mobile app development

How much does it Cost to Develop an Android Application in 2023?

Planning to infiltrate the Android market by deploying an Android app of your own? Check out the in-depth cost to develop an Android app in this report.

cost to develop an Android app

Before coming up with a final Android app development plan, you probably have two questions in your mind, how much does it cost to develop an Android app in 2023? And what are the factors influencing the cost of creating Android apps? 

Let’s be honest, every app is unique, and the cost estimation depends on a variety of factors: platform, app type, scope, analysis, feature complexity, design, location, marketing costs, QA, and so on. 

Over the years, users have become much more demanding, and market competition has tightened. The app marketplace has a range of apps continuously expanding. With 5M+ apps cramming on the internet, and 300+ apps/day, the mobile app industry is booming. 

In order to stand out in the thriving competition, you need an explicit plan beforehand. And estimating the cost of creating an Android app beforehand is the first crucial step in the overall strategy.

Steps to calculate the cost develop an Android application

The cost to make an Android app is influenced by several factors and phases. However, a nice mobile app can cost you between $10,000 to $500,000 to develop, depending on what the app does.

In this guide, we will uncover all the business and functional necessities that influence the overall cost of app development for Android apps, including cost by stages and app types, devs’ location, and post-deployment services. By the end of the blog, you will have your answer to how much Android app development costs. 

So, without further ado, let’s begin with the details!

1. Selecting the right app type

Every app is unique and possesses a definite structure. It depends on the factors, functions, and specifications. Here are the points that clearly differentiate which app type you should go for.

a) Based on app complexity 

cost to build an Android app

b) Based on app technology

cost of developing Android app

 How to choose one app type to develop it?

cost of developing an Android app

2. Choosing an app development team

No matter, what the size of the app is, for a better user experience, you need a skilled app development team to create Android apps. Unless you have your own in-house Android app-building team, you need people involved in the app development process.

Depending on the Android app-building strategy, it’s important to be careful and considerate before choosing your app development agency that also fits the budget to cover the cost of developing Android apps. Let’s get started with some of the best options you can have.  

cost of developing Android app

cost to develop Android app

develop an Android application

3. Considering factors affecting Android app development cost

The Android app developer cost that you will ultimately pay will be influenced by several factors such as the number of people working on the app, the preferred app category, UI/UX designs, the number of features, and more. Furthermore, for your reference, we are shortlisting some of the key factors that influence the cost of developing Android apps. Let’s have a look!

a) Process of App Discovery

This is the initial part of app development that may last a day or a month depending on you. The purpose of this step is to brainstorm, research, and validate your app idea. So if you are building an Android app, you need to understand that despite the time this step takes, your research and planning can influence the overall growth of the app you are building and planning to deploy in the target market. 

i) Market research and analysis

As mentioned above, to develop a good Android app, this step is so crucial in the Android app-making cost estimation process. Market research includes in-depth competitor research, defining product outcomes, identifying app viability, and uncovering how the app aligns with your business goals to validate the market opportunity. If you are not doing all of these things yourself, you need to hire people to research and brainstorm for you and that will eventually influence the cost to develop an Android app.

ii) Target user personas

A user persona is built from real customer discovery and researching their interest. To create a user-centered Android application, personas help you understand the customer perspective and represent the people who are directly going to use your product.

iii) Market capitalization

A SEMRush blog has published a report stating that by 2024, there will be 290 million smartphone users. Even the US mobile advertising spending budget is expected to reach $145.26 billion by 2024.

b) Android application scope analysis

As the demand for mobile apps increases, the competition increases, and expectations of end-users become more stringent. This stage involves analyzing the scope of work, user-journey mapping, landscape, and business model analysis. Taking this phase of the planning process seriously is crucial as it can influence the overall cost of developing an Android app that you want users to love.

c) Choosing the app category

In the process of estimating Android application-making cost, you are required to select the app niche. In the Android play store and Apple app store, you get apps of almost all categories. The cost of making an app for Android, however, depends on the categories of apps as well. Here are the categories of top Android apps you can choose from.

making an app for Android

d) Android app animation and design

Design implementation may sound like one-step work but is a muti-variant process. The design and animation of any Android app are significant factors affecting Android app development costs. The app design includes visual design, user interfaces, and UX, logos, icons, branding, wireframes, etc.

i) User experience design

Designing the user experience (UX) is a step that can drive the app development process in the right direction. However, to ensure that your app grows in the market, you have to ensure your app offers an easy but visually appealing user experience. To achieve that goal, expert developers try to keep the navigation of the app easy and use the abilities of modern smartphones and fast internet to offer visually appealing features. 

Furthermore, we are listing down a few steps taken by expert developers to come up with a good UX so their app grows in the target market. Read further to know more about these steps-

  • Sketches

To design a great mobile app, sketches are used to display complicated app mechanisms. Popular sketching tools are Sketch, Buildfire, Adobe XD, etc. Through sketching, you give your imagination a visualization. But it is not necessary to use sketching tools to give your app idea a visual, instead, you can just draw your rough app UX traditionally on paper as well.

User Experience Design - Sketches

  • UX wireframing

Another crucial step that might also require some advanced UX prototyping or designing platforms is wireframing the UX before the initial UX development process kickstarts. UX Wireframing ensures the app flow and gets the visual concept of the application getting built. In the wireframing phase, developers come up with all possible features that the app will have along with the steps covering how each action on the step will result.  

User Experience Design - UX Wireframing

  • UX wireframes with native UI elements

This step also influences the overall Android app-building as in this phase, UI elements that need to be integrated into the final app are planned. These UI elements, depending on their development time, and quantity, can influence the overall development costs. So, it is important to plan all UI elements in advance before finalizing the development budget.

User Experience Design - UX Wireframes with Native UI Element

ii) Illustrations and animation

To make an app look appealing, illustrations and animations are used. Illustrations, usually created with Adobe Illustrator CC, help to convey the idea of a mobile app feature.

iii) Visual Design

The overall visual design of an app includes everything from the homepage to all icons, text, animations, etc. This phase of the development process can influence the cost to build an Android app by increasing the overall development time majorly.

4. App deployment cost on Google Play Store

To get your app published on Google Play Store you have to pay a sum of $25 USD as a registration fee charged by Google. The successful submission of the Android app on the Play store is the most important step of the Android app development cost. To get your app selected, there are some Play Store guidelines that need to be followed. You can also explore alternative app stores to publish your app on and follow their guidelines. Your choice of an app store will eventually optimize your Android development cost as well.

5. Android app maintenance cost

If you think, you have submitted your app to the Play store, and your part is done. No, in fact, the job is not even halfway done at this stage.

Android App Maintenance is the post-release step that includes the maintenance cost of Android apps’ frontend and backend that adds up to the final amount of total cost to build an Android app.

This Android app development steps take various things into consideration - the version update, the cost of updating the app design, and constantly checking the app for issues or debugging. With the change in technology and user preferences, keeping your mobile app up to date enables users to try out new features and fix bugs if any. 

Keeping up with the evolving technology by leveraging it to offer better app performance is also a good idea to keep your app trending. Now, let’s have a look at a few tentative costs involved in the development of the app.

  • Powerful servers – $20-$60/month
  • Push notifications – $10/month
  • Payment gateways – up to $150/month (plus a fee on each transaction)
  • Third-party APIs charges

All newly-added versions of apps are considered at the priority at the Play store. That’s an advantage you get to tackle the competitiveness by keeping your app updated.

6. 10 biggest hidden aspects of Android application development cost

Estimating the cost of developing an android app is not easy. There are a plethora of things that are needed to be considered. Below are the custom android app development integrations and services that you need separately. Take a look.

Android app developer cost

Buckle up!

So how much does it cost to develop an Android app? We have summed the average cost of Android app development ranges from $80K – $250K+, depending on what type of app you want to create, and what sort of features you’d like to add to your Android application. However, to answer how much an Android app cost with an accurate number only a top Android app development company can help you once you brainstorm the app idea with it. 

After considering almost all the aspects of costs involved in developing a mobile app for Android, we understand there can be things that may vary according to user and development requirements. To streamline your app development, you need an Android app development launch checklist beforehand and obviously a good app development and marketing team. Anyways, we hope that you found this blog to get an estimated cost to develop an Android application useful. You can explore MobileAppDaily for more such informative reads.

Aparna <span>Growth Strategist</span>
Written By
Aparna Growth Strategist

Aparna is a growth specialist with handsful knowledge in business development. She values marketing as key a driver for sales, keeping up with the latest in the Mobile App industry. Her getting things done attitude makes her a magnet for the trickiest of tasks. In free times, which are few and far between, you can catch up with her at a game of Fussball.

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