Article Summary
An average fitness app would cost you from $10,000 to $150,000 at least. This estimate doesn’t take into account solutions with complex custom animation and supplementary technologies, such as AI and computer vision.
Fitness app development costs depend on the type of the application, its features, design complexity, integration with other components, deployment platform, the composition of the development team and their location, and the technical support you are planning to provide to your customers.
To reduce fitness app development costs, don’t skip the discovery phase, follow an incremental approach to development, automate testing as much as possible, and put your solution on the market as fast as you can to start collecting customer feedback and acting on it.
At-home fitness regime is the main fitness trend of 2022, according to GoodFirms. The organization conducted a survey to discover that 56% of the respondents work out at home and 40% of fitness clubs are tapping into hybrid workout models.
The fitness app market size is growing fast as an increasing number of sports industry leaders turn to fitness app development companies to enter the competition with their products. The global fitness market was valued at approximately $5,500 million in 2021 and it’s expected to catapult to over $25,450 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 29.46%.
We can attribute this rapid growth to two factors:
COVID-19. Since the pandemic, people have started to take their health seriously. They are keener on exercising and building immunity.
The increased popularity of wearables. Nowadays, there is a large variety of wearable devices on the market. They are easy to use and provide rather accurate readings on vital signs and other parameters.
Now you are probably convinced that there is a demand. But how profitable are such fitness solutions? If the app has all the necessary functionality arranged in a convenient way, and it looks appealing, it will be very profitable. Look how some of the more popular fitness apps are performing.
If you are interested in joining the fitness tech leaders above, you will need a mobile application. This article will help you estimate how much it costs to make a fitness app.
There are seven main factors that influence fitness app development costs:
This type of fitness application enables users to select their own exercise routine. Normally, workout regimens presented on the app are not customized but they offer useful information on each exercise, like which muscle group is activated and how many calories are burned. This helps users make informed decisions and select suitable exercises to include in their routines.
Some workout apps act like a fitness coach and present personalized workouts based on user parameters and desired results. One such example is MyCoach app which has a million downloads across 25 countries.
Such fitness apps cost $60,000 – $90,000.
A balanced diet is an essential part of staying fit. Nutrition software enables users to keep track of the food they consume throughout the day, count calories, and log microelements. One example is MyPlate Calorie Counter. Such applications can also propose a meal plan based on the user’s parameters and objectives (e.g., losing weight, building muscle, etc.).
They can adapt to the person’s current preferences—vegan, vegetarian, keto, intermittent fasting, etc.
Another type of diet app focuses on social networking, enabling users to connect with professional dietitians and share their recipes and success stories. One example is the Mealshare app developed by Estonia-based Perpetio.
Fitness diet app costs $20,000 – $80,000
These fitness solutions track your physical activities, such as the number of steps per day or running and cycling distance and speed. One example is Adidas Running by Runtastic. Activity monitoring applications often connect to wearable devices that can measure heart rate, blood pressure, and other health parameters.
Costs required to develop such fitness app: $40,000 – $125,000.
This set of apps contains yoga workouts, tutorials on how to get into different poses correctly, and offers guided meditation practices, etc. One example is the widely-used Daily Yoga app that contains over 50 workout plans and allows users to connect to a yoga community, share their experiences, and gain inspiration.
For meditation and mindfulness, users can try Headspace, which helps you relax and clear your head before going to sleep. This app has over 70 million downloads.
Costs of developing such fitness app: $10,000 – $70,000
Some apps are developed specifically for one fitness device vendor. They connect with the equipment and enhance its functionality. For instance, Perpetio built a fitness app that connects to treadmills of a specific brand. This solution not only tracks users’ activities on the treadmill but also allows them to communicate, share their performance metrics, and participate in different challenges.
The costs of this app type vary from $40,000 to $150,000.
How much your fitness app costs largely depend on its functionality. The more features you want to incorporate, the more time and money you will need to invest, but also the more valuable your app will become. Some basic features will take a few hours to implement, such as sharing on social media, while others can take days, like user registration. If a feature takes specialized skills to implement, it will affect the price even more.
Here is a list of core functionalities that are a must in almost every fitness software solution:
Registration and login. You might want to give users the option to signup using Google or any other account. In addition to regular user information, such as name and age, you will need to include fitness-specific fields, like weight and height. Also, ask for an email and a phone number to give several verification options. If users protect their accounts with a password, make the password recovery option readily available. Registration and login features will cost you around $4,000.
Notifications and reminders. This can include a notification on when to start exercising or when to switch to another exercise. If your app is connected to a smartwatch, you might redirect the notifications there. Users will find it more convenient to start a new set of reps when they feel a vibration on their wrist instead of looking at the phone screen. Setting up notifications and reminders will cost you around $1,200.
Settings. This feature allows users to customize their app’s appearance and functionality. So, the app needs to have default settings as well as giving an opportunity for users to tweak them to add a personal touch. Building the settings feature for your fitness app will cost you around $350.
Workout catalog with exercise videos that can be streamed live or available on demand. For this feature, you will pay around $2,000.
If you study your direct competitors, you will discover other useful features that you can incorporate into your solution. You could also identify some functionality that your rivals’ apps are missing and implement it to gain a competitive advantage.
You can consider the following advanced features for inspiration:
While you are building your product, you might opt for integrating third-party libraries, and interacting with payment gateways and web services. For instance, if you want to collect customer feedback, there is an existing code that will do the trick. This will decrease your fitness app’s development costs and reduce the time to market.
But this practice might open security vulnerabilities and you will incur subscription fees along the way.
You might also need to integrate your product with external devices, such as wearable sensors, or a camera, with existing platforms, like social media. For one of these integrations, you can pay from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on whether the device/protocol are standard or custom.
Your solution’s user interface’s complexity and uniqueness directly affect how much it costs to build this fitness app. If you simply want to make minor adjustments to an existing template, then your designer can get the work done in approximately 30 hours.
But if you are looking to build something creative, intuitive, and user-friendly that can set your brand apart from the competition, then user interface design will be a large segment of the development process and can consume well over 300 hours.
Your design complexity increases with the following:
The table below shows how changes in parameters increase design expenses.
|
|
Intermediate complexity $40,000 |
Complex design Over $60,000 |
---|---|---|---|
User Roles |
1 |
2 |
More than 2 |
Unique screens |
10 or less |
30-50 |
Over 70 |
Android or iOS |
Android or iOS |
Both Android and iOS |
Smartphones, TV, tablets, and other gadgets |
*Prices are approximate
Note that you need both attractive design and reasonable speed. Animation that takes too long to load will be more despised than appreciated.
If you are creating a mobile fitness app, there are two popular platforms — Android and iOS. If you choose to use native code to build two separate apps, this will increase your average fitness app costs, since there will be two code bases. But there are some steps that you will do only once. For instance, there will be one unified design and look-and-feel for your application on both platforms.
For instance, there will be one unified design and look-and-feel for your application on both platforms.
Unless your app is specific to one of the platforms, it’s a good idea to opt for cross-platform app development services that use technologies such as Flutter and Xamarin. With such technology, developers will create one source code which will be compiled into a native code of different platforms. This will minimize the time and effort needed to create both apps by around 40%. But this technology might not suit complex projects. Also, some argue that native solutions provide a better user experience.
For cross-platform development with gamification and complex graphics, you can use game engines, such as Unity or Unreal Engine.
Here are average hourly rates from Upwork for cross-platform, Android, and iOS app development services for comparison:
|
Android developer |
iOS developer |
Xamarin developer (cross platform) |
---|---|---|---|
Average hourly rate |
$25 – 85 |
$45 – 75 |
$25 – 50 |
To build your fitness app, you either assemble an in-house team of professionals or outsource the development to a dedicated team of professionals.
You can also combine both approaches by using an in-house team and outsourcing particular expertise that you can’t fill internally. For instance, you can use CTO as a service model.
An app development team must include at least one UI/UX designer, QA engineer, project manager, and of course, programmers who can code in a native or a cross-platform language. You can learn more about software development team structures and the role of every member on our blog.
|
|
The degree of commitment to the project |
---|---|---|
UI/UX designer |
$30 – 70 |
Full time at early stages, then in a supporting role for a few hours per week |
QA engineer |
$30-70 |
Full time |
Android/iOS developer |
$35 – 120 |
Full time |
Backend developer |
$35-120 |
Full time |
Product owner |
$60-150 |
5-10 hours/week |
Project manager |
$60-120 |
0.5 FTE |
Talent costs vary greatly based on their geographical location. Some countries have higher salary expectations than others. It can cost you almost three times as much to hire a US-based developer compared to a professional located in India. But if you recruit someone from a different country, communication issues might arise. You will need to make sure you are on the same page when it comes to working standards and ethics. Below is an example of how developers’ hourly rates vary from one country to another.
|
|
Western Europe |
Central Europe |
India |
---|---|---|---|---|
Developer’s hourly rates |
$75 – 150 |
$70 – 110 |
$30 – 75 |
$15 – 50 |
The expenditure doesn’t stop the moment you launch the fitness app. Think about how you will monitor performance, implement updates, and deliver customer support. As the app’s audience grows, you will need to ensure the performance doesn’t degrade. You might also want to include new features to keep surprising and engaging your clients.
But these new functionalities can create bugs and open security vulnerabilities, so you have to constantly test your solution.
If you relied on an in-house development team, then technical support will not be an issue. If you hired an external tech partner, then ideally, they should take over support and updates. If this is not possible, ask for detailed technical documentation that will support another party in taking over this duty. It is advisable to dedicate approximately 15-20% of your fitness app’s development costs to maintenance.
An established fitness mobile app vendor turned to ITRex for Android application development services. The company wanted to build an Android alternative to its iOS activity tracking solution. Our team was only involved in the development phase. We built an app that allows users to track their activity, set goals, monitor progress, and share their achievements with community members.
Below are the most prominent features of the app:
GPS tracking to monitor user location
Search function to find and join relevant communities
An analytical component that can process user location and activity data
Strava API for fetching user activities
Project duration: 2.5 – 3 months
Development costs: $20,000 – $25,000
Team composition: one developer
App development phases: development
Android tech stack:
Programming language |
Kotlin |
---|---|
Android libraries/frameworks |
Android SDK, Retrofit, RxKotlin, Google Play Services, Custom View, Fabric, Firebase, Appflyer, Glide, Koin, Branch, SDK generated by API Gateway |
AWS |
Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Secure Endpoints |
Testing tools |
Espresso, Mockito, JUnit |
Tools |
Android Studio, Zeplin, Jira, Bitbucket |
A US-based startup hired ITRex to develop a comprehensive fitness app for Android and iOS platforms that would act like a real-life coach. The client expected this solution to compose personalized training plans, recommend healthy diet options, track achievements, give access to educational content, and more.
Project duration: 10 – 12 months
Development costs: $300,000 – $450,000
Team composition: iOS developer, Android developer, front-end developer, back-end developer, QA engineer, DevOps, business analyst, project manager.
App development phases: development
Front-end programming |
Typescript, React, redux, redux-toolkit, styled-components, material-ui, CRA, react-admin |
---|---|
Back-end programming |
PHP, Laravel |
iOS app |
Swift 5.0, UIKit + AutoLayout, Lottie, Alamofire, Stripe SDK |
Android app |
Kotlin 1.4, RxJava, Dagger, Retrofit, Stripe SDK |
Databases |
MySQL |
Cloud storage options |
AWS |
Payments Gateways |
Native In-app purchases from Apple and Google |
This is an example of how a fitness app can be a part of a comprehensive complex project that includes machine learning (ML), voice control, computer vision, sensors, and a physical mirror. Here, a fitness app enables users to control the mirror and to interact with other community members.
A North American startup wanted to build a mirror that people can use to exercise at home under the supervision of a virtual coach that will monitor their form, offer custom workout plans, and encourage them to perform to the best of their abilities. Here are the main components of this project:
The companion app’s key features include:
Project duration: 4.5 months
Development costs: $130,000 – $160,000
Team composition: three developers
App development phases: development
Technology used: Native iOS development, SWIFT, communication protocols: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Here are six steps that you can follow to conceptualize and build a successful fitness solution. Allocating enough time to each phase will help you reduce the overall fitness app development costs.
This phase will help you understand the needs of your audience and the features that they expect such an app to offer. When thinking about your potential customers, be as specific as possible. Try to determine all relevant parameters, such as their age, goals, lifestyle, what motivates and inspires them, etc. You might discover some unexpected demands. For instance, market research can reveal that people would use your app on their phones during the day but switch to a TV in the evening. You will also see what your competitors supply and where they are lacking.
Market research should help you answer the following questions:
One tip is to study user reviews on App Store and Google Play, and compare competitors’ prices and feature sets. Another way is to talk to as many people as possible about your vision. Individuals who show the most interest are your potential early adopters. Listen to them carefully and take notes of their expectations.
Phase duration: 20 – 40 hours
During the product discovery stage, discuss your fitness app internally with designers and developers. Describe your general idea for the application and the information you acquired during the previous phase. Now is the time to formalize and structure your project. Together with your team, you can go through the following steps:
Even though this phase might seem tedious and time-consuming, it will cut down your fitness app building costs as you progress to the design and development stages.
Phase duration: 40 – 80 hours
You can complete this phase in three steps:
Phase duration: 80 – 160 hours
During this phase, developers will build the actual app. They will connect the app to the back end and integrate it with all the other components, like payment gateways and social media platforms. While building the solution, your team can answer the following questions:
To minimize fitness app development costs and time to market, you can start by creating a minimum viable product (MVP), which is limited to the core functionality. You can launch the MVP and monitor how users interact with it, what they dislike, and what is missing, so you can improve the product gradually. If the MVP performs well on the market, you can use its success to negotiate additional funds with investors.
Phase duration: 200 hours – as long as it takes
During this phase, quality assurance engineers test the mobile application for bugs and make sure it’s compliant with requirement specifications and with the country’s regulations. You can also focus on reviewing and refactoring the code to increase speed and stability.
Phase duration: 50 hours – as long as it takes
When the fitness solution is ready, you are likely to publish it on the App Store and/or Google Play and let users download it from there. In the meantime, don’t sit idle. Work on spreading the word about your application. Users can’t download it if they don’t know it exists. Here are a few tactics that can help you promote your product:
And your work doesn’t stop here. You can still monitor user feedback and app usage stats and make improvements so that your app remains relevant and exciting.
This phase is a continuous process.
So, how much does it cost to make a fitness app? Anywhere from $10,000 for basic functionality and modest design, to $150,000 for a comprehensive feature set. And this is just a price for an average app. If you want to incorporate custom animation and innovative technologies, such as AI, the costs will grow exponentially.
You can get a more precise estimate after reviewing all the factors presented in this article and tailoring them to your case. Don’t forget to include a buffer for costs you will incur along the way. For example, to publish your fitness app on the app store, you will need to pay fees. Google Play charges a one-time $25 fee while Apple Store will collect $99 annually. These platforms also take commissions for each app purchase.
And keep in mind that app development is a continuous expenditure. After releasing your product, you will still have to fix bugs, incorporate updates and new features, and provide customer support.
Do you want to build a fitness app that is popular and profitable? Get in touch! ITRex team will assist you with the discovery, design, and development phases. We can also perform a technical audit to improve your existing app.