Native vs Cross-Platform Apps Development Costs in 2025

If you’re building an app in 2025, here’s the deal: you’re likely spending anywhere from $50K to $250K or more. So, before you commit your time, team, and budget, you’ve got one major decision to make: native or cross-platform? It’s not just about code, it’s about cost, time, and getting the best ROI possible.

Nowadays, to build an app is not only to deploy on iOS or Android, but also to be present where your users go. By 2025, it will be obvious that faster development, a broader reach, and saving money are pushing businesses into using cross-platform apps.

Most startups and large companies end up saving up to 40% on their development costs if they pick a cross-platform approach instead of creating natively for different platforms.

But that doesn’t mean native apps are off the table. Native app development is still worth it, particularly when performance, sophisticated features, or platform-specific integration is a priority. So how do you determine what’s best for your app?

In this blog, we’ll guide you through the real cost comparison of native versus cross-platform app development, examine the price drivers, and assist you with deciding which alternative best fits your objectives, budget, and schedule.

Average Development Cost in 2025: Native vs Cross-Platform

It is important to understand the standard development costs for native and cross-platform versions when planning your app. Therefore, here’s a quick summary of how native and cross-platform cost compare.

Note: These prices listed above are estimates. For an accurate estimate for your project, it is advisable to team up with a reliable Mobile app development company that will go over your requirements and offer an effective approach to building your app.

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Native vs Cross-Platform Apps: A General Overview

While preparing to build a mobile app, one of the early decisions is whether to opt for native or cross-platform development. It is important to recognize the main differences before looking at the costs.

What Are Native Apps?

Native applications can only be developed specifically for iOS or Android through the platform’s original programming languages. That is:

• Swift or Objective-C for iOS
• Kotlin or Java for Android

Since these apps are developed for a particular platform, they get access to the device’s entire capabilities, providing excellent performance, quick load times, and silky smooth animations.

Best for: 

• Apps requiring the best performance (e.g., mobile games, AR/VR, real-time applications)
• Advanced apps with rich integration with device hardware
• Companies with a large budget and long-term product planning

What Are Cross-Platform Apps?

Cross-platform applications are developed from a single codebase shared across several platforms, mostly iOS and Android. Flutter, React Native, and Xamarin have made this model more efficient, stable, and mainstream over the last few years.

These applications save both time and money as they enable developers to write once and deploy anywhere, and cut down on development hours along with maintenance.

Best for:

• Small startups and SMEs with constrained budgets
• Applications that require instant access to users across both platforms
• MVPs and proof-of-concept applications

App Development Cost Breakdown: Native vs. Cross-Platform

Knowing the difference in cost between native and cross-platform app development is the key to smart investment. Let me break it down for you to decide which path is the most cost-effective for your app.

App Development Costs: What Goes Beyond the Initial Build?

While cross-platform app development saves you lots of money upfront, keep in mind the hidden expenses that will affect your overall budget, both for native and cross-platform development.

Hidden Expenses in Native App Development:

• Full Device & OS Testing: By testing on many devices, sizes, and operating systems for iOS and Android, QA processes become tougher and more expensive.
• Ongoing Platform Updates: All OS platforms are updated from time to time, making sure their systems remain up-to-date and work with various apps.
• Multiple Codebases to Support: Expanding the number of codebases results in more work to keep all updates, fixes, and security in order.
• App Store Compliance & Submission Fees Native applications need to adhere to strict App Store and Google Play guidelines, sometimes incurring extra development effort and submission fees.
• Performance Tuning: Native apps are also subject to constant performance tuning to keep up with changing user requirements and available hardware.

Hidden Costs in Cross-Platform Development:

• Bridging Native Features: Merging complicated or cutting-edge native device features can involve custom plugins or modules, which contribute to development time and expense.
• UI/UX Customization: Getting the app to feel indistinguishably native on each platform, constantly matching animations, gestures, and design guidelines, can take additional tweaking.
• Third-Party Library Limitations: Certain libraries or SDKs can be poorly designed or unsupported in cross-platform frameworks, requiring further workarounds.
• Performance Bottlenecks: Modern frameworks are fast, but high-performance applications may need platform-specific code to optimize speed.
• Debugging Complexity: Cross-platform applications can present special debugging complexities, as problems can result from interactions between the shared code and native elements.

Factors That Influence Native and Cross-Platform App Development Costs

While the choice between native and cross-platform development is important, several other critical factors play a major role in your app’s overall cost. From complexity to maintenance, knowing these variables can assist you in planning better and staying out of trouble.

1. App Complexity and Feature Set

This is the one biggest cost driver. The more complex your app, the more hours of development and therefore, the cost.

Examples of expensive features:

• Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning integration
• Augmented/Virtual Reality features
• Real-time messaging or video calling
• In-app payment systems and digital wallets
• GPS and location services
• Custom animations and motion graphics
• Complex backend with role-based user management

Average cost of a feature-packed app: $80,000 – $250,000+

2. UI/UX Design Requirements

Design is absolutely the most important aspect when it comes to user interaction and retention. The UI/UX design’s level of complexity and sophistication can significantly impact your development budget.

3. Third-Party API Integrations

Apps are not often standalone. Integration with third-party services brings both value and expense.

Some common APIs are:

• Social media sign-ins (Google, Facebook, Apple)
• Payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal)
• Analytics platforms (Google Analytics, Mixpanel)
• Communication APIs (Twilio, Firebase)
• Maps and geolocation (Google Maps, Mapbox)

Each integration will take days or weeks, based on complexity and platform demands.

4. Backend Infrastructure and Scalability

A solid backend is essential to handle app logic, store data, perform user authentication, and scale.

Drivers of backend expense:

• Custom-developed vs. BaaS (Backend-as-a-Service)
• Requirements for real-time data processing
• Security measures and compliance (HIPAA, GDPR)
• Cloud hosting providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)

Backend development can contribute 20-40% of the overall project expense.

5. Development Team Location & Expertise

Developer rates vary greatly by geography and skill level. Your budget can fluctuate drastically depending on where your development team is located.

Note: Highly experienced teams or niche experts (e.g., AR/ML engineers) will charge at the higher end of the scale. 

6. Post-Launch Support and Maintenance

Application development does not conclude with launch. Regular support becomes crucial to maintain performance, compatibility with OS updates, and user satisfaction.

Common maintenance activities:

• Bug fixing
• Security patches
• Performance tuning
• New feature releases
• OS and device compliance

The average annual maintenance budget is between 15% to 25% of the original development expense.

7. Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing

It is essential to ensure that your app performs seamlessly across various devices and conditions. QA testing can never be an afterthought.

Phases of testing might involve:

• Functional testing
• UI/UX testing
• Performance testing
• Device and OS compatibility testing
• Security testing

Testing might comprise 15-20% of the overall development expenses.

8. Project Management

Every successful app has good project management behind it. The process of coordination between design, development, QA, and business teams demands active supervision. Therefore.

Agile process, sprint planning, and communication tools (e.g., Jira, Trello, Slack) are frequently involved.

There is a cost difference based on whether you contract out an external PM or hire an agency that has it built into their fee.

How to Decide Between Native and Cross-Platform App Development? Key Considerations

The difference between native and cross-platform development mainly relies on how much you can spend, need, and hope to achieve in the end. We will now discuss the important features that can guide you in deciding which option matches your needs.

1. Budget Constraints

Higher Budget? If budget permits, native development can provide best-in-class performance and an optimized user experience that’s specific to each platform. Native apps usually excel with silky-smooth animations, quicker response rates, and more seamless integration with device features.

Tight Budget? Cross-platform development saves money. Since you’re writing one codebase for iOS and Android, you pay considerably less for development time and maintenance, typically getting 30-40% off your budget versus native.

2. Time-to-Market

If you’re on a tight deadline to go live on both iOS and Android at the same time, cross-platform is typically the quickest way. Shared codebase results in briefer development cycles and more streamlined rollouts of updates.

Native applications tend to be longer in development because you must have different teams working on each platform, doubling the development and testing efforts.

3. App Complexity & Feature Demands

Complex apps with features such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), high-end GPU processing, or direct hardware access perform better when developed natively. Native environments offer direct access to device features without middleware constraints.

Cross-platform frameworks have advanced significantly, but when your app is built primarily around cutting-edge or platform-specific features, native app development tends to make your app more stable and performant.

4. Target Audience and Platform Focus

Since your user base is focused so greatly on a single platform (say, 80% iOS users), native development enables you to customize the experience to exactly that ecosystem’s design guidelines and user expectations.

But if you want to achieve maximum reach across various user bases, cross-platform app development is a good decision. It provides uniform functionality for both iOS and Android, so you don’t lose any potential users.

5. Long-Term Vision and Scalability

Many startups and companies that release MVPs prefer cross-platform development because it allows them to test their ideas quickly and at a low cost.

If your application grows and needs more advanced features or to be optimized for specific platforms, resorting to native might bring better and more enjoyable experiences for users.

6. Maintenance and Updates

Cross-platform apps make maintenance easier since a single codebase translates to less to update, and bug patches apply across all platforms at once.

Native apps, although possibly more solid, necessitate parallel streams of maintenance, which add continually rising costs and resource demands.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to deciding between native and cross-platform development, there is no right or wrong answer. Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. What matters as a business owner is the bigger picture, defining your app’s purpose, target user, cost, and long-term vision. 

If you’re not sure which path to go down, or you’ve already made one choice but are still confused, TekRevol can guide you. We’re a premier cross-platform app development company with expertise in creating high-performance apps with Flutter and React Native, and a robust portfolio of intricate, fully native apps as well.