How Much Does It Cost To Make A Fitness App?

Simple Answer On How Much Does It Cost To Create a Fitness App in 2022-2023

Based on the survey, the fitness market is thriving in the USA. The global fitness club market is valued at $70 billion, and the fitness app market is worth $1.21 billion, expected to reach $5.41 billion by 2030. If you’re reading these lines, you’re probably interested in the cost of developing a fitness app.

So, whether you have a concept of the fitness app or you just want to learn about this space to gain a stable income, it is time to see facts, numbers and cost of fitness app development services to help you make a decision.

Due to a modern active lifestyle which requires people to fit sports in the fast-speed regimen, new fitness solutions are developed every year and are going to become one of the most popular spheres nowadays. However, the wave of brand-new fitness mobile applications also brings many changes to the regular workout places, replacing them with virtual fitness services.

Even though there is a common belief that most people spend over 4 hours a day on their favorite apps, like shopping, music services, or social media, modern people are more aware of their health than previously. Since modern lifestyle is closely related to fast food and health issues due to lack of physical activity, people are now turning to fitness applications that help them stay active with no mess or hassle.

Taking into consideration that the mobile apps domain has also significantly increased over the last few years, these fitness solutions are also gaining popularity with the convenience and ease of use they bring. Moreover, COVID-19 became one of the main drivers of this industry, as all gyms have been closed and developers produced solutions for home workouts. 

The COVID-19 breakout has increased the awareness pertaining to overall wellness, health, and hygiene; thereby, the number of daily active users of fitness apps has rocketed by 24% from the first quarter to the 2nd quarter of 2020. Additionally, if you are still thinking of which is the ideal platform to create a fitness app, then smartphones are the ideal choice as they accounted for the largest revenue share of 67.6% two years ago and will be up to 75% by the end of 2022.

This article has been created to help you learn more about the fitness app development cost and what factors affect the final price. Let’s get started!

What is a Fitness App?

Once you develop a fitness application, it’s far more about just creating a gym workout app. Fitness mobile applications can be in a variety of spheres, and they are designed to support overall wellbeing and improve health.

These apps can range from a simple activity tracker to actually delivering workout programs according to many factors, like body weight, health condition, and desired effect. These applications can become a great way for users to monitor themselves, ask other users to estimate their performance, and provide tools for physical improvement.

From the business perspective, a mobile interface can represent a tool for communication, and usually, if not always, it also works as the primary way that consumers learn and purchase their fitness services and products.

Even though the options are almost endless, the most common categories fitness apps fall under include the following:

• Activity tracking applications
• Nutrition and diet apps
• Workout programs apps

Let’s discuss the differences between these apps.

Types Of Fitness Apps: Let’s Determine fitness app development costs

Activity Tracker Apps

These applications are considered to be the most popular version of fitness & wellness services. They are created to help users meet their activity goals by tracking the number of steps they perform per day. The majority of tracking applications are connected directly to native mobile apps like the phone’s gyrometer or collect information by connecting with exercise machines or data that the user inputs.

Diet and Nutrition Apps

Just like its name suggests, this software is related to diet and nutrition. They help assemble tracking data that make an individual’s goals unique, measurable, and achievable. Such applications allow users to input their actual and desired weight, daily activity, and height, so the app can analyze the data and provide the calories they have to eat per day as well as products and diet programs they may like to achieve the goals.

Workout Apps

Although gym workout development may also include tracking elements, the app’s main responsibility is to deliver the workouts and exercises. Most products allow customers to choose from videotaped sessions that they can watch through both iOS or Android phones or other devices. In addition, most in-demand apps are also packed with various libraries of exercises that users can learn and apply in practice later. 

Get in touch with us in case you can’t determine fitness app development costs:

1. Choose desired options and features.
2. Identify the specific fitness app type you need.
3. Find a software development company with remote developers, 100% dedication, and a fast team launch.

Must-Have Features of Fitness App 

User Onboarding

For most newcomers, accessing the fitness app can be a challenging task. This is why you should consider adding the onboarding feature, like a video on how to use it or a simple guide on using your app. This will be not only a helpful instruction but also create a great first user experience. 

Sign In/Log In

Like with any other app, your users have to enter the app by inputting data like name, login, and more. You have to ensure the registration phase is simple, clear, and easy to use. According to the latest survey, most people prefer to sign in through their social media platforms. 

User Profiles

Since it’s a fitness app, every user should have an opportunity to see their own workout history to track their performance. Therefore, your development team should ensure the user profile contains all needed information such as name, age, height, weight, gender as well as fitness level, and health condition. 

Set Fitness Goals

Fitness apps have to provide users with a feature to set their goals and track them. Try to make this feature engaging and simple to understand, as it will both be interesting for users and boost retention rate. You can also create a poll to later ask users what they like about the feature and what they want to improve to always stay in-demand within the market.

Synchronization With Wearable Devices

Wearable devices are a buzzword in today’s fast-speed world, so using GoogleKit APIs can help you consolidate data from fitness trackers and your fitness app. In addition, the WatchOS and Wear OS operating systems allow developers to sync with Apple Watch and Android SmartWatches for hassle-free usage and more data collected.

Tracking Activity

Whether you create a tracking app or a regular fitness app with an activity tracking feature, you can give users an opportunity to use this feature in the most convenient way for them. They can either track the activity per day using the in-build sensors in smartphones or by integrating with wearable devices we mentioned before.

Audio/Video Player

In order to stand out from the competitors and make your app engaging enough, you need to provide audio or video content of workouts for your users. In addition, users should also have an opportunity to stop the video, increase or decrease the volume and return to the video whenever they like.

Push Notifications

Push notifications are an excellent future for any application and business that wants to keep users informed and in close contact with them. According to statistics, this feature also increases the retention rate by 3 to 10 times. Through notifications, you can also inform users about their upcoming workouts, remind them to drink water, or just provide information regarding discounts and payments. 

Payments

Depending on the monetization option the business chooses, the app may provide workout, fitness, or nutrition plans, so payment features should be included. The development team applies Braintree, PayPal, Stripe as well as other payment options to make hassle-free online purchases.

Workout and Recipes

Whether your app will provide workout or nutrition information, you will need to make it simple for users to understand how to create a particular dish or perform an exercise through videos or photos provided. 

Monetization Techniques of Fitness Apps

Paid Applications

This type of application requires users to pay the cost when downloading the app. The price may vary according to the application type, mobile platform, as well as content you provide.

In-App Purchases

This type of monetization requires you to create content or provide products that users can purchase from the platform. In addition, you can also provide premium versions or updated workout plans that will cost an extra fee.

Freemium

This is the most popular monetization technique that companies use for their apps. The app can be downloaded for free, but later they will pay an extra one-time fee or subscription to open up the premium feature set.

Ads and Sponsored Content

Also a great option for those who want to get stable revenue from the fitness app. As you might suggest, you will place ads in the app or provide the sponsored content. This might be fitness products ads, or you can also ask any gym to place their advertising in your app. So options are endless. Even though people don’t like the ads, you can provide a premium version without ads and ask for an extra fee.

How To Develop a Fitness App?

STEP 1: Research The Market

This step is essential as it requires you to analyze the market, learn about competitors and identify features you need to add if you want to stand out from the crowd. Here you will also need to understand your target audience, what they like, what they look for, and find the best ways you can satisfy their needs.

Some of the questions below may help you with finishing this step:

• What’s my USP?
• What mobile platforms do I want to cover?
• How exactly will my app be attractive for people?

STEP 2: Creation Of Prototype 

Even though the market research may be done by you, the prototype should be developed by an experienced team. This step requires you to turn your idea into the first meaningful form. 

STEP 3: Choose The Tech Stack 

This stage also requires a team of engineers who will help you understand the benefits of each programming language and which one applies to your business needs. The tech stack you choose will affect the budget of the development and also may impose several limitations on your product’s capabilities.

STEP 4. Develop & Test

Finally, once you’ve done all the steps mentioned above, you are ready to go further with the development and testing. You have to make sure the team you choose has already worked in the fitness and wellness domain, as it will affect the whole process and user experience.

When developing, your engineers can integrate the app with:

• sensors, Apple Health, Google Fit, and Samsung Health
• mobile solutions like Endomondo, Fitbit, etc. 

When testing, you will need the following stages:

• peer-code review
• manual testing with unit tests
• automated-testing with tools like Sentry.io or Crashlytics

STEP 5: Release, Promote & Maintain

Finally, you have your app, and you need to show it to potential users. Alongside launching, you will need to consider mobile app marketing, as it will help you differentiate your app from the rest that exists on the market. Once launched and promoted, make sure you collect user feedback and always update it to stay in demand.

How Much Does It Cost To Make a Fitness App for business?

It is vital to note that the price for the development will always depend on many factors that include:

1. The company you choose;
2. The complexity and availability of features;
3. Time duration;
4. The cross-platform feature.

Let’s take a look at our small breakdown of price on developing an average fitness app:

● Specifications and Design prototypes (40-60 hours — $1000 to $3000)

● UI Designing (60-80 Hours — $1500 to $5000)

● Front-end and Back-end development(400-600 Hours — $10,000 to $ 40,000)

● Testing (50-80 Hours — $2000 to $4000)

● Bug fixing and updating (20-40 hours — $1000 to $1500)

Even though you may hire developers and designers one by one and do not hire Project Managers and Business Analysts for your app, the best way to reduce the cost, time, and resources needed is to hire an experienced app development company like Interexy.

Let’s Learn About Our Crumb Case

Crumb is a revolutionary fitness mobile app that was supported by Interexy team from the idea till its successful launch. The main concept of this application is to make it easier for people worldwide to spend time outside doing fitness activities by rewarding them with a wide range of rewards, discounts & benefits within local shops & restaurants.

Crumb’s founder met Interexy at a very complex point of its lifecycle – they were running late with the first release having an inhouse CTO. The team spent too much time & money on Health App integration which they wanted to become the core feature of the app – the team didn’t have enough resources.

Since our team is made up of only experienced engineers, we quickly came into the product team & outlined the main issues. Our team decided to focus on the iOS version by using native Swift iOS language to integrate the Health App, which only took a couple of days to finish. As a result, we delivered the first version of the Crumb app on time within the first five weeks, which gives the founders a chance to extend the pre-seed fundraising round & continue working on the product further with our team.

Hire the Team of Professionals

Interexy is an experienced development partner that has a full team you need for a successful fitness app. We have been working in over 15 spheres, including the wellness, health, and fitness domain. Every team member undergoes a very dedicated hiring process, so we always ensure only the top-notch professionals will develop your app. Whether you need to realize your idea, improve the existing product, or help from the best engineers, get in touch with fitness app development company.

The total fitness app development cost 

After selecting the fitness app type and estimating feature development, it’s time to piece everything together. An MVP costs $30,000 to $50,000, while a full-featured app can reach $300,000 with up to 1,000 hours of development. Platform choice (Android, iOS, cross-platform) also impacts fitness app development costs.

Final Thoughts

The fitness domain is flourishing due to many factors, and people will tend to use convenient applications to support their active, healthy lifestyles. Since there are many apps that have already been done and launched, you will need to create something unique and engaging to stand out from the crowd and stay in demand for many years. If you want to reduce costs for the development, it is always better to partner with a development team. Reach us out for any questions, and let’s show the world a revolutionary application!

Interexy is a Miami-headquartered custom mobile app development company with development offices in Dubai and Poland. We have in-depth expertise in Healthcare, Pharma & Fitness industries, offering upmarket healthcare software development services for such market giants as SAP, Pampers, General Electric, and the fastest-growing web3 startups.

FAQs on Fitness App Development Cost

What are wellness apps?

Even though there are numerous options on how wellness and fitness apps can work, they all serve one purpose – support and improve people’s wellbeing and health.

What does the fitness app do?

Depending on the idea, fitness apps may allow users to track their daily activity, provide workout plans, nutrition and diet advice, and more.

Do I need to worry about HIPAA compliance?

In most cases, no. HIPAA is required for healthcare and medicinal applications. Since fitness apps do not contain any sensitive information, you don’t need to worry about complying with these guidelines.