Healthcare App Development Cost: From Concept to Launch in 2025

Are you planning to launch a mHealth application for your unique concept? Driven by convenience and offering immediate services, these healthcare applications are gaining popularity. From health and wellness to remote monitoring solutions, there are ample ideas that are being used by the end users.

At least 43% of the population used health apps in the United States in 2024. But, the grand idea may end up eating into your budget if you have not planned the execution well. That’s why knowing the factors influencing the costs and drawing proper estimates is an important part of planning.

We have created this guide to help you identify the factors impact healthcare app development cost. By the end of this article, you should have a clear understanding of the budget for your app idea.

The Factors Influencing Healthcare App Development Cost

What are all the things you plan for when developing a healthcare application? The technology stack, features, workflow structure, scope, integrations and backend development. All these factors will in turn impact the budget estimate for the application.

We will look at each factor individually and in-depth to understand how it influences your estimates.

#1. The App Features

Picture this- you are building a custom car that matches your speed and aesthetic needs. Your car’s engine costs a grand while the door paint may cost few more dollars. When estimating, you will consider all the aspects you will be adding.

Similarly, the features you add to build the application will drive the development costs. Each feature will take significant time, resources and expertise. These will ultimately translate into the cost.

Here is a table that mentions the feature-wise cost breakup.

You can determine the scope of your application once you have identified the cost of developing these features. It can help you finalize the goals, phases and budget for the application. You can build a financially feasible product by using this factor.

#2. Complexity of the Application

When you pick a basic car from the showroom with no extra accessories, it will cost you less. As you accessorize your car, you will notice an increase in the overall costs.

The same thing happens with your application. You pay fewer dollars to get a basic application that offers simple features. For example, the simplest application will comprise features like medication reminders.

As you upgrade the application with features like payment or wearable integration and notifications, you increase its development cost. AI and other technologies increase the app complexities.

Your app’s complexity depends on the integration and scalability requirements posed by the application. It is equally important to ensure you meet the HIPAA and GDPR guidelines to reduce the data risks and other vulnerabilities.

#3. UI/UX Design

You must work on a user-centric design to improve interactions and engagement. Your users are diverse, varying from tech-savvy patients to elderly individuals who are slowly catching up with tech. You must keep this in mind when planning the interface design.

The key components of your design include researching the user, creating wireframes and planning the visual design. You must also design for accessibility and responsive abilities to enable better participation.

The animations, user testing and total devices can influence the total cost of your UI/UX design.

#4. Technology Stack

Choosing an appropriate technology stack can ensure your app is scalable, high-performing and low-cost. You must look into the tools, frameworks and programming languages you need to use to calculate the total budget.

It is crucial to select the stack that can lower the budget and timeline without compromising the quality and performance of the application.

You can choose native application development, which can increase the budget by 30-50%. This is major because you need to hire separate developers and plan different codebases for the application development.

Cross-platform is relatively cheaper as you can create a single codebase with same development team for different platforms.

While planning the technology stack, you should also consider the database requirements, API integration needs and the backend of the application.

Each addition to the tech stack will increase the cost. So, it is crucial you plan the technologies carefully.

#5. Third-party Integrations

Adding a simple device like a Kindle Firestick could extend the abilities of your television. Similarly, integrations allow you to extend the ability of your application.

You can integrate the APIs and add functionality instead of building it from the scratch. This would save time and enable elevated features for your solution without increasing hiring costs.

Each integration can increase your app’s complexity. In some cases, you may need ensure compliance with HIPAA and other standards for the perfect integration. These aspects an increase the cost of development.

For instance, an EHR integration with HIPAA and HL7 compliance can cost anywhere between $5,000 to $20,000. This depends on your EHR provider and the volume of data you are handling.

Similarly, every integration cost will depend on the provider, compliances and specific integration requirements.

#6. Backend Development

The backend of your application must be strong, and secure. It handles interactions, and the database. Basically, your backend is responsible for the heavylifting in your application. That’s why you need a reliable and fast backend solution.

There are several factors that influence the backend costs, including the technology and database design. In case you want to develop a scalable solution, you might incur extra expenses. You must calculate the individual expenditure for database setup, API development and user authentication plus security in the application to know the final development cost.

#7. Security and Compliance

It is particularly important for your healthcare application to be secure. You must ensure it follows the regulations and compliances dictated by the industry as well.

By implementing the strict security measures and ensuring compliance, you can protect the user’s information and build credibility.

There are sizeable costs included in compliance and security. You must pay for data encryption, user authentication and access control.

We have derived a complete breakdown of the costs that apply in securing your healthcare application.

#8. Development Timeline and Phases

The cost of healthcare app development varies according to the development phases. It also depends on the timeline, which is impacted by the complexity of the application, features and compliance needs.

You must identify the time taken for each phase, the individual requirements for the phase and work on the cost. For instance, the planning stage can take up to 4 weeks. Now, find the total resources you need for the phase, and the work structure.

All these details will help finalize the cost for that phase. You must use the same principle while outlining the cost for all phases.

Once you have done this exercise, you will get the total timeline and cost of healthcare app development.

You can implement an agile methodology and iterative development to ensure you are on track with app development.

Average Cost to Develop Healthcare Apps

The average healthcare app development cost is between $40,000 and $500,000. We will give you a detailed breakdown of the cost according to the complexity, app type and location of the developer.

Cost Breakdown by Complexity

Cost Breakdown by App Type

Here is a detailed breakdown of the app development cost according to the type of solution you plan to develop.

Region-wise Cost Breakdown

Custom Healthcare App Development: Cost and Benefits

Sometimes you need to build unique and custom applications tailored to meet your business/user requirements. Off-the-shelf solutions may not cater to your business goals or the specific regulation that you need to implement. That’s where custom applications can help you.

Let’s look at the reasons to choose custom healthcare app development and its cost implications.

Why Choose Custom Healthcare App Development?

Here’s why you must choose to build a healthcare mobile application for your idea.

1. Personalized to Needs: You design applications that are specifically suited to your healthcare organization or user base needs. As it meets their end goals, you will notice an increase in app usage.
2. Improves Efficiency: With these solutions, you can enhance patient management and streamline the workflows. You will notice a more efficient organization with these applications.
3. Regulatory Compliances: You can adhere to strict HIPAA, GDPR and HITECH guidelines with these applications, which enhance the legal compliance and data security.
4. Improves Scalability: It helps accommodate new features and users without compromising the quality.
5. Competitive Edge: Offers diverse features and functionality, matching your unique requirements, to deliver a competitive edge.

Factors Influencing Custom Healthcare App Development Cost

Here are all the factors that impact the cost of custom healthcare app development:

#1. App Complexity

You will spend less when planning a simple application covering features like reminders and appointment booking. However, if you are building an application with real-time monitoring, your costs will increase. The development time and expenses will increase as you add more features or complexities to your application.

#2. Compliance and Security

Your healthcare application must adhere to HIPAA, GDPR and HITECH compliances. You must check if your team has introduced features like data encryption and secure APIs for maximum security.

Security and compliance is a must to improve the credibility of the application. However, it can increase the overall cost of development, as you need experts on the team. Additionally, you should include the cost of conducting regular audits to get clear estimates.

#3. Third-Party Integrations

When you integrate your application with EHR and wearable, you elevate its functionality. However, when you integrate complex functionality like payments or wearables, you will add to the budget.

You may need custom APIs, increased testing or maintenance to ensure the app engages with the user. All this will automatically impact the overall development cost.

#4. Selection of Technology Stack

Along with the technology stack, you need to think developers to estimate the cost of development. For instance, if you need AI and you have specialists in North America region, you will need to calculate the hourly rates for the specialists. Additionally, you need to calculate the cost of frameworks and technologies for AI.

Once you have a detailed costing of infrastructure and specialists, you can determine the actual budget. This is why the technology stack is an important factor for custom app development budget.

Healthcare App Development –Team Acquisition Costs

Hiring a good team for your healthcare application development is crucial. You must have the right resources to execute your plan and translate it into a successful application.

Hiring costs are dependent on the technology you have selected, the timeline and the development team’s location. Here is a region-wise and phase-wise breakup of the cost of building healthcare applications.

Cost Estimator for Healthcare App Development

The cost estimators can help identify the healthcare application development cost. You can check how much it will cost when you add or delete a few features.

For instance, add payment integrations and then check the cost of development. Now, add another integration to check the overall cost. You can also see if one of the two is selected will it impact the cost heavily.

You can do the same exercise for multiple features, which can then help in prioritizing the features. You can introduce a phase-wise implementation of the features for the best outcomes.

Conclusion

Considering multiple factors like app complexity, compliances, security protocols and features can help you determine the best estimates for healthcare app development. You can choose to build a fitness tracker application or a telemedicine platform or next-gent telemedicine app. It is crucial to understand the costs involved before you begin planning and hiring.

You must have a defined goal and target audience to help streamline workflows and optimize the budgets. To lead your app to success, you need a dependable partner with the right skill sets and experience.

Expert App Devs has led several medical and healthcare app development projects to success. We have delivered long-term benefits and operational efficiency with our solutions. Connect with us to translate your idea into a custom AI and IoT based healthcare application.

FAQs

#1. How much does it cost to develop a healthcare application?

The healthcare app development ranges from $20,000 to $500,000. If you want to implement advanced functionality like AI and EHR integration, you will need to increase the budget for developing applications.

#2. How to ensure the app is secure and compliant?

Make sure to adhere to regulations like HIPAA, GDPR and HITECH. It is equally important to conduct regular audits to check if your encryption and authorizations are secure. This would help maintain doctor and patient data safety and adhere to regulatory compliances.

#3. How to reduce the cost of developing healthcare applications?

You can reduce the cost of developing healthcare applications by creating an MPV with essential features. This will help test the application and validate your idea. You can use this approach to prioritize the features and phase-wise development ensuring better budget management.

Jignen Pandya

Vice President at Expert App Devs

Responsible for creating a sales funnel, attracting top-of-the-funnel customers, and converting the target market.