Wondering how much does it cost to design a mobile app? Here’s a guide to answering all your questions

Building your next mobile app? Well, mobile app downloads are up by 23.3% since the COVID-19 Pandemic, and so developing a mobile app is a lucrative opportunity! But, have you ever wondered what makes a great mobile app to use? The answer is technology stack, app idea, user-friendliness, and a “great design”. While developing an app, many entrepreneurs fail mainly because of their negligence of app design. Primarily consisting of user experience, visual elements, and user interface, app design lays the foundation for the development process of the app. And so, a great app design is the key to your app success! But, are you wondering what is the potential app design cost & what factors influence the cost of app designing? Let’s find out in this blog…

What comprises a mobile app design?

No matter how innovative or great your app idea is, its performance ultimately comes down to its design. Many elements together form “mobile app design” including user experience, user interface, and visual design, which lastly decides whether users would spend any time in the application or not. If your app design is not up-to-the-mark, all your months-long efforts can go in vain.

While working on the mobile app design & calculating its cost, your affordable mobile app development services company has to consider the following things:

• User research
• Competitor analysis
• User Experience design
• Interaction design
• Graphics design
• Logo and app icons designs, etc.

Key stats on app design

• According to Statista, 25% of all mobile apps are used just once and then deleted due to poor app usability. In fact, a whopping 70% of online businesses fail due to this factor.
• 58% of users are frustrated by interface inconsistencies.
• 70% of users abandon an app if it takes too long to load.
• 65 % of users believe that a poor mobile experience negatively impacts their opinion of the brand.
• Only 9% of people tend to stay on a mobile app if it provides a poor experience

The importance of app design while developing a mobile app

Every design element in your mobile application plays its own role. As a business owner, your end goal while designing a mobile app must be providing an exceptional user experience while solving their issue in the most minimal manner possible. Having a seamless UI and UX design of your mobile application provide you the following benefits:

• Good app design attracts more & more users
• Responsive UI/UX strengthens your brand image
• Simplifies and provides seamless user interaction with the interface
• Allows you to converts users into consumers
• Enables users to navigate easily through the app

A great app design consists of top-notch UI, great content, cool visuals, fast loading, etc. When you keep a track of all these factors, it allows you to attract new customers, turn them into loyal customers & provide you a significant competitive edge over your rivals.

Factors that determine app development cost

There is no fixed cost involved in app design. Since the process of designing an app is complicated and includes a series of services like research, mobile UX – user experience, UI – user interface, etc. the final cost of designing an app depends on the number of factors, such as:

• Project type (social media app, on-demand taxi-hailing, e-commerce, etc.)
• Type of app development vendor (freelancers or app development agency)
• Vendor’s location (which country you are outsourcing to)
• The complexity of features and app
• Nature of platform (iOS, Android, web)
• Design complexity (simple, custom, use of illustrations & animations)

To understand the cost involved in app design and development services, it is first important to know the app designing process.

The process that influences a mobile app design price

1. Idea evaluation & research:

Usually known as the discovery stage, the first step begins with researching a specific niche in the market. While researching, the developers and business analysts research about app end users, common practices for solving your business challenges, and your competitors (similar apps in the market). This information gathered after thorough research enables you to understand users and create a UX design that will satisfy their needs. The developers carry the research, and analyze the latest mobile application interface design trends, to choose from, and move ahead with the designing process.

2. Wireframing & prototyping:

Once you have a solid plan of action and have a clear app designing goal, the next step is mobile app wireframing. This is a kind of app skeleton that demonstrates its general functionality and appearance without much detail. If your mobile app has more screens, the longer the designer will work on them, and consequently, the more it will cost to design the app. In later stages, this framework gets more detailed and becomes an interactive prototype. So if you are wondering how much does it cost to build an app prototype, it is calculated on the basis of sketches, UX Wireframes, and UX Wireframes with Native UI Elements. These parts of the process help to ensure a better app flow.

As the app design cost depends on the number of hours your mobile app developer spends on your project, the great thing is that new and advanced tools constantly emerge to help designers create prototypes that meet the modern requirements and save the time of the app design developers.

3. Target Platforms:

The cost of designing an app also depends on your target platform i.e. whether you are developing an app for Android or iOS. If you are developing an app for both platforms, you need to create a product for both main operating systems at the same time. Since Android devices are constantly innovating, dedicated Android app developers have to constantly adapt to new frameworks and design technologies to keep up with the changes.

This comes with a cost as the number of platforms that a designer has to work on is much more than iOS. Thus, comparing the two, the cost of designing an Android app is more than that of iOS.

4. Branding:

Another thing that impacts the app designing cost is the branding part. It is an essential part of mobile app interface design as it involves the creation of logos, text, style, fonts, brand illustrations, etc. Mobile app developers spend time finalizing these elements and chalking out how these elements will be used throughout the app journey.

5. Animations:

Illustrations and animated elements and effects can boost your app’s utility, attract users’ attention, and inspire them to keep using the app. To make your mobile app more engaging, you may also have to create additional graphic elements, that are priced separately. The use of illustrations and animations adds to the cost of your overall app designing process as these processes are quite time-consuming.

6. Mobile app complexity:

Whether you want to calculate the app UI design cost or the cost of mobile app development, it depends on the complexity levels of the app. The cost of developing a simple app is far less than a high complexity app as these apps have a maximum of 3 screens and do not use animations and interactive design elements. On the other hand, medium complexity apps and high complexity apps make use of several interactive elements and animations along with multiple screens. Since these apps demand a device-centric native UI design, the cost of developing these apps is usually high.

How much does it cost to design a mobile app?

The overall cost of mobile app design services may vary from each other based on a number of factors. It also depends on the country or region to which you decide to outsource your mobile app design project. When you compare rates of different regions, you will see that some outsourcing destinations have lower rates, and offer quality app designing services. For eg., the cost to design a mobile app in India (22-50$/hr) is less than that of Australia (78$/hr). This makes India a lucrative outsourcing destination for a variety of web and app development projects.

Giving an exact cost of app designing is not possible as the total cost depends on many factors mentioned above. However, the average cost for the services of app designers is close to $30-$40 an hour. If you decide to develop a simple application, the app design cost starts at $5,000 for one platform. If you want to add animations, illustrations, or custom design elements to your app, it will consequently increase the cost to design an app.

Taking an average design service rate of 40$ per hour, here’s the cost estimate:

Thus, an average cost to design an app is:

Simple app: 120-160 hours (40$ per hour)= $4800+

Medium complexity app: 320-640 hours (40$ per hour)= $12,800+

High complexity app: 1000+ hours (40$ per hour)= $40,000+

How to Optimize the App Design Cost

If you want to reduce your overall cost of mobile app design services, there are several proven methods, such as:

• Put forward your requirements carefully: If you do not have a clear picture of your app design in your mind, you will probably end up wasting a lot of developers’ time and ultimately your money unless you get the final design. Having a well-planned and clear strategy is a proven way to cut costs.
• Hire specialists from India: When you hire dedicated mobile app developers from India, you get affordable Android & iOS app development services. Without compromising on the quality of work, the work will cost you much less than outsourcing app designing services from other regions.
• Focus on the must-have features: The more features and functionalities you include, the more will be the cost of app designing. And thus, you should focus on the must-have features at first and then design a full-fledged application in phase two of the project.
• Use templates: Though using templates is not recommended if you want to develop a custom app or a high-end app. However, using app design templates can cut down app designing costs substantially. This is because using templates will have only minimal efforts are required from the designers’ end.

Looking for professional mobile app design services?

SunTec India has extensive experience of 20+ years in building mobile apps from all over the world. Hire dedicated mobile application developers from SunTec India who can help you achieve a high-performing and successful mobility solution, replete with intuitive interfaces, great design, innovative technologies, and advanced features.

With a user-centric approach to UI UX design, our app developers create appealing and responsive mobile interfaces, designed and developed with creative passion. As a leading mobile app development company in India, we follow the industry’s latest trends and design interactive user experiences after thorough research and analysis of customer interactions.

If you need any advice or are looking for a professional team to turn your app design idea into reality, write to us at info@suntecindia.com