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Are you looking to hire mobile app developers or a mobile app development team to build and scale an innovative mobile application? How much should it cost to hire mobile app developers? How much does it cost to have a mobile app developed? Is it worth hiring a mobile app development company? How do I hire a mobile app developer?
If yes, read on as I’m about to cover a lot of valuable information on how to hire mobile app developers in 2024, including associated costs, the top 5 companies where to hire application developers, mobile app examples, and much more.
Google Play and Apple App Store are the largest marketplaces for mobile apps in the world, hosting over 5 million applications. Google Play users downloaded 27 billion apps in Q1 2023, while Apple’s App Store users downloaded 8.1 billion. However, only the best apps succeed. If you get the best mobile app developers, yours could be one of them. Read on as I will show you how to do it.
In this article:
- How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Mobile App Developer?
- How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Mobile App in 2024?
- What Kind of Mobile App Developers Do You Need?
- 5 Steps to Hire a Mobile App Developer
- Top 5 Companies to Hire Mobile App Developers in 2024
Latest Mobile App Development Tech Trends
AI is going to completely shake up the development of mobile apps. Gartner recently reported that “by 2026, generative AI will significantly alter 70% of the design and development effort for new web applications and mobile apps.”
Android and iOS Mobile Operating System Market Share in the United States and Worldwide
The Android operating system has over 71% of the market share worldwide, while IOS has a 27.77% market share and Samsung has 0.31% worldwide.
In the United States, the iPhone (iOS) mobile operating system has over 57% of the market share, while Android has a 42.42% market share.
How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Mobile App Developer?
Let’s start by covering the basics. I will begin by covering the associated rates of hiring mobile app developers for different regions worldwide.
For those of you interested in hiring USA developers, I will then cover the cost of hiring mobile developers on a full-time basis in different parts of the United States. This way you will know which you can afford.
If you live in the United States, make sure you hire from a US-based company; otherwise, it will be extremely difficult to ensure you can exercise your legal rights as per your contract should anything go wrong. Added to this, working with people from the same culture goes a long way when you work on innovative, complex apps.
Mobile app developers for hire in the United States (San Francisco, Denver, Miami):
Mid-level and Senior App Developers: $55 – $300 per hour, or $10,400 to $48,000 per month, $124,800 to $576,000 per year, depending on whether you hire expert app developers from a software development platform, in-house employees, freelance app developers, or a space-rocket expensive San Francisсo based agency (yep, $300/h or $48K/mo per one developer on a full-time basis).
Mobile app developers for hire in Western Europe (Great Britain, Germany, France):
Mid-level and Senior App Developer: $45 – $200 per hour, or $8,000 to $32,000 per month, $96,000 to $384,000 per year full-time, depending on your hiring source.
Hire mobile app developers in Eastern Europe (Estonia, Poland, Serbia):
Mid-level and Senior App Developer: $35 – $150 per hour, or $5,600 to $24,000 per month, $67,200 to $288,000 per year full-time, depending on your hiring source.
Hire a mobile app developer in India (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai):
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Mid-level and Senior App Developer: $10 – $65 per hour, or $1,600 to $10,400 per month, $19,200 to $124,800 per year full-time, depending on your hiring source.
Cost of United States’ Mobile App Developers by States:
App developers for hire in California (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco): $124,800 to $284,000 per year
An app developer for hire in Colorado (Denver, Colorado Springs, Greenwood Village): $111,000 – $124,000 per year
Mobile app developers for hire in Illinois (Chicago, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield): $106,228 – $123,440 per year
Mobile app developer for hire in Maryland (Fort Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis): $90,001 – $115,000 per year
Hiring a developer in Massachusetts (Boston, Worcester, Springfield): $112,500 – $113,875 per year
Hiring developers in New York (Albany, New York, Brooklyn): $112,500 – $166,400 per year
Hiring app developers in Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas): $93,917 – $121,811 per year
I will repeat the advice I gave above just to highlight its importance. You should hire developers from a software development platform based in your home country, wherever possible. It will save you lots of headaches should you end up with substandard freelancers.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Mobile App in 2024?
The cost of your mobile app and the number of skilled developers you need will be determined by the complexity of your mobile application.
First, are you looking to build a cheap mobile app prototype to test the technology or users’ interest, an MVP(a Minimum Viable Product) to release publicly, or an enterprise-grade software solution to modernize a complex business process?
Let’s clarify the difference between various project scopes with a few mobile app examples, i.e., a prototype, an MVP, and an enterprise software product. Below, I will include the number of mobile developers required, as well as general app development cost and timeline for each example to help you better understand where your project may fit. 
1. A simple mobile app prototype to test the technology or users’ interest in such an app.
The development costs for this kind of hybrid or native mobile app prototype can be anywhere between $5K to $50K, depending on the app’s features and the tech complexity. It can take 1 to 3 expert app developers between 1 to 8 weeks to build it.
If you plan for a bare-bones mobile app prototype, no QA (Quality Assurance Engineer) or designers may be required. A good example of this kind of project is a mobile app that generates GIFs from any picture. A professional mobile app designer can design all the app’s screens and a landing page in a few days.
After that, one expert mobile app developer can create the complex GIF generation technology that powers the app in 3 to 4 weeks. This technology will allow the application to create GIFs from any uploaded picture in seconds. The goal of this prototype iOS application could be to test the social media market to see if creators and consumers are interested in such a product.
2. A mobile app MVP for a startup or enterprise/ MVP development
An MVP-stage mobile application can cost anywhere from $50K to $250K and take between 1.5 to 6 months to complete, depending on features. The development team required can consist of 2 or more mobile and backend developers, depending on the complexity of the features and whether AI, blockchain, or other technologies are needed.
Don’t forget about QA and DevOps (DevOps engineers help with server setup and other code management tasks) engineers. This product type can be released in stages, allowing you to test new features with early-stage customers as you go. A professional mobile app designer is advised at this stage.
This is an example of a successful mobile app MVP that has over 100,000 paying users. Here are the project details: The founder of a sports supplement business decided to create a new kind of app that would enable users to follow a pre-planned fitness program.
The app needed to include a custom calendar, daily progress pictures, and dietary plans, including required water intake levels, etc. A team of 6 expert app developers produced a custom native mobile app MVP for both the iOS and Android platforms within 6 months.
This involved the mobile app backend developers creating an AWS-based server environment (read about AWS for mobile apps later in this article), backend, and admin panel, too. This successful project gained over 100,000 paying users within the first two weeks, which led to further app development and the continuous release of new features via app updates.
3. A complex enterprise-grade mobile app or a HIPAA-compliant medical mobile platform/ complex app development
A cutting-edge food allergy treatment care and research center from South California needed to design and develop a HIPAA-compliant mobile application for remotely treating patients.
The application needed to be integrated with an existing database to provide two-way communication on an individual’s progress through their food allergy treatment program. I highly encourage you to read the entire mobile app case study here.
This type of enterprise-grade solution will cost anywhere from $250K and up and take 6 months or more to launch. The expected design and mobile development team will likely consist of 6 mobile app engineers or more.
The examples above should give you a general idea of the overall cost of your mobile app development using United States developers. To define the complexity of the app for your project requirements document, you need to list all the features you want your app to have.
In the first example, the entire app was built around one core feature. In the third example, the app contained several complex features that had to be seamlessly integrated, and all of them had to be custom-built, too.
Defining Your Mobile App Features
Your list of mobile app features can include anything from the ability of users to sign up, navigate a map, purchase something from an online store, social media integration, etc. 
If you are unsure about the features, use this mobile app features template as a guide. Once you decide on your app’s features, it’s important to understand your budget.
How much money do you have to hire top-of-the-line mobile developers to build your app? Is your project self-funded, or are you looking to raise funds? Are you working for a large company or a startup founder?
If you want to raise funds, the best approach is to undertake the design phase. Having a conceptual blueprint of your app will 10x your chances of raising funds on better terms.
What Kind of Mobile App Developers Do You Need?
There are 3 types of mobile app developers: Android developers, iOS developers, and Cross-platform developers(Hybrid developers).
Let’s start with Android!
1. Native Android App Developers/ Android app development
The Android operating system was released in 2008. It was developed by Google and is available in 100+ languages. You can download Android mobile applications via the Google Play Store.
Native Android app development involves hiring Android developers who are skilled in one of the many languages that can be used to create apps for this Google operating system. However, most Android apps are written in just two languages: Java and Kotlin. You will most likely need an Android developer who knows one or both.
Around 65% of the world’s Android developers use Java. This is because it is an Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) that allows developers to write modular and reusable code. It has a vast set of libraries and frameworks that can be used to help speed up the development process.
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There is a huge number of Java mobile developers out there, something which might seem like a big plus at first. However, hiring expert Java developers from such a large pool of good and bad software engineers can be challenging if you don’t know where to start.
To help start you out on the right foot, we have listed the top 5 development companies where you can outsource the best software professionals later in this article.
Kotlin was released in 2017. It is a modern programming language that offers concise syntax, coroutines, a rich set of development tools, and interoperability with Java. It is already extremely popular and may one day overtake Java to become the number-one Android development language.
Finding a developer proficient in Kotlin is not as easy as finding a Java engineer. However, there are still plenty of experienced Kotlin developers out there if you know where to look.
If you still haven’t decided on whether to use Kotlin or Java, then you can read more about Kotlin VS Java developers here.
2. Native iOS App Developers/ IOS app development
iOS was developed by Apple Inc. and released in 2007. It is available in 41 languages and powers all Apple company devices, including iPhones, iMacs, etc. Developing apps for Apple’s iOS requires hiring iOS developers, as Apple has created a unique set of programming languages and frameworks to create iOS apps.
The two main programming languages are Objective-C and Swift. Objective-C dates from the 1980s. It was used as the primary language with which to undertake iOS app development up until the release of Swift. Many Objective-C developers have learned Swift now.
However, while the Objective-C programming language is not usually used to develop new iOS apps, it is still widely used by iOS developers to maintain and enhance existing apps due to its complex legacy codebases and when apps must allow integration with Objective-C libraries, etc.
Swift is the latest Apple programming language. Introduced in 2014, it is powerful, modern, and expressive. Skilled Swift developers can create almost any iOS app you can think of.
Swift is a powerful mobile app development programming language that allows iOS developers to write clean, precise, and easily readable code. This makes Swift-based apps easy to support and maintain.
Its best features include type inference, automatic memory management, and optional. If you are interested in iOS development then you can learn more about the differences between Objective-C and Swift developers here.
3. Cross-platform (Hybrid) App Developers/ Cross-platform mobile app development
The cross-platform (or Hybrid) app development approach enables you to create mobile apps that run on multiple operating systems, i.e., Android and iOS, using only one codebase.
It has pros and cons when compared to the native programming languages I covered above. The main advantage is the time and money savings that you get from building the app with just a single codebase.
The main disadvantage is that you may hit certain platform-specific limitations. For example, certain Android or iOS features may not be available, and hybrid apps are not as fast as native apps.
Whether or not this will impact your mobile app development project approach must be carefully weighed on a case-by-case basis with a focus on your mobile app’s features and user expectations, etc.
Several hybrid frameworks allow cross-platform developers to create highly performant mobile applications. The most popular example is React Native. Created by Facebook in 2015, this open-source framework allows developers to build apps using JavaScript and React.
It has numerous advantages, including the ability to create high-performance custom solutions and reuse components. Another highly popular cross-platform framework is Flutter.
It was released by Google back in 2017 and also enables software developers to create reliable and performant cross-platform applications. Flutter has many advantages over other frameworks, including React Native.
One is that it allows Flutter developers to use Dart, an object-orientated programming language, which many developers are already familiar with due to its similar syntax to the C programming language.
You can read more about the differences between Flutter vs. React Native software developers here.
Overall, Flutter and React Native are considered leading solutions and are both excellent frameworks for saving time and money when launching both iOS and Android mobile apps simultaneously.
Just make sure to partner with experienced app developers to guarantee your app’s quality. This mobile developer job description template can help you find the best cross-platform app developers.
Backend Mobile App Developers/ Backend development
Your mobile app will work with a specific backend and server. That means you will also need expert backend developers skilled and experienced in setting up server environments and coding the mobile app backend. 
The top backend server providers are:
1. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers a wide range of great mobile app development tools, including some of the most cutting-edge AI tools in the marketplace, i.e., Google Gemini. Google Compute Engine allows developers to run their code in Google’s cloud infrastructure. Backed up with Google’s Cloud Source Repositories tool, which allows developers to save and easily access different versions of their code, Google Cloud Platform is a top choice for mobile app developers.
2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is another top backend service provider. It allows developers to store and run their latest mobile apps safely and offers a powerful set of development tools via the highly customizable AWS Amplify. This great tool helps to speed up both your mobile application development process and the performance and reliability of the final app.
3. Microsoft Azure’s cloud platform offers a range of excellent backend services for mobile app developers. It supports a range of programming languages and frameworks, including Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, and Node.JS, to name but a few. Azure has great tools that help with creating all kinds of functionalities, including push notifications, implementing payment gateways, AI chatbots, etc.
Additional Mobile App Developer Skills:
Your mobile app developers will need other critical technical skills relevant to Android and iOS app development.
These include:
-
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): App developers should be adept at working with APIs to communicate with the backend and access and integrate various services like location-based services, payment gateways, social media platforms, etc.
- Database Management: Knowledge of database systems like SQLite, MySQL, MongoDB, or PostgreSQL is essential to ensure your app stores and retrieves app data efficiently. Mobile User Interface (UI) Design (Not essential but a huge benefit): Understanding user experience (UX) principles and having an eye for good mobile UI designs will all help to ensure that you get a visually appealing and user-friendly end product.
- Version Control: Familiarity with version control systems like Git enables mobile app engineers to collaborate efficiently by easily managing changes in the codebase, etc. Debugging and Testing: Proficiency in debugging tools and techniques helps app developers identify and fix bugs quickly. Knowledge of automated testing frameworks is also valuable for efficiently testing a mobile app’s most important parts, such as sign-up and sign-in pages.
- Performance Optimization: Mobile devices have limited resources, so developers should know how to optimize app performance to ensure a smooth user experience and battery efficiency.
- Platform Guidelines: Understanding the specific guidelines and app store policies of both the iOS and Android platforms is essential for successful app submission and approval. Your developers must ensure your app conforms to the relevant guidelines.
- Security: Knowledge of secure coding practices and encryption techniques is crucial to safeguarding user data and protecting the app from potential vulnerabilities. Developers must know how to secure your mobile app.
- Problem-solving: Mobile app development often involves overcoming various difficult challenges, so strong problem-solving skills are highly beneficial.
- Communication and Teamwork: Collaboration with designers, product managers, and other team members is a common part of any software development, so effective communication and teamwork skills are essential.
- Continuous Learning: The mobile app development landscape constantly evolves, so professional developers should desire to learn new technologies and stay updated with the latest trends.
5 Steps to Hire a Mobile App Developer
Now that you know the kind of developers you need for your mobile development project, do you want the best app developers who you can rely on without risk? Are you interested in how to hire a mobile app developer or mobile engineer?
I’m guessing the answer is a resounding yes! So read on for an outline of the crucial steps you need to follow to find mobile app developers that are perfect for your software development project. 
Step 1: Nail your app developers’ and project requirements.
As I stated earlier in the article, the most important project requirement document is a list of your mobile app’s features.
You can split it into the MVP stage and the Post-MVP stage, as well as into different user roles. Let’s consider an example. You have a rental app, and so do end users who rent vacation homes.
They must be able to do certain things on their mobile app, i.e., browse available places, book them, and pay. Additionally, you will have a user or administration function for the homeowner who lists the property. They will need features for listing homes, setting the price, approving the booking, refunding users if needed, etc.
This list of features, which will be implemented and refined during both the MVP and post-MVP stages, will be the foundation of your development project. If you need a template features for your MVP, you can download it here.
Once you have a list of features, you can then clarify how many developers you may need and what skills they should possess. For example, you may want to build a simple MVP-stage app using a hybrid solution. In this case, you will likely want to hire Flutter or React Native app developers.
Step 2: Choose the right hiring platform
You have two main choices if you are not planning to hire someone in person but rather outsource a remote developer or development team.
These are: Hire Expert App Developers from a Software Development Company or Freelance Hiring Platform?
Hiring senior app engineers from a reputable software development company is the safest approach, as they pretty much guarantee project success. Let me explain why.
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Advantages of outsourcing professional mobile app developers from reputable software development companies:
- A large community of expert mobile developers who have worked for the app development platform for many years and possess experience in building similar apps to your development project.
- Developers are fully vetted, so you don’t need to do this yourself.
- Cohesive development teams.
- Complimentary support via your dedicated technical account manager.
- Complimentary quality assurance on feature delivery and pre-release products.
- Access to powerful project management tools and app development process.
- Properly structured legal agreements that protect your interest and intellectual property (IP).
- Risk-free one-week trial. So even if you don’t like the developers you get, say for personal reasons, you get the entire 1st invoice credited towards a new candidate.
The other option is the freelance platform. They have become increasingly popular in recent years. They offer access to a wide range of cheap freelance developers from around the world.
Hiring app developers from them is a viable option, but it comes with a number of major drawbacks. So, perhaps the best thing is to offer you a few words of warning when hiring freelance mobile app developers.
The risks of hiring a freelance mobile app developer include:
- Not dedicated to your development project as they need to juggle multiple projects at once to ensure a steady income stream.
- You must shortlist, interview and reference check each and every candidate, including checking for scammers. This can take forever, and if you miss anything, guess what? You are the one who will end up picking up the pieces.
- If your freelance developer gets a better offer, you will have to rush to find a replacement on your own.
- If your freelancer decides to take your idea or code, you may well find yourself gazing at your freelancer on the cover of Time magazine and seeing all your family and friends using your stolen app idea. Believe it or not, some billion-dollar companies have been built this way.
Step 3: Review, shortlist, and undertake a 3-step (primary, skills, final) interview of all suitable candidates.
If you are hiring from a freelance site, you should post a detailed Android or iOS job description to help you get the right candidates.
If you hire from a software company, your process will be much smoother due to them having already vetted any candidates from their company. However, I highly suggest you follow the following steps. You can’t be cautious enough when hiring software developers.
Initial Screening The initial screening interview is the fastest way to access each of your shortlisted candidates so that you can eliminate all but the best ones. This interview lets you get a good idea of each candidate’s personality and work attitude, as well as giving you the chance to go through their qualifications, depending on their experience level. There are three levels of developers’ expertise:
- Junior app developer
- Middle app developer
- Senior app developer
To help you with your interviews, check out our 37 Android interview questions and answers, and 30 iOS interview questions and answers split by app developers’ levels. They will be a big help. Once you’re satisfied with your candidates’ basic knowledge, make sure to discuss pricing and work terms during this interview.
Technical Assessment The technical assessment interview will allow you to evaluate your candidates’ programming proficiency (i.e., their ability to write clean and performant code), their ability to devise good solutions to problems, such as how to ensure a clean architecture, and how they work with various frameworks tools, etc.
I strongly recommend that you get someone who knows what they are doing to prepare the coding tasks and to review the candidate’s submissions together with you. Here are some mobile app interview questions to help you with this.
Final Interview: The final interview will cover the candidate’s technical skills, problem-solving approach, and how they fit within the team and organization in more depth.
You will need to dive deeper into your potential developer’s technical skills, i.e., their ability to code specific functionalities such as payment gateways, etc., that specifically relate to your Android or iOS app project. I also recommend preparing several hypothetical examples based on your project requirements to really test your candidate’s suitability.
Pro Tip: When interviewing app developers, ask for a live Zoom call or Zoom recording with a shared screen so they can open their past apps and design tools and show you the product design materials and app code they recently worked on. If they can’t do it, they are most likely not entirely honest with you.
Step 4: Thoroughly check references.
This is a no-brainer, but surprisingly, many companies and startup founders don’t undertake it thoroughly enough. Remember to comprehensively check the verified reviews and references of your chosen mobile app developers.
Step 5: Onboard your software engineering professional/ onboard developer
Now you have hired the right application developers, it is time to get them up and running. Be sure to carefully cover your expected working practices plus the following questions:
- Do they use the Agile methodology, Waterfall, or something else?
- What kind of task tracker do they use, or are they happy onboarding onto your own task tracker?
- Do they use Slack, Discord, or something else for daily chats and reports?
- Will they share their code with you via their GitHub account or your respiratory?
That’s it! You have now found your mobile app developer. Onboard them and get started.
Top 5 Companies to Hire Mobile App Developers in 2024
As you now have lots of valuable information about app developers, let’s go over the top 5 companies where you can hire mobile app developers in 2024: 
1. DevTeam.Space – software development company
DevTeam.Space is a United States-based software company with a well-managed community of over 60 expert app development teams and 1200 developers from the United States, Europe, and Canada. All developers are supported by an AI-powered Agile process. Since 2016, DevTeam.Space’s mobile app developers have achieved a 99% project success rate thanks to the company’s proven development approach, methodology, and innovative tools.
Companies like Airbus, Disney, NEC, and startups of all sizes hire DevTeam.Space. Its expert developers and professional development teams help clients build their next-generation mobile apps.
However, if your project is small, say below $5K, and you’re ready to spend more time interviewing and to risk the quality of your app or money than trying to find a brilliant freelancer among millions of profiles on the freelancer platforms could be an option. Here are some of the companies where you can do it:
2. Freelancer -freelance marketplace website
Freelancer is an Australia-based general skills freelancer platform. The platform allows client companies to hire a freelance mobile app developer from more than 100 countries worldwide to help them fill their human resources gaps.
They have developers with the skills to build most kinds of mobile applications. If you wish to onboard and manage mobile developers entirely by yourself, Freelancer is a good option.
3. Fiverr – an online marketplace for freelance services
Fiverr is a self-described “online marketplace for freelancers” that is based in Israel. They offer a range of freelancer services, software developers being one of them. Essentially they operate the same model as Freelancer above, where you register and post a job description and then must interview and hire freelance mobile developers yourself.
4. UpWork -an American freelancing platform
UpWork is the largest general skill freelance platform. You can hire a freelancer for literally anything via UpWork. The platform has a very large pool of talent where you can hire a freelance mobile developer who might be willing to work at rock-bottom prices. However, I strongly recommend that you hire expert developers rather than trying to save money by hiring less experienced engineers.
5. Toptal – a website platform for freelancers
Toptal is a software-focused freelance platform. It claims to vet all its application developers and only to hire the top 3%, mirroring the vetting model used by professional software development companies. The company offers Toptal mobile app developers for hire for all currently used technologies and designers, financial specialists, and other professionals.
Conclusion
Finding that perfect mobile app developer for your project is not hard when you know exactly where to look.
DevTeam.Space is a community of 62 expert development teams and over 1200 developers. The community covers every software development technology, including a few you might never have heard of.
The platform has partnered with hundreds of companies by allowing them to outsource its developers and development teams to help them build their next-generation software products. They also allow companies to completely outsource their software development projects in case they don’t have the bandwidth or skills to do it in-house.
As soon as you submit a request for web developers, DevTeam.Space will match the right mobile app developers with your project. Within 72 hours, you will have the mobile app developers, mobile app development team, and designers that you need.
When you hire mobile app developers from DevTeam.Space, you get a complimentary dedicated account manager to assist you with managing your project. This manager has extensive prior experience managing similar projects in your specific industry.
DevTeam.Space also provides free quality assurance testing for new features and pre-release mobile applications. This testing is done by a senior QA specialist who will find any bugs or issues before release. This allows you to rest easy knowing that your website is secure and runs exactly the way you want it to.
If you want to hire expert mobile app developers to build a world-class mobile app, sign up with DevTeam.Space and get a no-risk trial, exceptional code quality, competitive pricing, excellent communication, and project management support.
After you post the project request, one of the DevTeam.Space dedicated technical account managers will get in touch to arrange a complimentary discovery call.
