AI Calculator

Seasoned Founders
Can't Believe
This is AI-Generated Plan

  • Get Custom Generated Tech Plan in Your Inbox in Just 3 Minutes.

Here’s what you’ll get:

  • ✅ Budget Breakdown
  • ✅ Project Timeline
  • ✅ Feature List
  • ✅ Design (via DALLE-3)
  • ✅ Tech Stack
  • ✅ Required Team Composition
  • ✅ Compliance

Choose Primary Industry of your Product

SaaS

FinTech

HealthTech

EdTech

E-commerce

AI

TravelTech

PropTech

LegalTech

InsurTech

Wellness

Blockchain

Marketplace

Social networking

Choose Where You Want To Access Your App

Web App

iOS App

Android App

Desktop

IoT

Julia Steiner

Founder, Beauty Startup
Creating a wellness app felt ambitious, but Ptolemay’s cost calculator clarified everything. In just 20 minutes, I tested different setups—AI skin analysis, exercise tracking, Android vs. iOS—and finally got a realistic MVP plan for my budget.

Florian Müller

CEO, MedTech
The calculator gave me a clear picture of what AI diagnostics would involve—the data setup, regular model updates, and team roles like an AI engineer to manage it all. Working with AI in healthcare, this tool is invaluable.

Dorian Ellison

Founder and Product Strategist
Ptolemay’s app cost calculator opened my eyes. It didn’t just give a cost estimate—it pointed out things I hadn’t even thought about, like how offline access would affect storage costs or why I’d need a data specialist for personalization.

Aisha Miles

Product Lead at TravelLite
We were pivoting and needed quick insights on new feature costs. The estimate was spot-on and saved us from overbuilding. Stayed lean and hit our milestones.

Carlos Jones

Co-Founder of FitBuddy
As a non-tech founder, dev costs were a black box. The calculator demystified everything. Knowing my burn rate upfront helped me plan my runway better and avoid a cash crunch.

Sofia Jhonson

CEO of GreenByte
Pitching to VCs without concrete numbers was a nightmare. This tool hooked me up with accurate estimates that made my pitch deck legit. Secured meetings with two investors the next week.

Choose Product Features

These are default features, but you can add your own below (Project Description Field). Your final product will include unique features tailored to your app.

*

Please, pay attention to this block. It will GREATLY affect final document (including budget & timeline)

  • Use your elevator pitch
  • Clearly address Problem, Solution, Product
  • No need to be super detailed, but more details = more precise estimation
  • If you are at the very beginning, just send a competitor's link and describe how you want to differenciate

Your document is almost ready! Just fill in your details below, and we'll send it your way

App Cost Calculator FAQ

The calculator runs on GPT-4o-mini and GPT-4o (for larger scopes) and uses DALLE-3 for quick design estimates. These models are trained on data from 10 000+ real projects, so numbers match actual market rates and complexity.

Accuracy depends on the details you provide, but our tool uses project data from 10,685 completed apps (Ptolemay partners & Upwork, 2025). With good input, your estimate is usually within 5–10% of what you’d pay in a real contract. AI helps cut estimation errors by up to 95% compared to manual guesswork.

You can use the results to:

  • Set a realistic budget and avoid hidden costs
  • Support your investor pitch with clear numbers
  • Understand which team roles you’ll need and what you’ll spend
  • Prioritize MVP features and plan future updates
  • Move faster — get a number in minutes, not weeks
The calculator is fully automated. Your project details are never stored or shared unless you choose to contact our team. And remember, execution matters more than the idea itself — your app’s success depends on marketing, team, and business model, not just the concept.

It provides a full feature breakdown and requirements for your Scope of Work, suggests the best tech stack (like Flutter or Node.js), maps out phased development and hiring needs, and splits costs and timelines by feature and development stage. You get a ready blueprint for your team or agency — not just a rough number.

A typical mobile app in 2025 costs $32,000 to $148,000, depending on complexity and features. Most MVPs start near $38,000, while advanced or AI-powered apps can exceed $180,000.

App cost = development hours × hourly rate (plus ~15% for project management and QA). Key factors: feature set, backend, integrations, developer rates ($20–$150/hr).

App typeTypical budgetTimeline
Simple MVP$32k–$60k2–3 mo
Mid-level app$60k–$120k4–5 mo
Complex/AI-heavy$120k–$300k+6+ mo

(Based on Statista, Apr 2025.)

App development cost is calculated as: total hours × hourly rate + 10–20% for project management. For a typical MVP, expect $20,000–$60,000; complex apps cost more. Main factors: features, hourly rate, and extra costs like testing.

A lean mobile MVP usually takes 9–11 weeks from wireframes to app store launch. A mid-level app with payments or chat features needs about 16–22 weeks, while advanced AI or real-time apps require 24–30 weeks.

This app build timeline is based on analysis of 1,086 real projects (Ptolemay & partners, 2025).

Typical development timeline:

  • MVP (≤10 screens): 280–420 dev hours → 9–11 weeks
  • Standard app (e.g., payments, chat): 550–900 hours → 16–22 weeks
  • Complex/AI app: 1,200+ hours → 24–30 weeks

To estimate your app’s timeline, divide total dev hours by your team’s weekly capacity (e.g., 5 devs × 40 hours). Parallel design and QA can shorten delivery by 2–3 weeks.

(Sources: Statista Dev Survey 2025)

Most founders in 2025 raise about $25,000 for a lean MVP, or $90,000 for a payment-ready app. This covers design, cloud, QA, and publishing fees.

Cost Item (12 months)Minimum, $Median, $
Design + Development15,00070,000
Cloud / CDN / Push8003,500
PM & QA2,7009,000
App/Play Store Fee124124
Total18,62482,624

Source: Statista 2025.

The main app development cost factors are:

  1. Backend & integrations (30–40%)
  2. Frontend & UX design (20–25%)
  3. Project management & QA (15–20%)
  4. App maintenance & updates (10–15%)
  5. Cloud hosting & APIs (5–10%)
  6. App store fees (<1%)

This app price breakdown is based on Ptolemay + partners’ 2025 project data and Statista’s global mobile app report.

Expect 15–20% of the build budget per year: that’s $5,000–$15,000 for a lean MVP and $30,000–$80,000 for a payment-ready or AI app. The spend breaks down to hosting ≈35%, updates ≈30%, monitoring ≈15%, bug-fix & support ≈20%.

In 2025, AI apps cost $30,000 to $150,000, depending on complexity. Expect $30–60K to integrate GPT-4o or Vision-API, $60–120K for advanced fine-tuning, and $120K+ to train private models. Main price drivers: AI API usage, data processing, and GPU cloud fees.

Freelance: junior $25–50/h, middle $60–120/h, senior $100–180/h.

Agency squad (2–3 devs + PM): $90–150/h ($15–25K/month).

US — top rates, Eastern Europe –30%, South Asia –50%.

MVP build (400 h): $28–50K.

Yes. You can launch a no-code MVP for $0–1,000 using Glide or Bubble. Store fees: Google Play $25, App Store $99/year. Expect 40–80 hours of DIY work; free plans handle up to 1,000 users, upgrades start at $15–50/month.

Switch once one of these four triggers appears: (1) performance lags at 10k+ monthly users, (2) must-have features can’t be built or integrated, (3) monthly no-code costs hit $1,000+, or (4) compliance requires on-prem or SOC 2.

Top startups migrate 2–3 months before a funding round—giving time to pass technical due diligence.

Flutter leads 2025 builds: 42 % of new apps and 48 % of MVPs (Statista). It delivers iOS + Android 18 % faster and logs 30 % fewer crashes than React Native across 486 launches, while hourly Flutter rates are ≈ 20 % lower on Upwork. Use React Native for JS stacks, Swift/Kotlin for sensor-heavy natives.
Mobile games lead gross app revenue in 2025 ($55B H1), but the most profitable are subscription-based finance and wellness apps—$4.8 ARPU/month, 42% net margin, 47% retention—almost double mobile-game profit. Social/video apps (TikTok, YouTube) and B2B/hybrid models rank between the two. (SensorTower)

Yes — but only a minority of apps hit profit. Median ad-driven Android ARPU is $0.32/month; break-even for a $15K MVP is ≈ 90K installs or 11 months. The OS’s 2.2× larger audience yields 18% more gross than iOS, but most apps stall below $500/month.

Yes — you can build and test iOS apps for free with Xcode and a regular Apple ID. TestFlight allows free private distribution to up to 100 users (each build valid 90 days). To publish on the App Store, you need a paid Apple Developer license ($99/year, waived for nonprofits, schools, and eligible US small businesses).

If you don’t own a Mac, budget $20–40/month for a Mac-in-cloud rental. There’s no 100% free way to publish to the App Store.

Start with a one-page product goal, then draft a five-part technical spec: 1) user stories, 2) prioritized feature list, 3) C4 architecture diagram, 4) API/data models, 5) sprint plan with acceptance tests. Teams that include a C4 diagram and test matrix get builds approved ≈3 days faster.