Cost Calculator for App Development

Platform

Development costs for the different platforms are comparable. Choosing two platforms therefore doubles the costs.

iOS for iPhone and iPad
Android for devices of Samsung, Sony, HTC, LG etc.
Windows (Phone) for devices of Nokia, Microsoft etc.

Quality

The cost is directly related to the quality. Highly successful apps are often of a high quality.

Low x 0.5 Most things work but the app isn't very attractive and crashes every now and then. There's almost no documentation and code quality is bad.
Normal Everything works and the app's interface conforms to the usual conventions. The code is solid and the documentation sufficient.
High x 2 Everything works perfectly and quickly. The app is nice to look at and has great usability. The code is modern and clean; the documentation complete and easy to understand.

Number of screens

The number of different views is a good indicator for the total app size and is used as base value for calculation. Example: An app with an overview, a list view and a detail view would require 3 screens. A typical value for an average app would be 10.

Screens x 1.000

Custom controls

Using the system-provided controls is the easiest way. Apps that don't exactly follow the platform's design standards require custom controls.

Standard
Custom x 2

Device types

One device type
Smartphone and Tablet x 1.5

Screen orientation modes

One orientation
Landscape and Portrait x 1.3

Security

If your app handles sensitive information, all aspects of your app are influenced by security considerations.

Normal
Hightened x 1.3

Supported OS versions

Supporting more OS versions increases the potential user base but increases the costs for development and maintenance.

One x 0.7 Only the most recent version is supported (coverage of ~40%).
Two Besides the most recent version, the previous one is supported as well (default; coverage of ~75%).
Three x 1.5 The most recent and the two previous versions are supported (coverage of ~90%).

Number of languages/regions

Languages

Deployment

App Store 1.000 Packaging, Signing, Preflight, Submission, Release
Enterprise 1.000 Packaging, Signing and preparations to distribute internally

Special functionality

General

In-App Payments 5.000
Push Notifications 5.000 Receive, display and process notifications, even if the app is not running
Keychain access 3.000 Write and read protected information/passwords in the keychain
Statistics 3.000 Recording and collecting user behavior
WebView 2.000 Display one or more websites directly in the app with custom navigation

Maps & navigation

Maps 5.000 Display a map view with pins and annotations
Geofencing 5.000 Trigger functionality if the user enters a defined geographical region

Data & communication

Database/CoreData 5.000 Write, read and filter large amounts of data directly on the device
Interface to server 10.000 Submit/receive data via internet
Inter-application Communication 3.000 Using URL schemes or Intents to communicate between apps
Bluetooth 10.000 Connect to external devices via Bluetooth/BLE
GameCenter 5.000 Integrate GameCenter; network and ladder functionality

Photo, video and graphics

Audio/video player 3.000
Camera 3.000 Capture photos or video
3D 25.000 Display three-dimensional content/animations
Image recognition 50.000 Creation/implementation of image recognition algorithms (faces, objects, ...)

Other

Custom keyboard 5.000 Custom keyboard for the input of predefined sequences or with custom characters or functionality