How much does it cost to develop an iPhone application

Question

How much can a developer charge for an iPhone app like Twitterrific   I want to know this because I need such an application with the same functionality for a new community website  I can do Ruby but have no experience with Objective-C  So it would be interesting for me if I should start reading books about iPhone programming or outsource the work to a iPhone programmer

User · Answer

I am an account exec at a web and mobile development company and hear this question everyday. Unfortunately, iPhone apps are not cheap. You can expect around $100 per hour if you are staying on US soil. I have seen some offshore Indian developers out there for as low as $20 per hour. It all depends on the number and complexity of the functions you wish the app to perform. Simple one function apps are normally around 4-5k. They are so expensive because you are paying a team of people a healthy hourly wage and any type of raw prototyping, development, and coding takes time. Apps can exceed 60-100k pretty easily. Southwest Airlines making an app with a full ecommerce platform that allows you to buy tickets over your phone is an example. All of that porting into their IT is a big job.

And offshoring the project is definitely not always a better option. If you do so you better know who you are dealing with. Do not get me wrong there folks over there who do a bad ass job for a way better deal, but they are not that easy to find. Those guys could fuck around for 5 months on a simple project that would take 6 weeks here, or just not complete it at all and hand it over half finished. I have seen this scenario many times where we finish the work. The project management becomes a challenge. It can be difficult to communicate exactly what you want the app to do.

User · Answer

Appsamuck iPhone tutorials is aiming for 31 days of tutorials ending in 31 small apps developed for the iPhone all the source code for which is available to download  They also provide a commercial service to build apps   If you want to know if you can do the coding  well at least you can download the code and see if anything there is helpful for your needs  On the flip side you can also get a quote from them for developing the app for you  so you can try both sides of the coin  outsource and in-house  Of course it all depends on how much time you have too  It s certainly worth a look    OK  after my last disastrous attempt to try and post a useful piece of help  I went off hunting around

User · Answer

The Barack Obama app took 22 days to develop from first code to release  Three developers  although not all of them were full time   10 people total  Figure 500-1000 man hours  Contracting rates are  100-150 hr  Figure  50000- 150000  Compare your app to Obama app and scale accordingly

User · Answer

The Barack Obama app took 22 days to develop from first code to release  Three developers  although not all of them were full time   10 people total  Figure 500-1000 man hours  Contracting rates are  100-150 hr  Figure  50000- 150000  Compare your app to Obama app and scale accordingly

User · Answer

Appsamuck iPhone tutorials is aiming for 31 days of tutorials ending in 31 small apps developed for the iPhone all the source code for which is available to download  They also provide a commercial service to build apps   If you want to know if you can do the coding  well at least you can download the code and see if anything there is helpful for your needs  On the flip side you can also get a quote from them for developing the app for you  so you can try both sides of the coin  outsource and in-house  Of course it all depends on how much time you have too  It s certainly worth a look    OK  after my last disastrous attempt to try and post a useful piece of help  I went off hunting around

User · Answer

The Barack Obama app took 22 days to develop from first code to release  Three developers  although not all of them were full time   10 people total  Figure 500-1000 man hours  Contracting rates are  100-150 hr  Figure  50000- 150000  Compare your app to Obama app and scale accordingly

User · Answer

River of News for the iPad took about 400 hours of development to get to version 1 0 and I don t know how many hours my designer spent  20-50    At US labor rates that s at least  40 000  But that sort of tight development was only possible because it was a one man operation  There is an enormous amount of overhead added when you separate the person writing the code from the person deciding what the product is going to do   If you are going to send it offshore you d better know exactly what you want  With the language and time difference it s very hard to do iterative design where you are exploring what is possible

User · Answer

The rates that were quoted above are what you would expect to pay US developers  however  I do know some people who have been able to get their apps built for as little as  4 000 by using offshore developers   Here is a blog post from a group that did this  http   www lolerapps com why-outsourcing-iphone-apps-was-a-no-brainer-for-us  Also  Carla White wrote a fantastic eBook about the process she used to outsource her app called  Inside Secrets to an iPhone App    She talks about how she got a great deal because she was willing to work with a team that was still learning iPhone app development   So  there are alternatives to the higher price developers discussed above

User · Answer

I am a very good iPhone app developer  and I charge over  150 per hour for my services   I have a ton of experience building iPhone apps and their server side components   I have also been called in on several occasions to fix offshore developed apps   Here s my take    Design costs money  good design costs lots of money   Expect several designer weeks of work per app screen   Offshore teams do not do design  Server development and infrastructure is critical if the app is to succeed   A slow server response  or an overloaded server will hamper your app  and crimp sales and satisfaction  The server side of the equation will cost the most and take the most time to develop   Those who offshore their server development will find that quality and uptime are both terrible  in my experience  App development if done right takes time too   A professional developer will ensure all HIG rules are followed  the app is properly structured and contains no known errors  it performs well  and it passes the app store validations   Offshore teams just cut code    I m just about to release a shopping app for a client   The design work was done by 2 client in-house designers over 2 weeks  quick because they had all the image assets already   Think 2 people x 10 days x 8 hours     24 000   The server side had to be modified to provide data for the iPhone app  We used their in-house team and in-house platform and in-house API  2 developers  4 weeks  or about  50 000 and that s because they already have a web shop and API   Cost them about  400 000 to get there  excluding platform    And I wrote the app side in 3 weeks  given that a lot of my code is duplicated from previous projects  another   25 000  the cheapest app I ever did   Total spent    100 000  and that s insanely cheap   And they will give this away for free so clients will buy from their store from their iPhones   For your app  Peter  if you have the servers and the APIs and the design  I d guess at  30 000 to  60 000 depending on complexity   If you do not have the design  double it   If you do not have the APIs  double again

User · Answer

I m one of the developers for Twitterrific and to be honest  I can t tell you how many hours have gone into the product  I can tell you everyone who upvoted the estimate of 160 hours for development and 40 hours for design is fricken  high   I d use another phrase  but this is my first post on Stack Overflow  so I m being good    Twitterrific has had 4 major releases beginning with the iOS 1 0  Jailbreak   That s a lot of code  much of which is in the bit bucket  we refactor a lot with each major release    One thing that would be interesting to look at is the amount of time that we had to work on the iPad version  Apple set a product release date that gave us 60 days to do the development   That was later extended by a week    We started the iPad development from scratch  but a lot of our underlying code  mostly models  was re-used  The development was done by two experienced iOS developers  One of them has even written a book  http   appdevmanual com  -   With such a short schedule  we worked some pretty long hours  Let s be conservative and say it s 10 hours per day for 6 days a week  That 60 hours for 9 weeks gives us 540 hours  With two developers  that s pretty close to 1 100 hours  Our rate for clients is  150 per hour giving  165 000 just for new code  Remember also that we were reusing a bunch existing code  I m going to lowball the value of that code at  35 000 giving a total development cost of  200 000   Anyone who s done serious iPhone development can tell you there s a lot of design work involved with any project  We had two designers working on that aspect of the product  They worked their asses off dealing with completely new interaction mechanics  Don t forget they didn t have any hardware to touch  either  LOTS of printouts   Combined  they spent at least 25 hours per week on the project  So 225 hours at  150 hr is about  34 000   There are also other costs that many developer neglect to take into account  project management  testing  equipment  Again  if we lowball that figure at  16 000 we re at  250 000  This number falls in line with Jonathan Wight s   schwa   50-150K estimate with the 22 day Obama app   Take another hit  dude   Now if you want to build backend services for your app  that number s going to go up even more  Everyone seems surprised that Instagram chewed through  500K in venture funding to build a new frontend and backend  I m not

User · Answer

I am the developer for Coupious mobile coupons iPhone app and with the amount of time that I spent on that application  v1 0 - v1 5   it was probably a  15 000 -  20 000 investment   However  to be fair  I do admit that I was the only developer working on it and when I started the project  I had never seen or used Objective-C before   Despite that  three months later  it was released so the numbers are probably a little skewed because there was a fair amount of learning going on as well as coding     However  iPhone competent developers run in the range of  80- 150 depending on their skill and time with the platform   I would say that for a simple application  an app would probably run 2K-5K  a medium complexity app would run 5K-15K and a fairly complex app running 15K-30K   Game applications could be even more   The reason it is so high is that the skill is fairly specialized and not everyone is able to do it

User · Answer

Appsamuck iPhone tutorials is aiming for 31 days of tutorials ending in 31 small apps developed for the iPhone all the source code for which is available to download  They also provide a commercial service to build apps   If you want to know if you can do the coding  well at least you can download the code and see if anything there is helpful for your needs  On the flip side you can also get a quote from them for developing the app for you  so you can try both sides of the coin  outsource and in-house  Of course it all depends on how much time you have too  It s certainly worth a look    OK  after my last disastrous attempt to try and post a useful piece of help  I went off hunting around

User · Answer

River of News for the iPad took about 400 hours of development to get to version 1 0 and I don t know how many hours my designer spent  20-50    At US labor rates that s at least  40 000  But that sort of tight development was only possible because it was a one man operation  There is an enormous amount of overhead added when you separate the person writing the code from the person deciding what the product is going to do   If you are going to send it offshore you d better know exactly what you want  With the language and time difference it s very hard to do iterative design where you are exploring what is possible

User · Answer

Appsamuck iPhone tutorials is aiming for 31 days of tutorials ending in 31 small apps developed for the iPhone all the source code for which is available to download  They also provide a commercial service to build apps   If you want to know if you can do the coding  well at least you can download the code and see if anything there is helpful for your needs  On the flip side you can also get a quote from them for developing the app for you  so you can try both sides of the coin  outsource and in-house  Of course it all depends on how much time you have too  It s certainly worth a look    OK  after my last disastrous attempt to try and post a useful piece of help  I went off hunting around

User · Answer

I am the developer for Coupious mobile coupons iPhone app and with the amount of time that I spent on that application  v1 0 - v1 5   it was probably a  15 000 -  20 000 investment   However  to be fair  I do admit that I was the only developer working on it and when I started the project  I had never seen or used Objective-C before   Despite that  three months later  it was released so the numbers are probably a little skewed because there was a fair amount of learning going on as well as coding     However  iPhone competent developers run in the range of  80- 150 depending on their skill and time with the platform   I would say that for a simple application  an app would probably run 2K-5K  a medium complexity app would run 5K-15K and a fairly complex app running 15K-30K   Game applications could be even more   The reason it is so high is that the skill is fairly specialized and not everyone is able to do it

User · Answer

There are ways of paying less to get an application  developed than paying the going rate  but very often you get what you pay for - inexperienced developers who leave you with a mess of spaghetti code that s impossible to maintain  or experienced developers with whom you have to communicate across a cultural and language gap   Developing an app like Twitterific is not easy  It s an extraordinarily polished app with a lot of attention to detail that most people - indeed many developers - would fail to notice or realize the effort behind  You may be able to get a Twitter iPhone client written for  3500 or  5000 by going offshore or by being willing to  work with inexperienced developers   but you re not going to get Twitterific for that  and it s doubtful you d get even a halfway decent application for that amount   And you likely will end up spending a lot of time managing the process  going back and forth on requirements  and fighting to get what you really want instead of what they want to give you    There s also a risk with  cut-rate  development  whether it s offshore or just using inexperienced developers - you may very well end up with something you can t use  or something that gets 1 star ratings because it crashes or behaves erratically  You might find the occasional underpriced gem of a developer  but they won t stay underpriced for long given the sheer demand in this market right now   By virtue of my books and blog  people often reach out to me when they need help with their iPhone applications  I get  on average  4 or 5 inquiries a month from people asking for help fixing applications they had developed either over-seas or by inexperienced developers here in the States  In most cases  I end up having to tell them they d be better off throwing their code out and starting over with a developer who knows what they re doing rather than trying to fix the code they bought on the cheap  If they insist on trying to  fix  what they have  I decline the work

User · Answer

I am a very good iPhone app developer  and I charge over  150 per hour for my services   I have a ton of experience building iPhone apps and their server side components   I have also been called in on several occasions to fix offshore developed apps   Here s my take    Design costs money  good design costs lots of money   Expect several designer weeks of work per app screen   Offshore teams do not do design  Server development and infrastructure is critical if the app is to succeed   A slow server response  or an overloaded server will hamper your app  and crimp sales and satisfaction  The server side of the equation will cost the most and take the most time to develop   Those who offshore their server development will find that quality and uptime are both terrible  in my experience  App development if done right takes time too   A professional developer will ensure all HIG rules are followed  the app is properly structured and contains no known errors  it performs well  and it passes the app store validations   Offshore teams just cut code    I m just about to release a shopping app for a client   The design work was done by 2 client in-house designers over 2 weeks  quick because they had all the image assets already   Think 2 people x 10 days x 8 hours     24 000   The server side had to be modified to provide data for the iPhone app  We used their in-house team and in-house platform and in-house API  2 developers  4 weeks  or about  50 000 and that s because they already have a web shop and API   Cost them about  400 000 to get there  excluding platform    And I wrote the app side in 3 weeks  given that a lot of my code is duplicated from previous projects  another   25 000  the cheapest app I ever did   Total spent    100 000  and that s insanely cheap   And they will give this away for free so clients will buy from their store from their iPhones   For your app  Peter  if you have the servers and the APIs and the design  I d guess at  30 000 to  60 000 depending on complexity   If you do not have the design  double it   If you do not have the APIs  double again

User · Answer

I hate to admit how little I ve done an iPhone app for  but I can tell you I won t be doing that again  The guy who said that  simple  one function apps can be done     by solo developers     for  5K  is correct  however  that is still lowball  and presumes almost no project design  graphic design or network backend work

User · Answer

I hate to admit how little I ve done an iPhone app for  but I can tell you I won t be doing that again  The guy who said that  simple  one function apps can be done     by solo developers     for  5K  is correct  however  that is still lowball  and presumes almost no project design  graphic design or network backend work

User · Answer

I am an account exec at a web and mobile development company and hear this question everyday. Unfortunately, iPhone apps are not cheap. You can expect around $100 per hour if you are staying on US soil. I have seen some offshore Indian developers out there for as low as $20 per hour. It all depends on the number and complexity of the functions you wish the app to perform. Simple one function apps are normally around 4-5k. They are so expensive because you are paying a team of people a healthy hourly wage and any type of raw prototyping, development, and coding takes time. Apps can exceed 60-100k pretty easily. Southwest Airlines making an app with a full ecommerce platform that allows you to buy tickets over your phone is an example. All of that porting into their IT is a big job.

And offshoring the project is definitely not always a better option. If you do so you better know who you are dealing with. Do not get me wrong there folks over there who do a bad ass job for a way better deal, but they are not that easy to find. Those guys could fuck around for 5 months on a simple project that would take 6 weeks here, or just not complete it at all and hand it over half finished. I have seen this scenario many times where we finish the work. The project management becomes a challenge. It can be difficult to communicate exactly what you want the app to do.

User · Answer

I m one of the developers for Twitterrific and to be honest  I can t tell you how many hours have gone into the product  I can tell you everyone who upvoted the estimate of 160 hours for development and 40 hours for design is fricken  high   I d use another phrase  but this is my first post on Stack Overflow  so I m being good    Twitterrific has had 4 major releases beginning with the iOS 1 0  Jailbreak   That s a lot of code  much of which is in the bit bucket  we refactor a lot with each major release    One thing that would be interesting to look at is the amount of time that we had to work on the iPad version  Apple set a product release date that gave us 60 days to do the development   That was later extended by a week    We started the iPad development from scratch  but a lot of our underlying code  mostly models  was re-used  The development was done by two experienced iOS developers  One of them has even written a book  http   appdevmanual com  -   With such a short schedule  we worked some pretty long hours  Let s be conservative and say it s 10 hours per day for 6 days a week  That 60 hours for 9 weeks gives us 540 hours  With two developers  that s pretty close to 1 100 hours  Our rate for clients is  150 per hour giving  165 000 just for new code  Remember also that we were reusing a bunch existing code  I m going to lowball the value of that code at  35 000 giving a total development cost of  200 000   Anyone who s done serious iPhone development can tell you there s a lot of design work involved with any project  We had two designers working on that aspect of the product  They worked their asses off dealing with completely new interaction mechanics  Don t forget they didn t have any hardware to touch  either  LOTS of printouts   Combined  they spent at least 25 hours per week on the project  So 225 hours at  150 hr is about  34 000   There are also other costs that many developer neglect to take into account  project management  testing  equipment  Again  if we lowball that figure at  16 000 we re at  250 000  This number falls in line with Jonathan Wight s   schwa   50-150K estimate with the 22 day Obama app   Take another hit  dude   Now if you want to build backend services for your app  that number s going to go up even more  Everyone seems surprised that Instagram chewed through  500K in venture funding to build a new frontend and backend  I m not

User · Answer

The rates that were quoted above are what you would expect to pay US developers  however  I do know some people who have been able to get their apps built for as little as  4 000 by using offshore developers   Here is a blog post from a group that did this  http   www lolerapps com why-outsourcing-iphone-apps-was-a-no-brainer-for-us  Also  Carla White wrote a fantastic eBook about the process she used to outsource her app called  Inside Secrets to an iPhone App    She talks about how she got a great deal because she was willing to work with a team that was still learning iPhone app development   So  there are alternatives to the higher price developers discussed above

User · Answer

The Barack Obama app took 22 days to develop from first code to release  Three developers  although not all of them were full time   10 people total  Figure 500-1000 man hours  Contracting rates are  100-150 hr  Figure  50000- 150000  Compare your app to Obama app and scale accordingly

User · Answer

There are ways of paying less to get an application  developed than paying the going rate  but very often you get what you pay for - inexperienced developers who leave you with a mess of spaghetti code that s impossible to maintain  or experienced developers with whom you have to communicate across a cultural and language gap   Developing an app like Twitterific is not easy  It s an extraordinarily polished app with a lot of attention to detail that most people - indeed many developers - would fail to notice or realize the effort behind  You may be able to get a Twitter iPhone client written for  3500 or  5000 by going offshore or by being willing to  work with inexperienced developers   but you re not going to get Twitterific for that  and it s doubtful you d get even a halfway decent application for that amount   And you likely will end up spending a lot of time managing the process  going back and forth on requirements  and fighting to get what you really want instead of what they want to give you    There s also a risk with  cut-rate  development  whether it s offshore or just using inexperienced developers - you may very well end up with something you can t use  or something that gets 1 star ratings because it crashes or behaves erratically  You might find the occasional underpriced gem of a developer  but they won t stay underpriced for long given the sheer demand in this market right now   By virtue of my books and blog  people often reach out to me when they need help with their iPhone applications  I get  on average  4 or 5 inquiries a month from people asking for help fixing applications they had developed either over-seas or by inexperienced developers here in the States  In most cases  I end up having to tell them they d be better off throwing their code out and starting over with a developer who knows what they re doing rather than trying to fix the code they bought on the cheap  If they insist on trying to  fix  what they have  I decline the work

[iphone] How much does it cost to develop an iPhone application?

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