How Much Does a Mobile App Cost in India? (2026 Guide)
Founder & Lead Developer, Codingclave · 200+ projects since 2017
How much does a mobile app cost in India in 2026?
A mobile app costs ₹50,000 to ₹50 lakh in India in 2026. Most business apps, meaning login, a backend, payments, push notifications, an admin panel and both Android and iOS, land between ₹1,25,000 and ₹4,00,000 and take 6-12 weeks. A simple utility app with no server is ₹50,000-₹1,50,000. A complex app with real-time tracking or chat is ₹4-12 lakh. Enterprise apps that plug into SAP, Tally or a hospital system run ₹10-50 lakh. On top of the build, plan for 15-20% of that figure every year in maintenance, plus store fees, hosting and payment gateway charges.
I am Ashish Sharma, founder of Codingclave in Lucknow. We have built software since 2017, shipped 200+ projects, and hold a 4.9 star Google rating from 76 reviews. Mobile apps are a large share of that work, so the numbers below come from quotes we have written and projects we have delivered, cross-checked against what other Indian agencies published in 2026. Where a price belongs to a vendor, I name the vendor and the page I checked.
Quick answer:
- Simple app: ₹50,000-₹1,50,000, 3-6 weeks
- Business app (most common): ₹1,25,000-₹4,00,000, 6-12 weeks
- Complex app: ₹4,00,000-₹12,00,000, 12-24 weeks
- Enterprise app: ₹10,00,000-₹50,00,000, 6-12 months
- Yearly maintenance: 15-20% of build cost
- Store fees: $25 once for Google Play, $99 a year for Apple
- Payments: 2% plus 18% GST per transaction on Razorpay's standard plan
Conversions in this guide use ₹95 to the dollar. If the rate moves, the rupee figures stand; the dollar figures shift.
What does a mobile app cost by complexity?
| App complexity | What is in it | Cost (INR) | Cost (USD) | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | 5-10 screens, no login, static or lightly dynamic content | ₹50,000-₹1,50,000 | $525-$1,580 | 3-6 weeks |
| Medium | 10-25 screens, OTP or social login, backend API, payments, push, admin panel | ₹1,25,000-₹4,00,000 | $1,300-$4,200 | 6-12 weeks |
| Complex | 25+ screens, real-time chat or tracking, multiple roles, analytics, offline mode | ₹4,00,000-₹12,00,000 | $4,200-$12,600 | 12-24 weeks |
| Enterprise | Custom workflows, ERP or HIS integration, SSO, audit logs, data migration | ₹10,00,000-₹50,00,000 | $10,500-$52,600 | 6-12 months |
Simple app (₹50,000-₹1,50,000)
A company brochure app, a restaurant menu, an event schedule, a professional calculator. No login, no server you own; content is bundled in the app or pulled from a Google Sheet or Firebase. The ₹50,000 floor is one freelancer building for Android only. An agency build for both platforms with custom design sits at ₹1,00,000-₹1,50,000.
Medium app (₹1,25,000-₹4,00,000)
This is where most Indian businesses land: a booking app for a clinic or salon, an ordering app for a restaurant or kirana, a gym membership app, a basic marketplace. You get OTP login (usually with Google and Apple sign-in), a REST API with a database, Razorpay or Cashfree payments, push notifications through Firebase Cloud Messaging, and a web admin panel for content, orders and users.
Complex app (₹4,00,000-₹12,00,000)
Real-time features change the architecture, not just the screen count. Live rider tracking, in-app chat, video consultations, multi-vendor marketplaces with payouts, offline-first field apps and apps with three or more user roles all live here. Expect a dedicated backend engineer, automated tests and a staging environment.
Enterprise app (₹10,00,000 and up)
The cost is driven by integration and compliance rather than screens: single sign-on against your Active Directory, connectors into SAP, Oracle, Tally or a hospital information system, role hierarchies, audit trails, data migration from legacy systems and a CI/CD pipeline with security review. For this tier read our custom software development cost guide alongside this one.
What does each type of app cost to build in India?
Complexity tiers are abstract. Here is what the common app categories actually cost when we scope them with the features each type needs on day one, both platforms included.
| App type | Typical day-one features | Cost (INR) | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurant or cafe ordering | Menu, cart, Razorpay, order status, admin | ₹1,50,000-₹4,00,000 | 6-10 weeks |
| Clinic or salon booking | Slots, OTP login, reminders, doctor or staff panel | ₹1,50,000-₹5,00,000 | 6-12 weeks |
| Gym or coaching membership | Plans, attendance, payments, content, notices | ₹1,50,000-₹4,50,000 | 6-10 weeks |
| Society or apartment management | Visitors, maintenance bills, complaints, notices | ₹2,00,000-₹6,00,000 | 8-14 weeks |
| E-commerce (single seller) | Catalogue, search, cart, payments, returns, admin | ₹2,50,000-₹8,00,000 | 10-16 weeks |
| Real estate listings | Listings, map search, enquiries, agent CRM | ₹8,00,000-₹25,00,000 | 12-24 weeks |
| EdTech or LMS | Courses, video, quizzes, progress, payments | ₹5,00,000-₹50,00,000 | 12-30 weeks |
| Food delivery (3 apps + admin) | Customer, restaurant, rider, live tracking, backend | ₹10,00,000-₹17,00,000 (MVP) | 14-20 weeks |
| Taxi or ride booking | Passenger, driver, fare engine, maps, backend | ₹10,00,000-₹17,00,000 (MVP) | 12-16 weeks |
| Fintech (wallet, lending, investing) | KYC, bank APIs, ledgers, RBI compliance | ₹5,00,000-₹50,00,000 | 16-40 weeks |
Three of these have their own feature-by-feature guides: food delivery app development, taxi booking app development and fintech app development. The ranges above match them.
The jump from the first rows to the last is not screen count. A clinic booking app has one customer type and one staff type. A food delivery app has three apps that must stay in sync in real time, which is why it costs five to ten times more even at MVP scope.
How much does each feature add to the cost?
Every quote is hours multiplied by a rate. The table below uses a blended Indian agency rate of ₹1,000 an hour (designer, developer and QA averaged) so you can see where the money goes and adjust for your own rate. A freelancer at ₹500 an hour halves these; a Bengaluru agency at ₹2,000 doubles them.
| Feature | Hours (cross-platform) | Cost at ₹1,000/hr | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTP login + Google/Apple sign-in | 30-60 | ₹30,000-₹60,000 | Apple sign-in is mandatory on iOS if you offer any social login |
| Push notifications (FCM) | 10-24 | ₹10,000-₹24,000 | Segmented and scheduled campaigns add 10-20 hours |
| Razorpay or Cashfree payments (UPI, cards, netbanking) | 24-60 | ₹24,000-₹60,000 | Refunds, webhooks and failed-payment handling are the hidden hours |
| Subscriptions and UPI Autopay | 40-80 | ₹40,000-₹80,000 | Mandate flows need extra testing |
| Google Maps with live tracking | 40-100 | ₹40,000-₹1,00,000 | Background location on iOS adds review risk |
| In-app chat (text, images) | 50-120 | ₹50,000-₹1,20,000 | Firebase or Socket.io; read receipts and media push it higher |
| Video calling (Agora, Twilio) | 40-80 | ₹40,000-₹80,000 | Plus per-minute vendor fees |
| Product catalogue, search, cart | 60-150 | ₹60,000-₹1,50,000 | Variants, filters and inventory sync are the multipliers |
| Booking or appointment engine | 40-100 | ₹40,000-₹1,00,000 | Recurring slots, buffers and cancellations |
| Web admin panel | 60-200 | ₹60,000-₹2,00,000 | Scales with roles and reports |
| Multi-language (Hindi plus English, RTL ready) | 20-50 | ₹20,000-₹50,000 | Content translation billed separately |
| Offline mode with sync | 50-120 | ₹50,000-₹1,20,000 | Conflict handling is the hard part |
| Analytics (Firebase, Mixpanel) | 8-16 | ₹8,000-₹16,000 | Event design matters more than the SDK |
| AI chatbot inside the app (LLM) | 50-150 | ₹50,000-₹1,50,000 | See our AI chatbot cost guide |
| WhatsApp notifications via Business API | 20-60 | ₹20,000-₹60,000 | Template approval and provider setup included |
Add 15-20% of total hours for QA and 5-10% for project management, which is how a 10-feature list becomes a ₹3-4 lakh quote. For the payment gateway choice itself, our Razorpay vs Stripe vs PayU vs Cashfree comparison covers fees and settlement.
What do third-party services cost to run every month?
Feature hours are a one-time cost. The services behind them bill you forever, and most quotes leave them out. Prices below were checked on the vendor pages in October 2026.
| Service | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Payment gateway | 2% platform fee plus 18% GST on the fee, on cards, UPI, netbanking and wallets; up to 3% on international cards; no setup or annual fee | Razorpay standard pricing page |
| Transactional SMS and OTP | ₹0.25 per SMS at 5,000 messages, ₹0.20 at 16,500, ₹0.18 at 30,000, ₹0.17 from 60,000 and ₹0.16 at close to 1 million, plus one-time DLT registration | MSG91 India pricing page |
| Maps | 70,000 free calls per month on Essentials SKUs (Dynamic Maps, Geocoding, Routes) and 35,000 on Pro SKUs (Places); then $2.10 per 1,000 map loads, $1.50 per 1,000 routes and $1.50 per 1,000 Place Details on India pricing | Google Maps Platform India pricing |
| Backend as a service | Firebase Spark plan is free with 50,000 Firestore reads and 20,000 writes a day, 1 GiB storage, 50,000 monthly active users on Authentication and 2 million Cloud Functions invocations a month | Firebase pricing page |
| Small VPS | Lightsail from $5 a month (512 MB) to $12 (2 GB); Mumbai bundles carry half the data transfer of other regions | AWS Lightsail pricing |
| Video calls | Per-minute billing with a free monthly allowance; confirm current rates on the vendor page before scoping | Agora, Twilio |
For a clinic app with 2,000 monthly users this adds up to ₹2,000-₹6,000 a month. For a delivery app doing 10,000 orders a month, maps alone can cross the free tier and the bill reaches ₹15,000-₹50,000 a month before gateway fees, which is the range our food delivery guide uses.
Native, Flutter or React Native: which costs less in India?
StatCounter's mobile OS share for India in September 2026 is Android 93.89% and iOS 6.05%. That one number decides a lot: if you must pick one platform, pick Android. But iPhone users in India skew to higher spend, so a paid service, a premium D2C brand or a B2B tool usually cannot skip iOS.
| Approach | Cost multiplier | Code shared | When it earns its price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Android only (Kotlin) | 0.7x | None | Internal tools, field staff apps, Bharat-first consumer apps |
| iOS only (Swift) | 0.7x | None | Rare in India; premium niche products |
| Both native (Kotlin + Swift) | 1.8x-2x | None | AR, heavy graphics, hardware-level features |
| Flutter | 1x (baseline) | 90-95% | Custom-designed UI, animation-heavy apps, one team for both stores |
| React Native | 1x-1.1x | 85-90% | Teams that already know JavaScript or TypeScript, web plus app code sharing |
| PWA / Trusted Web Activity | 0.4x-0.6x | 100% with the website | Content, catalogues, forms, demand testing |
Two native apps cost almost double because you pay for two codebases, two teams and two sets of bugs. Flutter and React Native build both from one codebase with 85-95% shared code, and the Indian talent pool for both is deep. We mostly ship Flutter; our Flutter vs React Native comparison explains when we pick the other. If you are weighing an app against a website-based alternative, read PWA vs native app for Indian businesses before signing anything.
Freelancer, agency or in-house team: what does each cost?
The same feature list can cost ₹1,50,000 or ₹15,00,000 depending on who builds it. Here is what each model really costs in 2026, including the parts people forget.
| Model | Rate | Cost for a medium app (about 400 hours) | What you carry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local freelancer | ₹400-₹1,200 an hour; many quote fixed prices of ₹50,000-₹3,00,000 | ₹1,60,000-₹4,80,000 | Single point of failure, you do the QA and PM, maintenance depends on availability |
| Upwork freelancer (India) | $15-$40 an hour is the band most Indian app developer profiles bid in; we are Top Rated there and compete against these rates every week | ₹5,70,000-₹15,20,000 | Platform fee, time zone friction if you are abroad, same single-person risk |
| Indian agency (Tier-2 city) | ₹800-₹1,500 an hour blended | ₹3,20,000-₹6,00,000 | Design, dev, QA and PM included; fixed-price contracts common |
| Indian agency (Bengaluru, Mumbai, Gurugram) | ₹1,500-₹3,000 an hour blended | ₹6,00,000-₹12,00,000 | Larger teams, enterprise process, higher overhead |
| Dedicated developer (monthly) | ₹1,20,000-₹2,80,000 a month for a mid to senior Flutter or React Native developer through an agency | ₹3,00,000-₹7,00,000 over 10-12 weeks | You manage scope; good for long roadmaps |
| In-house team | ₹4,00,000-₹8,00,000 a year for a mid-level Flutter or React Native developer in a Tier-2 city, 30-50% more in Bengaluru or Gurugram, based on offers we have made and matched since 2017 | ₹7,00,000-₹12,00,000 for a 3-person team over 3 months, plus hiring time | Payroll, benefits, equipment, and the risk of attrition mid-project |
Freelancers are cheapest for a simple app and riskiest for anything with a backend, because the person who wrote your API is the only person who understands it. Agencies look expensive until you add up the designer, QA engineer and project manager a freelancer quote leaves out. In-house only makes sense when the app is your business with a multi-year roadmap; for a 3-month build, hiring alone can take 6-8 weeks.
Our freelancer vs agency guide goes deeper on the decision, and the dedicated developer hiring guide covers the monthly model. If you want a dedicated Flutter engineer, our hire Flutter developer page lists hourly and monthly rates.
What do quotes leave out? Store fees, hosting, compliance and updates
These are the costs that appear after you have signed. Where a vendor or regulator sets the figure, the row names it and the 2026 date it took effect.
| Cost | Amount | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Google Play developer account | $25 one-time | Per Google Play Console help. Personal accounts created after 13 November 2023 must also run a closed test with at least 12 testers opted in for 14 continuous days before production access |
| Apple Developer Program | $99 a year | Per Apple's enrolment page; billed in rupees when you enrol from India, so budget about ₹9,000-₹9,500 |
| Store commission on digital goods | 15% on the first $1 million a year under Google Play's service fee policy, which Google India says covers the vast majority of Indian developers; 15% under the Apple Small Business Program below $1 million | Physical goods and services paid through Razorpay in-app carry no store commission |
| Android compatibility work | 10-40 hours a year | Google Play required new apps and updates to target Android 16 (API 36) from 31 August 2026, with extensions to 1 November 2026 on request |
| iOS compatibility work | 10-40 hours a year | Apple has required Xcode 26 builds with the iOS 26 SDK since 28 April 2026, and a minimum iOS 13 deployment target from 9 September 2026 |
| Age rating review | 2-4 hours | Apple's new age rating system took effect 31 January 2026; every app had to answer updated questions |
| DPDP compliance | ₹25,000-₹1,50,000 one-time for consent, notice, deletion and grievance flows | The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules were notified on 13 November 2025. Consent manager provisions apply from 12 November 2026 and the core notice, consent and data fiduciary obligations from 12 May 2027, 18 months after notification, per the AZB & Partners rollout summary |
| Privacy policy and terms | ₹5,000-₹25,000 | Both stores reject apps without a reachable privacy policy URL |
| Hosting | ₹500-₹20,000 a month | Firebase free tier for small apps; Lightsail or a managed Postgres for medium apps; dedicated infrastructure for complex ones |
| Maintenance retainer | 15-20% of build cost a year; agency plans ₹15,000-₹40,000 a month | Bug fixes, dependency updates, store resubmissions |
The DPDP line deserves attention. If your app collects a phone number, you are a data fiduciary under the Act, and the Rules spell out notice, consent, breach reporting and deletion duties. Building these in at design time costs a fraction of retrofitting them; our DPDP compliance guide lists what to put in the app before launch.
Why do app development quotes in India differ so much?
Search this topic and you will find one 2026 guide saying a simple app is ₹40,000-₹80,000 and another saying ₹3-6 lakh. Both describe real projects. Four things explain the gap.
Rate. A ₹500-an-hour freelancer and a ₹3,000-an-hour Bengaluru agency are quoting the same 400 hours. Ask every vendor for the hour estimate behind the price; if they will not give one, the price is a guess.
Scope definition. "Login" can mean a phone OTP field or a full account system with social sign-in, profile, password reset and session security. A quote built from a one-paragraph brief is 30-50% low on average. Write screens and user roles down before asking for prices.
What is bundled. Some quotes include design, QA, project management, store submission and 30 days of support. Others are development only, and design (₹25,000-₹1,50,000), QA (15-20% of hours) and submission arrive as invoices later.
GST and contract type. Quotes to Indian clients attract 18% GST; software exports are zero-rated. Fixed-price quotes carry a 10-20% risk buffer that time-and-materials quotes do not.
How do you cut the cost without a worse app?
- Launch one core journey first. An MVP with the single flow that earns money costs 40-60% of the full product. Our MVP development cost guide shows how funded startups phase this.
- Go cross-platform unless you have a hardware reason not to. Flutter or React Native saves 30-40% against two native apps and halves maintenance.
- Ship Android first if your users are in India. With 93.89% of the market on Android, iOS can follow once the product is proven.
- Rent what exists. Firebase for auth and push, Razorpay for payments, MSG91 for OTP, Agora for video. Building any of these yourself costs more than ten years of their fees.
- Start from a design system. Reusable components cut design and front-end hours by 20-30%.
- Fix the scope, then fix the price. A written feature list with screens and roles is the only thing that keeps a fixed-price quote fixed.
- Consider a PWA for content and catalogue apps. It costs 40-60% of a native build, is indexed by Google, and can still sit on the Play Store as a Trusted Web Activity.
What we see in projects at Codingclave
A few patterns from our own mobile work since 2017 that the tables cannot show.
The admin panel is the most under-quoted part of any app. Clients picture the customer-facing screens; the web dashboard that staff use every day to manage orders, slots, payments and content often turns out to be a third of the backend effort, and it is where the first change requests arrive.
Scope grows after design, not after development. The moment a client sees high-fidelity Figma screens, new flows appear. We now fix the price after design sign-off rather than after the first call, and both sides are happier for it.
Most of our clients choose Flutter, and most of them run Android-first launches with iOS following 4-8 weeks later. The exceptions are B2B tools and premium consumer brands, where the iPhone share of paying users is high enough to launch both together.
The cheapest quote a client brings us is usually a template. We have been asked to rescue several apps built for under ₹50,000, and each time rebuilding was cheaper than repairing. I would rather you build a good website now and a good app next year than a bad app this quarter.
We also run our own products with mobile apps, including society management software and restaurant POS software. Maintaining them through every Android target-API deadline and Xcode requirement is why the compatibility hours in the table above are not theoretical.
Codingclave mobile app pricing in 2026
Our mobile app development work starts at ₹1,25,000 and most projects finish between ₹1,25,000 and ₹6,50,000 in 4-12 weeks. The app development packages page lists three tiers:
- Starter, ₹1,25,000: 5-8 screen MVP, Flutter or React Native for Android and iOS, UI/UX design, push notifications, store submission, 30 days of support
- Business, ₹2,90,000: 10-20 screens, OTP and social login, backend API and database, Razorpay or Cashfree payments, web admin panel, analytics, both stores
- Advanced, ₹5,00,000 and up: real-time features, maps, chat or video, multi-role access, integrations with your existing systems
Design is included through our UI/UX design team rather than billed separately. Maintenance plans start at ₹15,000 a month and cover bug fixes, OS compatibility updates, minor changes and server monitoring. We are a 5-20 person team in Lucknow, Top Rated on Upwork, and we quote in hours as well as rupees so you can compare us line by line.
If the question is a website rather than an app, our website cost guide for India uses the same method. For your app, contact us with a screen list and user roles and we will send a scoped quote within 24 hours.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a simple app cost in India in 2026?
₹50,000-₹1,50,000 for 5-10 screens with no login and no server of its own, in 3-6 weeks. The low end is one freelancer building for Android; the high end is an agency build for both stores. Add OTP login, a database and push and the price moves to ₹1,25,000-₹2,50,000.
How much does it cost to build an app like Zomato or Swiggy in India?
A food delivery MVP with customer, restaurant and rider apps plus admin and backend costs ₹10-17 lakh in 14-20 weeks. Live tracking, offers and multi-city support take it to ₹17-29 lakh; an aggregator-grade build is ₹29-46 lakh. You are pricing the ordering and delivery loop for your own restaurants or city, not Zomato itself.
Is Flutter cheaper than React Native in India?
Not in a way you will notice on a quote. Both share 85-95% of code and Indian agencies price them at the same rate. Flutter needs slightly fewer hours on animation-heavy screens; React Native wins when your team already writes JavaScript. Either saves 30-40% against two native apps.
How much does app maintenance cost per year in India?
15-20% of the build cost. For a ₹4,00,000 app that is ₹60,000-₹80,000 a year, covering bug fixes, library updates and the Android target-API and Xcode compatibility work the stores now force. Agency retainers run ₹15,000-₹40,000 a month; hosting, SMS and gateway fees are extra.
Can I get an app made for ₹10,000 or ₹20,000?
You can get an APK, not a product: a template with your logo, no custom backend and nobody to call when an OS update breaks it. Even a very simple custom app needs 60-100 hours, which at ₹500 an hour is ₹30,000-₹50,000 before store fees. Under ₹50,000, a good website or PWA serves you better.
How long does it take to build a mobile app in India?
Simple apps take 3-6 weeks, medium business apps 6-12 weeks, complex apps 12-24 weeks and enterprise builds 6-12 months. Add 1-7 days for store review and, for a new personal Google Play account, a 14-day closed test with 12 testers. Late content, test accounts and design sign-off cause more delay than code.
Should I build a mobile app or a PWA?
Build an app if users need store presence, reliable iPhone push, background location, Bluetooth or heavy camera use, or if the app is your core product. Build a PWA if it is mainly content, forms or a catalogue and your budget is under ₹1,50,000. A PWA costs ₹60,000-₹2,50,000, can be listed on Google Play as a Trusted Web Activity, and is indexed by Google.
Sources checked in October 2026
- StatCounter: mobile OS market share India, September 2026
- Razorpay pricing
- MSG91 SMS pricing, India
- Google Maps Platform pricing for India
- Firebase pricing
- Google Play Console: registration fee and closed testing requirements for personal accounts
- Apple Developer Program enrolment and upcoming App Store requirements
- Google Play target API level requirements
- Google India: Play service fee for Indian developers
- AZB & Partners: DPDP Act phased rollout and compliance milestones
- AWS Lightsail pricing
- Also compared: 2026 cost guides from Dot Com Inventions, PS Digitise, Nevatrix, Milestone and eCorpIT for the market ranges quoted in the "why quotes differ" section.
Frequently asked questions
A simple app with 5-10 screens, no login and no server of its own costs ₹50,000-₹1,50,000 in India in 2026 and takes 3-6 weeks. The low end is a single-platform build by one freelancer; the high end is an agency build for both Android and iOS with custom design. Add a basic backend with OTP login, a database and push notifications and the price moves to ₹1,25,000-₹2,50,000. Store fees sit on top: a $25 one-time Google Play registration and $99 a year for the Apple Developer Program.
A working food delivery MVP with a customer app, restaurant panel, rider app, admin panel and backend costs ₹10-17 lakh in India and takes 14-20 weeks. A version with live order tracking, offers, wallet and multi-city support runs ₹17-29 lakh, and a full aggregator-grade build is ₹29-46 lakh. The real Zomato and Swiggy apps are the product of hundreds of engineers over a decade, so no quote can match them; what you are pricing is the core ordering and delivery loop for your own restaurants or city.
Not in a way you will notice on a quote. Both are cross-platform, both share 85-95% of code between Android and iOS, and Indian agencies price them at the same blended rate. Flutter tends to need slightly fewer hours on animation-heavy, custom-designed screens; React Native is faster when your team already writes JavaScript or TypeScript for the web. Either saves 30-40% against building two native apps. Choose by the team you can hire and keep, not by a few thousand rupees of difference.
Budget 15-20% of the build cost per year. For a ₹4,00,000 app that is ₹60,000-₹80,000 a year, or ₹5,000-₹7,000 a month, covering bug fixes, library updates and the yearly Android and iOS compatibility work that Google Play and Apple now force: Play required apps to target Android 16 (API 36) from 31 August 2026 and Apple has required Xcode 26 builds since 28 April 2026. Agency retainers in India run ₹15,000-₹40,000 a month for a defined number of hours; a freelancer may do fixes for ₹5,000-₹10,000 a month. Hosting, SMS and payment gateway fees are extra.
You can get an APK for that money, but not a product. ₹10,000-₹20,000 buys a template or a no-code export with your logo swapped in, no custom backend, and nobody to call when Android or iOS changes break it. Even a very simple custom app needs 60-100 hours of design, development and testing, which at the cheapest serious freelancer rate of ₹500 an hour is ₹30,000-₹50,000 before store fees. If your budget is under ₹50,000, a well-built website or a PWA will serve you better than a bad app.
A simple app takes 3-6 weeks, a medium business app with login, backend, payments and admin panel 6-12 weeks, a complex app with real-time features 12-24 weeks, and an enterprise build 6-12 months. Add 1-7 days for store review and, for a new personal Google Play account, a mandatory closed test with 12 testers for 14 days before you can publish. The commonest cause of delay is not code; it is content, test accounts and design sign-off arriving late from the client side.
Build a native or cross-platform app if users need store presence, reliable push notifications on iPhone, background location, Bluetooth or camera-heavy features, or if the app is your core product. Build a PWA if the app is mainly content, forms or a catalogue, your budget is under ₹1,50,000, or you want to test demand before paying for store builds. A PWA costs ₹60,000-₹2,50,000, can be wrapped and listed on Google Play as a Trusted Web Activity, and is indexed by Google, which a native app is not.