It depends is the honest answer — here's the actual breakdown of what it depends on.
Complexity tier is the biggest lever: a simple MVP (auth, a handful of screens, basic backend) takes weeks of dev time; mid-complexity (real-time features, payments, integrations) takes several months; enterprise-grade (compliance requirements, complex workflows, scale) often takes a year or more.
Platform choice is the second lever. Native iOS + Android separately roughly doubles frontend cost versus a single cross-platform codebase — but cross-platform isn't automatically cheaper if your app needs heavy native functionality, since the "savings" get eaten by custom native modules anyway.
What's usually underestimated: design (UX research, not just visuals) is often 15–20% of a project and gets cut first when budgets tighten — usually a mistake. QA across device/OS fragmentation is another. Post-launch maintenance is a third, and it isn't optional.
Geography changes the number a lot, roughly independent of quality. US/UK, Eastern European, and South/Southeast Asian rates can differ 2–4x for comparable output, which is why so many Western startups outsource specifically to control this line item.
The genuinely useful advice: get quotes against the same detailed spec, not a vague one-liner. Vague specs produce wildly different quotes because everyone is pricing a different assumption of what you actually want built.
Brancosoft | 📞 +91 9999321509 | ✉️ nirdesh.verma@brancosoft.co.in
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