How Much Does It Cost to Design a Mobile App: All Factors Revealed

App design cost depends on a lot of factors, such as the complexity of the app, the number of screens, designer rates, and other various factors. Understanding them will help you outline the total price of app design development.

How much time will UI/UX creation require? How does the design-creating process go? How much is the developer's hourly rate? In this article, we’ll answer these questions and give you an understanding of the amount of app designing costs.

App design price varies from $5,000 to $30,000 or more. The main factor in understanding total cost is app complexity. The complexity of your app's user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design is a crucial cost factor. Custom designs that deviate from standard templates and incorporate unique app ideas and design guidelines. Such type of design development allows you to create different apps without looking at how much it costs. So, let’s take a closer look closer at such three types of app design complexity:

Simple app design consumes creating a Minimal Viable Product (MVP). MVP is about a clear user interface with no unnecessary elements. These solutions do not assume a lot of complex animations or detailed design blocks. One of the main design ideas of such a solution is to have simple color schemes and very simple templates. Simple design is not about implementing platform-specific details and end-to-end branding. You should remember that the main goal of MVP is to create a user-friendly platform design while reducing the final cost.

Medium app design is the next level after MVPs and gives more opportunities to create the UI you want. This app design is more costly than simple MVPs because it involves more features and screens that designers need to create. Moreover, such apps need more elements created from scratch instead of using templates, which also increases the time and cost to design an app. However, medium-complexity app design means better user experience and interaction, which obviously increases user engagement and, as a result, your success rate.

Complex app design is the most advanced and expensive option. It involves creating a highly interactive user interface with various custom elements, animations, and multiple feature screens. The complexity is caused by the variety and uniqueness of the design components. Designers create every button, icon, or layout from scratch to perfectly align with your ideas and vision. Moreover, the complex app design assumes more unique interfaces than simple or medium ones, which directly impacts the app design creation timeline. More screens require more time and effort to provide consistent design language throughout the app.

A software development company, even one with extensive experience, cannot provide an accurate design cost estimate solely based on an idea. It's vital to understand the factors that influence the cost of app design services and why a basic concept isn't sufficient to determine the price.

The choice of platform(s) for your app, such as iOS, Android, or cross-platform development, can affect design costs. Designing for multiple platforms may require additional work to adapt the design to each platform's guidelines and requirements. So, let’s look at three general platform solution types.

The platform you choose determines the balance between cost, performance, and maintenance. Mobile applications have the largest overall cost to design but provide the best performance. Web apps are more efficient, but they have some disadvantages in performance. Cross-platform solutions offer a middle between web and native apps. The decision should align with your app’s goals, target audience, and budget restrictions.

Integrating your app with third-party services or APIs can modify the cost of designing an app. Customizing the design to seamlessly incorporate external services may require additional design work. App designers must ensure that the integration is both functional and visually cohesive with the rest of the app, which can extend the design timeline and costs.

Different types of collaboration come with their own pros and cons, which can impact how much to design an app:

In-house design team

Leveraging an in-house design team provides the advantage of close collaboration and seamless communication. Having a team within your organization offers full control over the design process and ensures a deep understanding of your company's culture. However, it comes with higher operational and salary expenses and may be less scalable for large projects.

Outsourcing to design agencies

Outsourcing your design needs to a specialized agency is often regarded as the most beneficial cooperation model. It grants access to a diverse talent pool with expertise in various design disciplines, ensuring that your project benefits from a wide range of skills and creative perspectives. This approach is highly scalable, making it suitable for complex and ambitious projects. Outsourcing allows you to tap into the agency's extensive resources, which can lead to faster project completion and a more comprehensive design solution.

It's essential to carefully consider these factors and choose the collaboration type that aligns with your project's goals, budget, and requirements. Discussing these aspects with potential design partners will help you make an informed decision about the best approach for your mobile app design project. As ScienceDirect states, a qualitative design provides smooth and distraction-free pathways toward achieving goals.

The location of the app development company, which provides you with a dedicated team, can affect costs due to variations in labor rates. Design teams located in regions with higher living costs may charge more for their services. Conversely, working with designers in regions with lower labor costs may offer cost savings while maintaining quality, which makes location an important factor to consider in your overall budget planning.

How much is it to design an app in different countries? Each IT company evaluates the processes differently, but most companies follow this evaluation sample:

Hourly rate x number of hours spent = application design charge

Imagine that you develop a complex solution, outsourcing the design features to Estonia. Some approximate estimates:

246h (max time for design) x $50 (Estonian mean wage per hour) = $12,300 (for Android and iOS).

For instance, the cost of top design services may include hourly amounts to $150 in the USA or Canada. That will be up to $36,900 for the iOS and Android app UI/UX design. Here’s the thing: if you don’t have well-skilled design specialists around (or the app designers' cost is too high), you can use the services of software development companies abroad.

App design creation consists of several crucial stages. Below, we’ll discuss how each stage influences the app design and approximate prices.

At the beginning of the UI/UX app development process, our design specialists analyze the competition, business objectives, and target audience of the upcoming product. This way, the team identifies the users’ needs to create the future design adapted to them. After gathering information, the UI/UX specialists start developing an app design.

Estimated time: 40–80 hours

Estimated cost: $2,000–$4,000

First, it should be noted that every software development company should have a specification or set of requirements for wireframe building. A wireframe is represented as a conceptual scheme of all the design elements placed on the app’s screen. It helps users realize the future look of the app and offer their amendments. Cleveroad team builds several design models per request using the InVision design platform, Figma, and Zeplin. Customers can also follow the process and comment on it or choose the most attractive design sample according to the situation. So, the wireframes can serve as a fast instrument for creating a solution visualization. Moreover, they are efficient and easily changeable.

Estimated time: 60–100 hours

Estimated cost: $3,000–$5,000

Prototypes are the model sets of the app’s final look, which serve as the basis for the whole app UI development. Each application screen is prototyped separately.

Let’s view the UI/UX creation peculiarities according to mobile operating systems and gadgets where the app will be used. The experts usually start preparing the UI design version for iOS and Android for the project intended for both two platforms. UI/UX versions for tablets, phones, and other devices are created together with the main design but estimated individually. At this stage, the customers can also offer their amendments, give feedback in InVision or Figma, and choose which prototype is the most appropriate for their application. Cleveroad, like most companies, can provide clickable or static prototypes upon your request. The other stages consist of building up graphic elements such as icons and illustrations or preparing complex animations and individual evaluation of mobile UI design costs.

Estimated time: 80–160 hours

Estimated cost: $4,000–$8,000

Various strategic approaches can be employed to reduce app design prices. These approaches help optimize the design process, ensuring efficiency without compromising on quality or user experience. Here are some effective methods to cut app design costs:

Effective planning is the foundation of cost-efficient app design. The overall app design and development process begins with defining the project scope and aligning your app development team on the same page. When you come up with an app idea, it’s important to consider the complexity of the app idea, the specific features of the app, and the team roles for your design project because all of these play a significant role in determining the app design cost.

Prioritizing app features is a crucial step in cost reduction. Identify core functionalities that are essential for the initial release and focus on designing them first. This minimum viable product approach allows you to allocate design resources efficiently and launch the app sooner. Subsequent features can be integrated based on user feedback and needs, reducing the upfront design costs.

Collaborating with an experienced design team is essential for cost-effective and high-quality app design. When choosing a design team, pay attention to their portfolio, expertise in your industry, and their ability to understand your brand and target audience. Check credible sources to find talented designers with a proven track record. Effective communication and a shared design vision with your team can lead to efficient design iterations and cost savings. Feel free to explore our Dribbble to check our design expertise.

Cross-platform design can be a cost-efficient choice, especially when you are targeting multiple platforms. Designing a consistent user interface that adheres to platform-agnostic design principles can save time and resources. The cross-platform design ensures that design assets can be reused, reducing the need for separate designs for each platform and the cost of designing an app in parallel.

Creating a prototype before diving into full-fledged design can save costs by validating concepts and functionality early in the development process. A prototype helps validate concepts and core functionalities early on, which is crucial in managing the mobile app development cost, which has the design part. The app development team can use this prototype to test how the features of the app will work in practice. It also ensures that the app UI design aligns with the user’s expectations and avoids expensive changes during later stages of the mobile app development process. Since the design cost may vary by the complexity of an app, the decision to start with a prototype is an efficient way to manage the overall cost.

Leveraging open-source design resources, such as free icons and fonts, can significantly reduce design costs. These resources are readily available online and can be integrated into your app design, saving both time and expenses compared to custom-designed elements. Ensure that the chosen resources align with your brand's aesthetics and licensing requirements. One of the factors that influence app design is the time spent on creating unique visuals. By using open-source libraries, you can speed up the process and help the team come up with an app that’s ready for market faster. If you are looking to streamline your workflows while delivering high-quality results, this strategy will be useful.

Collaborating with offshore or nearshore design teams can decrease the cost of designing a mobile app. These teams often offer competitive rates while maintaining high design standards. When working with remote teams, effective communication and project management are crucial to ensure that the design process runs smoothly and aligns with your project goals.

By implementing these approaches, you can effectively cut app design costs without compromising on the quality and functionality of your app.

Cleveroad is a professional software development company located in Central Europe, which is one of the most famous outsourcing destinations due to its reasonable software creation rates. For over 12 years, we have been helping businesses in various industries deliver custom app design to ensure their brand excellence and user engagement.

Our design specialists start working from the very beginning of the application building to launching the final product. Our team conducts Research, Wireframing, Visual Style, Design, and Delivery, ensuring top quality through all the steps.

Here's what you get by appealing to our UI/UX design services:

• 12+ years of experience in creating eye-catching mobile designs for all screen sizes and platforms.
• Client-centered web design for various devices in FullHD quality to ensure page load optimization and site responsiveness.
• Expertise in app wireframing and prototyping, mockup creation, sketching, and other design services applying the latest UI/UX practices.
• Mature quality management proven by an ISO 9001 certificate to meet the quality needs of software development.
• UI/UX consulting from professionals with an in-depth understanding of business needs.

How cost estimation is done for your project? In determining the app design cost, we provide our clients with two types of estimates: Rough and Detailed. A rough estimate serves as an initial, high-level cost projection provided to the client. In our project management approach, we create two distinct rough estimates to ensure cost accuracy at different stages of development:

• The first rough estimate is generated following a Solution Design Workshop. This estimate is quite high-level and offers three options: optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic. It helps the client understand the project's scope, goals, complexity, risks, and core non-functional requirements. It also aids in defining the project's strategy, including whether to include all features within the budget or prioritize essential ones.
• The second rough estimate is refined during the Discovery Phase, which begins after initial collaboration with the client. During this phase, we delve deeper into the project, analyzing intricate business processes, elaborating on the feature list, and solidifying development nuances and non-functional requirements. Based on this more detailed information, we revised the initial rough estimate, making it more precise.

A detailed estimate is the most precise cost projection in project management, offering nearly 100% accuracy. It involves direct participation from the development team responsible for the product's creation. These detailed estimates are crafted post-Discovery Phase, during the development stage.

Utilizing the insights gathered during the Discovery Phase, our team uses this estimate as a foundation to define detailed requirements, typically through user stories, in an iterative process. Each user story is evaluated, resulting in a comprehensive estimate.