But for better application performance, the addition of more features is required.
So, if you like to upgrade the application’s home page by integrating some additional features such as dashboards, snaps, stories, and search engines, it will take close to 50 hours to develop. As the period of development increases, there will be a concurrent increase in cost. As a result, it will cost you almost three times, but your application will have amazing features.
In today’s world, many companies choose to integrate features such as geolocation, Google Maps integration, advertising, video/audio streaming, payment integration and more to increase their customer base. These features are complex and significantly increase development costs. But such features gauge more traffic and ultimately increase the conversion rate.
2. Platforms
Choosing a suitable platform for application development is important because it is one of the factors that will determine the success of your app. Also, the platform on which your app runs will affect the front-end and back-end costs.
The app can be developed on various platforms such as iOS, Android, and Web or include them all.
Apps developed on Android and iOS cost differently because they have vastly different interfaces and systems.
According to Statista, Android maintained its position as the leading mobile operating system worldwide in October 2020, controlling the mobile OS market with a 72.92 percent share. Together, Google Android and Apple iOS devices make up more than 97% of the global mobile OS market.
iPhone app development cost in India is less as compared to the Android app. This is because Android’s user base in developing countries like Asia and Africa is much higher than iOS. This is why Android app cost is more in India as it is more in demand than iOS. Also, iOS apps can be quickly developed.
iPhone app development cost in India is less as compared to Android apps. This is because Android’s user base in developing countries like Asia and Africa is much higher than iOS. Since demand is high, the Android app cost is more as well.
While in the United States, Apple iOS holds the largest share in the smartphone operating system market, claiming more than half of the market in May 2020.
The cost of an Android app is high also because an Android app needs to cater to different devices in different sizes, screen resolutions, and performance, whereas with iOS apps, this is not the case. iOS apps can be built in a short period.
Therefore, which platform to choose will depend on where your customer is.
Apple iOS users are a more affluent category, so it is more likely that iOS has higher paid app downloads. On the other hand, most Android users are middle-class, so a paid app may not perform the same as on Apple Store.
iOS users rarely switch from iOS to Android because this platform is more engaging and easy to use with fewer software malfunctions.
But the cost per download is higher on iOS than Android. Approval from the App Store can also be tedious since the guidelines are strict. However, iOS apps provide better quality. IOS apps of the same business perform better than Android apps.
Android apps do not need to be regularly updated, as is the case with iOS. This reduces the cost of maintenance of an Android app. The cost to develop and host an app on the Android Market is low and easy since the guidelines are not as strict as in iOS. iOS applications cost more to host on the App Store, close to $ 200 compared to $ 25 on the Play Store.
Deciding between the two depends to a large extent on your target customer and their behavior.
Types of Mobile Apps
There are two ways through which a business can reach a customer to sell its products or services and a customer can reach a business to meet their needs, one through a website and the other via a mobile application.
In common language, a mobile app is a software program developed specifically to operate on mobile devices and tablets.
Mobile apps function similarly to websites but in a more efficient and user-friendly manner. This is because they are created in such ways and the primary purpose behind creating any mobile application is to provide an excellent user experience.
So, what are the types of mobile apps?
There are three types of mobile applications – Web, Native, and Hybrid. The three types have different developmental processes. Let’s have a look at each of these types one by one.
A. Web Application:
Several studies have shown that more than 80% of smartphone users prefer apps over mobile websites. Web apps elevate the user experience on internal activities.
Compared to native apps, these apps have no burden of customization under the platform or OS, due to which the development cost (about $ 500 – $ 5000) of such apps is lower than that of native apps.
B. Native Application:
Native applications are developed for a specific operating system that is either Android or iOS. These apps are known as native Android apps or native iOS apps based on the operating systems they have been developed for. These apps require approval to be listed and can be downloaded from the Google Playstore or Apple Store.
The features and functionalities of such apps are unalterable, codes cannot be reused. These apps are more complex but provide a better user experience. Such apps are developed separately for Android and IOS Platforms and can cost around $100,000.
C. Hybrid Application
Like hybrid seeds, which produce the characteristics of two different seeds within it, hybrid apps are those that incorporate features of both native and web apps, mostly performing like native apps (easier to develop and manage). However, native apps have a better user experience than hybrid apps.
Hybrid apps are quickly developed because they can function on a single programming language and can work on both iOS and Android. It can cost around $10,000- $50,000.
4. Paid apps, free apps, or e-commerce?
How you are going to make a profit through your mobile app will also determine its development cost.
Whether you choose to build a paid app, a free app or an eCommerce app will depend on your business goals and your customer preferences. In every case, mobile applications can generate huge profits for your business.
A. Free apps
Free apps are very common and perhaps we all have one or two free apps on our smartphones. These apps cost null to download from app stores. They have different revenue generation models.
By creating free apps, businesses can immensely increase their user base and later on can sell their products and services to them. What’s better than this? You will have access to your potential customers through your application.
Free apps are also good for building a trust-based relationship between you and your customers. And direct revenue can also be generated through advertising and affiliate marketing.
B. Paid apps
Paid apps are those that require a specific price to download from the App Store. These apps provide excellent features that are worth payable.
These apps are developed to compensate for the development cost. This is a win-win situation for both the user and the developer. Initially, developers have to put a good amount of money into developing such an app as it includes many complex functionalities that provide a better user experience. Later on, in order to take advantage of the special features of the app, users are paid.
The potential to generate revenue through paid apps or even cover the cost of developing these apps will largely depend on the number of times the app is downloaded. Therefore, setting the right price determines the hold you might have when you consider how to develop an app.
It is important to consider your customer’s willingness to pay for your app and conduct a competitive analysis.
C. E-commerce apps
Ecommerce mobile apps are the most popular these days. This completely changes the way your business operates, making it more effective and profitable. Nowadays, 85% of smartphone users use mobile applications instead of mobile websites for shopping.
These apps provide better customer satisfaction with instant payment and purchase facilities. eCommerce generates revenue mostly by selling its own products or earning commissions from sellers listed on the app. You can follow the Guide to eCommerce Mobile App Development to learn better.
5. Whom do you hire for app Development?
Do you choose to hire freelancers or a dedicated team of developers to develop your mobile app?
Hiring freelancers can be an attractive option initially as it costs less but choosing this option may cost you more in the long term.
Freelancers are individuals who work for more than one client at a time. Handing over an app development project to them would not be an appropriate option as such projects require proper dedication and time investment.
There are many freelancers out there, but their skills, quality of work, and timely project delivery can be a big question mark.
They may not have the necessary set of skills to develop an app and, eventually, you may end up hiring more than one developer and spend more money. And yet, you can be given a mediocre app.
If you are developing a basic mobile app with some simple features, better you choose to hire developers through a reliable outsourcing firm like Invades Outsourcing. The developers of such companies usually have vast work experience and knowledge as they have prior experience of executing projects of various complexity in different industries.
In addition, such outsourcing companies provide you with the option to outsource to the development team. If you have plans to build a large and complex application like Amazon or Flipkart, you can hire a dedicated development team. They will be responsible for managing every aspect of the app development – app planning, app designing, app testing, app maintenance, or anything related to the app.
App developer cost in India is almost half the cost of developers in countries like the US, UK, and Australia.
And hiring a dedicated development team in India will cost you more than hiring a freelancer, but it will eventually provide you with an amazing mobile app that is expected to exceed the worth of some of the extra money you spend.
Typically, such teams are more equipped to address your needs and understanding of the business model. To meet your development needs, you can opt for this cost-effective method.
It is important to go through the work done by the team in the past before hiring them. Invedus can help you with that, here in the how to hire mobile app developers guide we have explained this process.
6. App Maintenance Cost
App maintenance is one thing that cannot be avoided. As our mobile and computer software requires a regular update for smooth processing, apps also require updates to stay up to date. Some of the things that are observed during maintenance are hosting databases, bug fixing, code optimization, and more.
This stage accounts for 15–20% of the total app development cost. For example, if the total development cost of the application is $ 10,000, its maintenance would be about $ 2,000 a year. This is necessary because of the new device getting launched every month, functional needs which should be done promptly.
Cost to build an app in india FAQs

How much time does it take to develop an app?
The app-building time depends upon the size of the application like the small-size app can be built in 2 months, a medium-size app can be built in 3 months, and a large-size app takes six months for building.
What are the succeeding stages of an application development process?
There are mainly four succeeding stages of app development. These are Pre-design, design, development, and support.
Which platforms can be considered as the major ones to design applications?
Top mobile app designing platforms are Microsoft Xamarin, Flutter, Adobe PhoneGap (Cordova), Sencha, Appcelerator, Ionic Framework, React Native, etc.
How to know the current status of a development project?
Project status reports give timely updates on the progress of your projects. Regularly sharing project status reports is important because they help keep all project stakeholders in the loop and aligned on how your project progresses. Your project status report summary should be brief—about 2-3 sentences.
How do I choose a trustworthy app development company?
To choose the right app development company, you have to check their client base, qualification and experience, app-building cost, communication process, portfolios, and the most important thing is to ask the right questions before hiring.
What are the maintenance services?
Maintenance service in mobile app development is the entire procedure performed to ensure a bug-free working of mobile apps. It includes monitoring, repairing, refining, fixing, and updating elements that provide a good user experience.
Conclusion
App development costs in India or any other country will depend on many factors that we have mentioned in this guide. Therefore, there is no definitive answer to “how much does it cost to build an app in India”. You can choose to outsource your mobile app development project in India. Outsourcing in a country like India can result in inexpensive and quick app development.
Check out Invedus Outsourcing. From this company, you can hire highly experienced and skilled mobile app developers at affordable rates.