Cross-platform app development cost
A cross-platform app serving both Android and iOS costs $55,000 to $115,000 for a focused build, and $150,000 to $340,000 for a production product with real integrations. The decision is not really about money: one codebase costs roughly a quarter more than a single native app and a little over half of two, but it constrains what you can build. This page prices both routes so the trade is explicit.
Cross-platform estimate
What a cross-platform app costs depends on your scope
This page sets out what the platform itself demands: 26 device configurations worth testing, App Store & Google Play review, and the surfaces you have to build. Put your own scope through the calculator and it returns the figures.
What makes Cross-platform cost what it does
Three things, and only the first is the one people estimate: building the interface, testing the device matrix, and getting it distributed.
Surface cost
1.24x
0.72x as an additional surface
An additional surface costs well under the first because product logic, API contracts, design and test scenarios are already paid for. Only the platform-specific implementation repeats.
Flutter / Dart · React Native / TypeScript · Expo
Device & OS matrix
26configs
6 OS versions · 72 QA hrs
You inherit both platforms’ matrices. The framework removes duplicated implementation, not duplicated testing — every screen still has to be verified on both, and framework-level rendering differences are their own defect class.
Distribution
App Store & Google Play
1–7 day review · 15–30% on digital · $124/yr
- Two stores, two sets of policies, two review processes, two sets of metadata — the codebase is shared, the distribution is not.
- Framework upgrades occasionally break platform builds independently, so a release can be blocked on one store and fine on the other.
Real constraints
- Anything touching hardware, background execution or platform-specific UI needs a native module, written twice, in a language your framework developers may not know.
- You are one dependency layer further from the OS, so new platform features arrive late and framework upgrades are recurring, non-optional work.
- Highly custom animation and gesture work tends to cost more here than native, not less.
Genuine strengths
- One codebase for both mobile platforms at roughly 24% over a single native app, versus about 170% for two native builds.
- One team, one backlog, one release cadence — often a bigger practical saving than the hours.
- Genuinely good fit for content-driven, forms-driven and catalogue-driven products, which is most business software.
Choose something else when
- The product is the interface: high-performance graphics, camera pipelines, audio processing or intricate custom gestures.
- You need deep, reliable background behaviour — the escape hatches cost more than they save.
- Only one mobile platform is in scope, where native is simply cheaper.
What you are actually paying for
Three costs specific to this platform and independent of what the app does. The calculator prices them against your own scope.
The device matrix
26
configurations worth testing
You inherit both platforms’ matrices. The framework removes duplicated implementation, not duplicated testing — every screen still has to be verified on both, and framework-level rendering differences are their own defect class.
Distribution
1–7
days of review, per release
Two stores, two sets of policies, two review processes, two sets of metadata — the codebase is shared, the distribution is not.
Surfaces
1.24x
0.72x as an additional surface
A second surface never costs what the first did — the backend, data model, product logic and test scenarios are already paid for.
Cross-platform app cost by industry
The same platform costs different amounts depending on who you serve — compliance, integrations and roles all change. These pages price each pairing.
Price your Cross-platform app
This platform is already fixed. Answer the rest and the estimate appears below.
Calculator
Cross-platform app estimate
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Cross-platform cost, answered
How much does cross-platform actually save?
In this model a single native app is the baseline. Two native apps cost about 1.7× that, because the second platform reuses the product thinking, API and design but repeats the implementation and its own test matrix. One cross-platform codebase costs about 1.24× the baseline plus fixed bridge hours. So against two native builds you save roughly 25–30% of client engineering — a real saving, but smaller than the "half price, one codebase" pitch suggests, because testing does not halve.
Flutter or React Native?
Flutter renders its own widgets, so the UI is highly consistent across platforms and animation-heavy interfaces behave predictably; the cost is that nothing looks natively platform-idiomatic unless you make it. React Native uses native components and shares language and often code with a web front end, which matters a great deal if you already have a React team. For a greenfield mobile-only product, Flutter is usually the more predictable build. For a team already writing TypeScript, React Native is usually the cheaper hire.
When is cross-platform the wrong choice?
When the interface is the product. Games, camera and video pipelines, audio processing, AR and intricate custom gestures all fight the framework, and the native modules you end up writing cost more than the duplication you avoided. Also avoid it when you need reliable background execution, and when only one platform is genuinely in scope — a single native app is cheaper than a cross-platform app targeting one platform.
Other platforms
Price your cross-platform app
Every control on one page, a live spec sheet beside it, and nothing behind a form.