How Much Does It Cost To Build a Fitness App?

The fitness industry is booming and every fitness entrepreneur aspires to mark their unique presence by developing an innovative fitness application. However, what comes as a blocker is the fact that the cost of fitness app development requires a hefty investment. With over 12 years of experience delivering fitness and healthcare apps, IT Path Solutions is here to help you understand the development cost breakdown and simplify the process for you. 

In this guide, we will share tips to control app development costs, optimize your budget, and help you select a flexible hiring model. 

Let’s start this discussion by understanding the fundamentals of fitness application development. 

Fundamentals of Fitness Application Development:

Fitness applications are designed to help individuals keep track of their health and fitness goals. Fitness apps have a variety of features integrated into them to achieve various advanced functions such as diet checks, workout apps, nutrition apps, exercise videos, etc. 

These functionalities can further be divided into various specialized categories and sub-functions that help the audience remain fit and healthy. 

Market Overview of Fitness Application Development:

According to the Statista study, the fitness application development market is expected to generate an impressive $66.08 billion by 2027. 

The worldwide fitness market will rise to over $25,450 million by 2027 with a remarkable CAGR of 29.46%. 

Comprehensive feature integration and exclusive user engagement are something that is attracting users to fitness applications.

Let us now understand the cost of developing fitness applications in detail.

Cost of Fitness Application Development:

Simply speaking, IT Path Solutions’ fitness app development costs around $20,000 and can go up to $50,000 or higher. The final cost depends largely on the level of customization and the advanced features you choose to include. Here is a table that explains what to expect from your fitness application journey with us. 

If you are planning to develop a fitness application from scratch, here are a few factors that might affect the overall app development cost.

IT Path Solutions can help you build impactful applications with minimal cost of app development. If you are considering us as your development partner, here are a few factors that might affect your fitness application development budget. Let’s dive into these factors. 

1.  App Development Approach:

The final cost of application development depends largely on where you want your application to be deployed– iOS, Android, or Cross-platform application development. If you choose to develop exclusively for iOS or Android, the cost of application development is less as compared to developing a cross-platform app which requires additional resources and expertise. 

Native application development usually takes up to 1000 hours and the cost range is between $10,000 to $25,000 for basic features integration.

2. Features Integration: 

The features you integrate into fitness apps play a crucial role in defining the cost of application development.  To give you a clear understanding, below is the list of features and their respective estimated development rates. 

1. User Registration: Costs around $100 to $250
2. Push notifications: Costs around $150-$300
3. GPS tracking: Costs around $300-$700
4. Gamification: $5000+
5. Video streaming: $4500-$7000
6. Payment gateways integration: $200- $3000
7. On-demand video consult: $3000+

Moreover, if you decide to integrate AI and Machine Learning capabilities into the fitness app to provide personalized recommendations and insights, it will add to the overall development cost. 

3. Location of App Development Company: 

The hourly rates of hiring developers can vary drastically from one company and region to another. Typically, hiring rates in India are more affordable as compared to the rest of the world.

Below-mentioned are the hourly rates of various countries for your reference. This will give you a clear idea of why many businesses prefer hiring developers from India then other parts of the world.  

4. In-house Hiring or Outsourcing:

The cost of fitness app development is directly proportional to the hiring model you select.  The two primary hiring models that you can choose from are: 

1. Hiring an  in-house team of app development;
2. Outsourcing app development;

If you look at the hiring cost of an in-house team, it is usually very high. This is due to the expenses involved in recruiting, screening, and onboarding developers. You also spend money on paying salaries to the developers and building an infrastructure where they can work effectively.

On the other hand, you can outsource the project development task to a specialized fitness development company. The company takes up the responsibility of managing the entire development process, including providing you with expert developers, quality testers, and product managers, and setting up the complete team required for execution. 

Now talking about cost, the cost of setting up an in-house team is usually around $50,000 to $80,000 recurring basis. On the other hand, outsourcing is a one-time expense and it completely depends on the tasks that you would outsource to your development partner. 

5. Maintenance and Support:

Once your development partner or team completes the app and deploys it, the next major responsibility falls on you—app maintenance. On-going support and maintenance of the product are required to ensure that the app remains operational without any downtime, and is up and running for your audience. 

To execute this, you need to decide and provide a seamless experience to the users. 

In addition to maintenance, other expenses can impact the overall cost of fitness app development, including:

• Regulatory compliance
• Data storage and servers
• Application release and submission fees on platforms

These factors can significantly influence the cost of developing and maintaining a fitness app. But, here are some quick tips to help minimize expenses:

Tips to reduce fitness application development cost:

While going through the process, it is likely to happen that some costs may exceed the initial expectations. However, if you have a well-documented plan in place, you can ensure smooth and on-budget application development, avoiding unexpected financial setbacks. 

• List out your app requirements in detail:

Perform adequate research on your competitors to ensure that you have your requirements defined. This can help you pen down a list of features and functionalities that you expect from the application. The exercise in a way is useful to control any additional expense that might occur at later stages of app development. 

• Create MVP to test the fitness app development idea:

Developing a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) lets you identify any potential problem with your future application. MVP is a soft version of your actual application but operates exactly in the same way as your original application. 

By testing your MVP, you can make sure whether your application will be a success or not. 

Concluding Thoughts: 

Developing a fitness application is really a fascinating idea, but its execution while managing the cost is challenging. We hope this article helps you understand the nuances involved with the cost of fitness application development.  

We are a leading fitness application development company that has delivered several projects on fitness and healthcare. We are here to bring your vision to life. Connect with us to discuss your requirements.