App Development Cost Calculator

Q: How do you calculate software development cost?

Cost = person-weeks of effort × weekly cost of each role. Effort is the base scope plus the weeks for each feature, multiplied by the platform and design factors, less the share you expect AI coding agents to save. The calculator splits it 70% engineering, 15% design, 10% product management and 5% QA, prices each role, and divides the effort by the team size to give the calendar timeline.

Q: How much does it cost to publish an app?

The Apple Developer Program costs $99 a year (Apple Developer Program) and a Google Play developer account a one-time $25 (Google Play Console Help). If you sell the app or digital goods in it, Apple's Small Business Program charges a reduced 15% commission to developers with up to $1 million in proceeds in the prior calendar year (App Store Small Business Program).

Estimate what it costs to build an app or software product with a lean, AI-native team: pick the scope, platforms and features, then compare the cost and timeline with a US in-house team, a US agency or Second Talent.

What drives app development cost

Each of these is a lever in the calculator. They multiply together, which is why two apps that sound alike can differ several times in cost.

Scope

An MVP covers a few core flows. A launch-ready product adds more flows, an admin panel and payments; a full product adds analytics and parity across platforms. The calculator starts the four scopes at 40, 120, 300 and 600 person-weeks, as planning assumptions.

Platforms

Web or a single mobile platform is the base. The calculator adds 25% for one cross-platform codebase (React Native or Flutter), 50% for web plus mobile and 75% for separate native iOS and Android apps, because the client is built more than once.

Features

Real-time chat, video calls, offline sync and AI features add the most effort. Each checkbox adds its own person-weeks, from 2 for push notifications to 10 for video calls.

Design

A custom design system adds 15% and a motion-heavy interface 30% in the calculator, since every screen needs more design and front-end time.

Team size and AI

A lean team of AI-native engineers needs less coordination and burns less each month. The calculator lets you take 0% to 30% off the effort for AI coding agents, an assumption because published trials range from 19% slower to 55.8% faster (METR developer study, July 2025; Peng et al., GitHub Copilot experiment, 2023).

Who builds it

A US in-house engineer costs about $94 an hour fully loaded at the median software developer wage (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025; BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026). An agency bills a blended hourly rate that covers its own margin. Second Talent charges $29 to $39 USD an hour, billed monthly.

App development cost questions, answered

How much does it cost to develop an app?

With the calculator's defaults (a launch-ready, cross-platform app with a standard design, no extra features and a lean AI-native team saving an assumed 20% of effort), the build is about 120 person-weeks. That costs about $149,200 with a Second Talent team, $432,200 with a US in-house team and $720,000 with a US agency at $150 an hour. Each feature you tick adds person-weeks, so a feature-rich app costs more. Treat the result as a first estimate to compare against real quotes.

What is a lean, AI-native app team?

A small team, often two to five engineers plus part-time design and product, whose engineers use AI coding agents for boilerplate, tests and first drafts and spend their own time on architecture, review and the hard problems. Fewer people means less coordination and a lower monthly burn. How much effort AI saves depends on the team and the codebase: developers using GitHub Copilot finished a set task 55.8% faster (Peng et al., GitHub Copilot experiment, 2023), while experienced developers on large, familiar codebases took 19% longer with early-2025 tools (METR developer study, July 2025). The calculator lets you pick 0% to 30%.

How do you calculate software development cost?

Cost = person-weeks of effort × weekly cost of each role. Effort is the base scope plus the weeks for each feature, multiplied by the platform and design factors, less the share you expect AI coding agents to save. The calculator splits it 70% engineering, 15% design, 10% product management and 5% QA, prices each role, and divides the effort by the team size to give the calendar timeline.

How long does it take to build an app?

Divide the effort by the team size. The default launch-ready app is 120 person-weeks with a lean team of 3, so about 40 weeks, or roughly 9 months. Adding engineers shortens the timeline less than the arithmetic suggests, because coordination takes time too, which is why lean teams often hold their pace better than the headcount implies.

What does a US software developer cost per hour?

The median US software developer earned $135,980 in May 2025, or $65.38 an hour over 2,080 hours (BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025). With benefits and payroll taxes, which make up 30.8% of total compensation for professional workers (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026), that is about $94 an hour. See the software developer cost calculator by role and seniority.

How much does it cost to publish an app?

The Apple Developer Program costs $99 a year (Apple Developer Program) and a Google Play developer account a one-time $25 (Google Play Console Help). If you sell the app or digital goods in it, Apple's Small Business Program charges a reduced 15% commission to developers with up to $1 million in proceeds in the prior calendar year (App Store Small Business Program).

How much do app development agencies charge?

Rates vary widely by firm and location, so the calculator uses $150 an hour as an editable assumption. Ask each agency for its blended hourly rate, its estimate in hours by role, and who owns the code, then enter the rate above to compare it with an in-house team.

Is a cross-platform app cheaper than native apps?

Usually, because one codebase serves both iOS and Android. In the calculator, cross-platform adds 25% to the base effort and two native apps add 75%. Native can still be the right call for apps that lean on device features or need the smoothest performance.

What does Second Talent charge?

Second Talent helps US startups hire vetted AI-Native Engineers and Specialists from Asia. Each full-time engineer costs $29 to $39 USD an hour, billed monthly ($4,599 to $5,999 for 160 hours), with salary, payroll taxes and benefits included, $0 cost until you hire and a 90-day, one-time replacement guarantee. Against a US hire that is typically 50-70% less.

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