Estimating healthcare app development costs: ITRex experts weigh in

To get an accurate estimation of how much it will cost to develop a health app, you need to assess your idea against the following five factors:

Let’s explore these factors in more detail.

Note that while providing cost estimates in this section, we assume you have detailed documentation describing your app idea. Also, the vast majority of health app development projects require a discovery phase, which would add around $25,000 to the estimates presented below.

Note that all the estimates presented in this article cover custom-built solutions. There are low-code and no-code development options that would be cheaper, but they lack customization, result in vendor fees, and might not be easy to scale.

A healthcare app can either serve patients or healthcare personnel.

mHealth applications for medical professionals

These apps benefit doctors and nurses by streamlining healthcare delivery processes and allowing medical personnel to communicate with patients. It is critical that these apps follow HIPAA regulations and use strong encryption methods.

Apps for healthcare professionals help medical staff with the following tasks:

Health apps for patients

These solutions aim to support the general population in leading a healthy lifestyle and delivering better medical outcomes. Such mHealth apps allow patients to:

As some people tend to confuse mHealth apps with fitness and wellness software, we want to draw the line between these solutions. Applications discussed here use personal data for medical purposes and therefore need to be compliant with the corresponding country’s regulations.

If you want to build a fitness app, you can check out our recent article on sports app development costs. Also, if you are looking to develop a patient engagement solution, refer to our detailed guide on expenses associated with implementing patient engagement software.

In this section, we list common types of health apps, describe their functionality, and assess their development costs.

This type of healthcare software allows doctors to prescribe medication, monitor prescription history, and cancel and renew prescriptions. The functionality of such apps depends on governmental regulations. In some countries, such software lets users communicate with a pharmacist of their choice to place an order and arrange for a pickup.

ScriptSure is one example of this health app category. It enables users to send their e-prescriptions to pharmacies and safely print prescriptions when needed. This software links to an integrated database with prescription drugs and vitamins, along with their directions for use.

The implementation costs of an e-prescription medical app start from $120,000 on average for one mobile platform and a back end.

Telehealth practice has gained popularity since the COVID-19 outbreak. These health solutions allow doctors to carry out online consultations via mobile and web apps. These apps can be rather extensive and include linking to the hospital’s EHR system, invoicing and payment options, in-app video conferencing, patient dashboards, file transfer, e-prescription, and patient monitoring, among other features.

Boston-based Amwell developed a comprehensive HIPAA-compliant telehealth solution that gives patients access to specialized professionals 24/7. Healthcare organizations can register their professionals for a subscription fee. Doctors can access the app directly from their native EHRs and link it to billing and claims management systems. This platform offers primary and urgent care, along with telepsychiatry. Amwell already has over 2,000 medical facilities subscribed to its services.

The price range for a custom telehealth solution would start from $200,000 on average.

This type of medical apps gathers patient data outside of medical facilities through sensors. Doctors use this data to monitor the patient’s wellbeing and sometimes even to perform remote diagnosis. Remote patient monitoring solutions can also alert healthcare providers if the patient’s condition suddenly deteriorates or any abnormalities are detected. This is especially useful for the elderly and people recovering from surgery or trying to manage a chronic condition at home.

MedM offers a sensor- and smartphone-agnostic platform for patient monitoring. It already has over 600 medical sensors in its integration portfolio and can measure 18 health parameters. The app can also consolidate data with Google Fit and Apple Health.

Such patient monitoring solutions can cost you at least $250,000 for connecting consumer electronics and building two front ends—for patients and doctors. Including special monitoring devices will require a tailored approach with custom pricing calculations for every device.

These healthcare applications help users identify their illness based on a list of symptoms and direct them to the closest medical center to confirm the diagnosis.

One example of such software is Ada. According to the app’s website, clinical studies proved that it’s the most accurate symptom checker app. It contains information on 1,500 diseases. In addition to diagnosing services, Ada can find available practitioners in close proximity to the user and suggest treatments that you can do at home.

A symptom checker health app would cost you at least $100,000. The main development challenge here is transferring the medical disease diagnosis guide into a digital format. The complexity of this medical guide will influence the price tag.

The previous mHealth app type is meant for patients, while medical diagnosing software is more complex and is intended for healthcare professionals. It helps doctors gather and analyze data from patients’ IoT sensors, cameras, and EHRs and share it—anonymously—with colleagues asking for feedback. Medical diagnosis software may also include AI models that can process patient data and generate intelligent recommendations.

Human Dx is medical community software that aims to build the world’s collective medical insights. It helps solve different medical cases and gives trainees the opportunity to practice their reasoning skills.

The price tag for a basic medical diagnosis app starts at $200,000.

The number and complexity of features will have a large impact on the total healthcare app development cost. But it will also give you a competitive edge if you manage to deliver functionality that actually covers the needs of your target audience in a convenient manner.

Let’s see which basic and advanced features you can incorporate into your health application.

Here is a list of more complicated features that will help you deliver a competitive offering.

Incorporating cutting-edge technology will increase the total healthcare app development costs, but it will enable you to offer more value for your customers. Let’s see what these technologies can do exactly.

AI has many benefits for the healthcare field in general and for mHealth apps in particular. Here are some examples of what the technology can accomplish.

The costs of incorporating AI models in your medical app will vary depending on whether you adopt a ready-made or a custom-built algorithm and how much effort you invest in preparing the training data. If you can use AI models with additional minimal training, you can build each one of the AI solutions described above within the timeframe of two months, and it will cost you $40,000–$60,000 on average.

But those estimates account for the AI solution alone, and there will be additional expenses depending on which features you want to include. If we look at the AI-powered avatar mentioned above, the total amount will depend on how realistic you want the avatar to look. Is it 2D or 3D? Will you use Unity or Unreal Engine? What is the size of your audience? Those and other factors can increase the costs of making a healthcare app significantly.

For more information, check out our recent article on AI costs.

Augmented reality has had a profound impact on the healthcare sector, especially since the beginning of the pandemic. Here are some ideas of how you can enhance your healthcare application by implementing AR.

Augmented reality is cheaper on average than both AI and IoT because all AR solutions are built on top of existing frameworks. Coming back to the list above, the third option is the most challenging to execute and the most expensive. The system needs to be able to recognize the environment (a patient’s house with different rooms), determine the patient’s exact location, and decide how they can navigate to their medication without bumping into a chair or another piece of furniture. The time and costs needed to create such a healthcare mobile app increase with every additional task or flow.

For more information on the costs associated with creating an augmented reality app, refer to our blog.

IoT has many use cases in the medical sector, from smart hospitals to the Internet of Bodies. IoT healthcare solutions rely on web apps, mobile apps, and embedded interfaces, such as voice assistants, to display the processed sensor data and enable users to interact with IoT devices. Here are some examples of how IoT solutions could enhance your health app.

An IoT system for drug storage monitoring would be the cheapest and easiest option among the points presented above. It would take three to five months to build. Ingestible sensors are the most challenging on this list, as you will have to deal with FDA and similar approvals.

When it comes to IoT-related costs, you need to factor in building and purchasing hardware, acquiring all the necessary certifications, and developing embedded software if needed. Additionally, there will be costs associated with data storage and analytics. For more information, check out our recent blog post on IoT costs.

Healthcare is a heavily regulated sector, and any software developed for this field needs to comply with the corresponding country’s regulations that govern how you gather, store, and use personal medical data. For example, healthcare software targeting the US market might need to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act), and the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule.

Every country has its own set of compliance rules that you and your development team need to be aware of from the very beginning of your project.

Implementing extensive privacy and security measures can add at least $20,000 to the total cost of developing a health app, and will require complex and expensive infrastructure. If this seems like a large sum, remember that the US government imposes heavy penalties on those who fail to comply, including serving an actual prison sentence for gross violations. The total sum of fines depends on the violation’s severity and the size of the non-compliant business. For example, violating the Privacy Rule under HIPAA can cost up to $50,000 per violation, while selling identifiable health information for commercial gain can result in $250,000 in fines.

If you incorporate compliance into your product’s architecture from the start, it will only take a few additional hours of an architect’s or a CTO’s time. You can also use the CTO as a service approach if you don’t have a full-time employee or aren’t sure how to approach the issue.

You can find a summary of the factors and the corresponding added costs in the table below.

Now that you know what factors might affect the cost of building a healthcare app, let’s take a look at real-life projects from our portfolio to better understand the pricing.

Note that the estimated budget presented below focuses purely on development costs. Every project also has extra expenses that are not accounted for in this estimation. Additional costs can be monthly licensing fees, depending on the tools used, and maintenance costs, depending on the support plan selected by the client.

A digital health startup collaborated with ITRex to produce a heart rate monitor device supplemented with an iOS healthcare application that will visualize the monitor’s data and alert doctors in the case of an emergency. To be able to aggregate sensor data in real time, our team used the OpenGL API and shifted part of the workload to a mobile GPU.

Healthcare app development costs: from $100,000
Duration: 3 months
Technology: iOS SDK, C, OpenGL library, OpenGL ES

ITRex cooperated with a software company based in Chicago to develop a web app that helps standardize medical data in healthcare organizations. This software could convert CSV files—with comma-separated medical entries—to messages compliant with the HL7 healthcare data exchange standard. The solution consists of three main modules—a CSV parser, a HL7 converter, and an FTP uploader that will upload the resulting HL7 message to a file on a dedicated FTP server.

Costs of developing the health app: from $100,000
Duration: 3 months
Technology: C#, HTML/CSS, .NET Core, ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, xUnit.net, Bootstrap, SQL.

A digital health startup turned to ITRex to build a mobile app that clinics can use to help their clients adopt healthier habits and follow doctors’ recommendations. This solution keeps track of the user’s long- and short-term goals, comments from the user’s coach/physician, and selected meal and workout plans. Users can book doctor appointments through the app, get suggestions on how to improve their performance, and chat with their coach. The solution integrates with the clinic’s management system and allows users to view their lab results.

Medical app development costs: $400,000 – $600,000
Duration: 8-10 months
Technology: React, React Native, AWS, Node.js

A multinational biotechnology company turned to ITRex to build a device-agnostic app that supports patients during their first 100 days after being discharged from a hospital. Patients can create a profile, link their caregiver account, and receive personalized content through a preferred channel, which can be an SMS, email, or WhatsApp message.

Costs of developing the healthcare app: $400,000 – $600,000
Duration: 9 months
Technology: React, Java 11, Spring, Spring Security, Adobe Experience Manager, MySQL, Google Analytics, AWS, Twilio.

This HIPAA and GDPR-compliant solution allows patients to register, fill out an introductory survey, and receive a personalized health plan and subsequent notifications and reminders. Users can also communicate with their doctors via chat and video calls. This medical application also gives patients the option to set up family accounts and share progress on social media.

The solution includes some advanced features, such as an AI-powered content recommendation engine and a DNA analysis tool based on BioJava.

Healthcare app development costs: $600,000 – $800,000
Duration: 5 – 6.5 months
Technology: React.js, Java, Amazon Web Services, Kotlin, Swift

Overall, you could pay $100,000–$200,000 for a simple custom healthcare application. This is a significant amount, and your expenses might not end here, as your medical solution will require maintenance and support. Also, you might want to implement additional features to keep up with the customers’ demands. To help you reduce health app development costs, you could: