How Much Does an iPhone App Cost? Real Prices and Fees

How much does an iOS app cost? It depends on who builds it. If you build the app yourself, the Apple Developer account costs $99 a year to publish, unless you qualify for a fee waiver. Your other costs depend on your project, and the main tools (Expo, Supabase, RevenueCat, PostHog, Sentry) all have free plans to get you started. If you hire someone to build it, the cost of an iPhone app is mostly paid developer time: a day rate multiplied by a number of days, which depends on the scope.

In other words, when two answers to "how much does an app cost" are far apart, the tools are almost never the reason. The gap comes from labor, and from who pays for it. This guide covers the mandatory fees, the tools and their free tiers, what really drives up the cost of developing an iOS app, and the costs almost nobody mentions. I publish my own iOS apps (Solys and TradaZen are on the App Store) with exactly the stack described here.

How much does an iOS app cost if you build it yourself?

The publishing account: $99 a year at Apple's listed price

To publish on the App Store, you need to be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program. Apple lists it at 99 USD per membership year, and the price may be shown in your local currency when you enroll. This account gives you access to App Store Connect and TestFlight. The Apple Developer Enterprise Program doesn't, because it's meant for internal apps only.

Good news: you don't need to pay to start coding. A free Apple account already lets you test on your own device with Xcode, with some limits (3 devices max, profiles valid for 7 days, according to Apple's comparison). The enrollment steps and pitfalls are in Apple developer account: price and enrollment.

The tools: free while your app is small

Here are the tools I use on my apps, with their free tier as listed on their official pages on September 23, 2026. These plans change, so check them before you get started. The path that costs nothing up front is covered in building an app for free.

• Expo and EAS (building and submitting to Apple): the free plan includes 15 iOS builds per month and over-the-air updates for 1,000 monthly active users. The Starter plan is listed at $19 a month, plus extra usage.
• Supabase (database, accounts): the free plan is $0 a month, with a 500 MB database and 50,000 monthly active users. Heads up: free projects get paused after one week of inactivity. The Pro plan starts at $25 a month.
• RevenueCat (subscriptions): free up to $2,500 in tracked revenue per month, then 1% of what's tracked.
• PostHog (usage analytics): the free plan includes 1 million events per month.
• Sentry (crash tracking): the Developer plan is free, limited to 5,000 errors per month and one user.

So until your app finds its audience, your tools bill can stay at zero. It can go up with usage, even if your users don't pay. Check your quotas and what each service costs before you open the app to a lot of people.

Hardware: Mac optional, iPhone recommended

With Swift and Xcode, you need a Mac. With React Native and Expo, builds run on Macs hosted by Expo, so you can publish an iOS app without a Mac. That said, an iPhone is still strongly recommended to test the app in real conditions. The page React Native and Expo for a mobile app explains why this is the stack I recommend to beginners.

Apple's commission, a cost on every sale

It's not an upfront fee, but it's a real cost. Apple takes a commission on purchases made through the App Store: 15% if you're enrolled in the Small Business Program (developers under $1 million in proceeds in the previous calendar year, and new developers), and 30% at the standard rate. Enrolling in the program isn't automatic. The full math, including VAT, is in subscription or one-time purchase for an iOS app.

The real cost: your time

The biggest expense never shows up on an invoice: the weeks you spend learning, building, fixing Apple rejections and starting over. AI assistants like Claude or Cursor speed up writing the code, but not checking it. I covered what they miss in building an iOS app with AI.

How much does it cost to hire someone to develop an iOS app?

If you hire an agency or a freelancer to build your app, you're paying for time. Nobody can give you a serious number without a defined scope, so be wary of anyone who gives you one over the phone. What you can do is understand the three ways of billing, because they decide who carries the risk.

Time and materials (day rate). You pay a day rate multiplied by the number of days. If the project slips, your budget absorbs it: a project estimated at 40 days that takes 70 means thirty days nobody signed off on.

Subscription. A monthly fee for a stream of requests. It makes sense for ongoing maintenance, less so for building an app that has a start and an end: the meter keeps running as long as the project lasts.

Fixed price. A defined scope, a price announced before work starts. The risk shifts to the provider, which requires them to really know what they're doing.

Either way, get these in writing: the exact scope, who owns the Apple account and the code, what happens if Apple rejects the app, and what the follow-up work costs. If you're torn between building it yourself and hiring someone, the article hiring someone to develop your app asks the right questions.

What really drives up the cost of an iOS app?

Whether you build it yourself or not, the number of screens is the least reliable indicator. Here's what actually weighs in, in time as much as in money.

1. The backend. An app that lives entirely on the phone is structurally cheaper than one with accounts, sync across devices and notifications. As soon as there's a server, you've got authentication, access rules and network failure handling.

2. Subscriptions. A paywall isn't a screen, it's a whole project: products configured in App Store Connect, a free trial, purchase restoration, synced entitlements, and compliance with Apple's rules. An app that collects payments badly is a free app with expenses. The topic is covered on the page iOS in-app subscriptions.

3. AI features. Analyzing a photo or generating text is quick to code, but every use costs a paid call. Measure the unit cost before you write the code, or your margin goes into API bills.

4. Technical unknowns. A feature few apps offer deserves a prototype before any commitment. Making an alarm ring reliably on iPhone, for Solys, took that kind of exploration before anything else.

5. The level of polish. Animations, haptic feedback, well-designed empty states, handling every error: that's what separates an app people keep from an app they delete. It's not a luxury, it's retention.

The costs almost nobody mentions

• Apple rejections. Every rejection restarts a review cycle. I've had them on three apps, and each one pushed back a launch. The most common causes are in why Apple rejects an app.
• The App Store listing. Screenshots, description, promotional text, keywords, translations: it's real work, and it's what decides whether people download.
• Services that grow with usage. Database, storage, emails, AI calls.
• What comes next. A published app isn't finished. Plan time for the version that responds to your first users.

An app's cost doesn't stop on launch day. It shifts: less building, more measuring and adjusting.

Sample budget: separate launch costs from usage costs

This scenario is made up. It's here to help you build your own calculation, not to give you the average price of an app. Say you already own a computer and an iPhone, the app runs locally, and you stay within Expo's free quotas. Your cash budget starts with the Apple membership at the price charged in your country. Add your AI tool if you use one, plus any project-specific expenses. Count your time separately.

For an app that calls a paid API, do a second calculation: active users × paid actions per user × cost per action. For example, assuming 200 users, 15 analyses each and €0.02 per analysis, the cost would be €60 a month. These are practice numbers, not a provider's pricing. At 2,000 users with the same usage, this line would hit €600, whether those users subscribe or not.

So plan three separate buckets:

• Launch: Apple membership, any missing hardware, optional coaching or contracted work, first Apple Search Ads campaigns.
• Fixed running costs: tool subscriptions and minimum tiers of the services you choose.
• Usage: APIs, storage, emails, quota overages and sales-related costs.

Download the fill-in budget template (.csv). It opens in Numbers, Excel or any spreadsheet app. Use a single currency so you can compare line items, and keep the link to each price you checked. To estimate incoming money separately, see how to calculate an app's revenue.

How do you lower the cost of your first app?

The most powerful lever is in your hands: cut down the first version. A v1 that does one thing remarkably well costs far less than a v1 that does everything so-so, and it ships early enough for real users to tell you where to put your next effort. The page iOS app MVP explains how to scope it.

Then:

1. Stay on free tiers until you have users.
2. Only pay the $99 when you're ready to test with TestFlight or publish.
3. Set up payments before launch, so the app can cover its own costs from the very first subscribers.
4. Use AI to write, not to validate: check every screen on a real iPhone.

The order to work in is laid out in the steps to build an app.

Building your own app

If you want to build your first iOS app yourself rather than hire someone, I've put together the starter code from my apps and a four-step path in the iOS Kit, to follow at your own pace.

You don't need it to get started: the prices and links in this guide are enough to estimate your budget.

To see the whole path when you want to launch your mobile app yourself with Claude Code, the homepage sums it up step by step.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an iPhone app cost?

If you build the app yourself, the Apple Developer account costs $99 a year to publish, unless you qualify for a fee waiver. Your other costs depend on your project, and the main tools have free plans to get you started.

If you hire someone to build it, you're mostly paying for developer time: a day rate multiplied by a number of days, which depends on the scope. Nobody can give you a serious number without a defined scope.

Do you have to pay Apple's $99 before you start coding?

No. With a free Apple account, you can already test on your device with Xcode, with some limits: 3 devices max and profiles valid for 7 days. The paid account, at $99 a year, is for publishing and gives you access to App Store Connect and TestFlight. Only pay for it when you want to test with TestFlight or publish.

Which tools are free for building an iOS app?

Expo, Supabase, RevenueCat, PostHog and Sentry all have a free plan to get started, each with its own limits. For example, Expo includes 15 iOS builds per month, and RevenueCat is free up to $2,500 in tracked revenue per month, then takes 1% of what's tracked. These tiers were listed as of September 23, 2026 and they change, so check them before you get started.

What commission does Apple take on app sales?

Apple takes a commission on purchases made through the App Store: 15% if you're enrolled in the Small Business Program, 30% at the standard rate. The program covers developers under $1 million in proceeds in the previous calendar year, and new developers. Enrollment isn't automatic.

How does a contractor bill for app development?

There are three ways: time and materials, subscription or fixed price. With time and materials, you pay a day rate multiplied by the number of days, and any overrun lands on your budget. With a subscription, you pay a monthly fee for a stream of requests. With a fixed price, the scope is defined, the price is announced before work starts, and the risk shifts to the provider.

Is building an app profitable?

It depends on two calculations you do separately: what the app costs and what it brings in. On the cost side, plan three buckets: launch, fixed running costs and usage. Your tools bill can go up with usage, even if your users don't pay. For incoming money, use how to calculate an app's revenue.