How Much Does It Cost to Make a Fitness App in 2025?

With rising urbanization and consumers becoming more health-conscious, they are searching for app solutions that can monitor their fitness levels. They want to know how healthy they are, especially when they live a sedentary lifestyle.

This means that fitness apps are growing in popularity, and a research study states that the fitness app market is expected to reach USD 4.39 billion by 2029.

That's why spending money on it is profitable for your business. But the question is – how much does it cost to make a fitness app in 2025?

The starting price of fitness app development is around $25,000-$50,000.

However, the cost can vary depending on the features you need, whether you need an MVP, do you want to integrate AI in your fitness app (android or iOS) and where the app developers are based out of.

Read this blog to learn the exact cost of developing a fitness app and the factors that affect the app development cost.

What are the factors affecting the fitness app development cost?

Let's give you a breakdown of factors that affect the cost of making a fitness app: 

1. Type of fitness app 

The development cost would differ based on the type of fitness app you want to create and how complex the application is. 

For instance – If you want to create an activity tracking app which can monitor your health level by tracking metrics such as heartbeat, number of steps taken daily, and food intake, the cost will range between $40,000-$100,000. 

This table will give you a quick overview of how the development cost varies depending on the type of fitness app you choose- 

2. How simple or complex is a fitness app?

The cost of creating a fitness app depends on the level of complexity. If you want to create a basic application that offers daily workout guidance and requires no additional features, then it's a simple workout planning app.

While if you want to create a complex fitness platform for runners, you need more functionalities such as live fitness classes, GPS tracking features, and integration with wearable devices.

When creating such complex apps, developers take more time, and more time and effort raises the development cost.

3. Type of development platform used (Native or cross-platform)

Developing a native app costs more money and effort as it requires a specialized team for both platforms (Android and iOS). This means that the development costs would be twice as much compared to creating a cross-platform fitness app. 

The choice between native and cross-platform app boils down to your app goal, target audience, and the budget you have. 

Let's say if your target audience uses Android and iOS platforms, you may go with cross-platform app development. It’s cost effective as well as it requires a single codebase to create apps for both platforms. 

While if you're a budget-conscious startup and want to try your fitness app idea by developing an MVP, it's preferable to create a cross-platform app.

4. Design of the fitness app (UI/UX) 

When creating a fitness app, the next important factor that affects your development cost is deciding the app design.  

A good UI/UX design is one that keeps users engaged on the app, provides a smooth experience, and tells a story to them. 

In a world where users are tired of their everyday, monotonous routine and switching between different screens, they need an app that provides an emotional experience. 

The user experience of the app should remind users that tracking their health and achieving their fitness goals is now a part of their EVERYDAY routine. 

Additionally, the design of the fitness app should be minimal, and users won't have to figure out what needs to be done and how. 

The cost of UI/UX design for a fitness app depends on the app's complexity as well.  

Let's say a designer has been asked to create complex screens and add gamified elements to make the app more interactive; then app development cost would be higher. 

5. Location of fitness app developers 

The cost of creating a fitness app depends on where your development team is based. Costs vary depending on the expertise of developers and the hourly rates they charge. 

For instance – if you hire developers from developing nations such as India and Southeast Asian countries, there will be lower development costs. 

But if you hire developers from developed regions such as the US and UK, they usually charge more on an hourly basis. 

6. Choice of development approach (In-house or Outsourcing to Agency)

Though hiring in-house developers gives you great control over the team, the downside is that it comes with a huge cost.

The in-house company needs to pay fixed salaries for recruitment, train employees, and pay them relevant perks to get the services done.

While hiring outsourced developers can still develop a great fitness app and save your development costs by 2x.

Plus, you can get access to talented resources with a specialized skillset. The good thing is that you can scale resources up or down based on the project needs.

6 Tips you should follow to reduce your fitness app development cost

Let’s discuss some of the cost optimization strategies that can give you a GREAT fitness product and at the same time save your development expenses-

1. Start with Minimum Viable Product (MVP) 

Before developing a fully-fledged fitness app, develop MVP first as it's a good way to test the app idea. 

By launching the app with minimal features, you can figure out what your target customer needs. Firstly, focus on core functionalities that provide value to users and avoid feature bloat in the initial stages. 

For instance – MyFitnessPal, the popular health and fitness app, created a minimal version called MVP.  

Initially, it started as a calorie counting tool where users could simply log in to the app and track calories they consumed per meal. 

After taking users' feedback, they developed a fully-fledged app and added more features such as exercise tracking and receiving personalized fitness suggestions to help users live a healthy life. 

2. Use existing frameworks and libraries 

Instead of building everything from scratch, you can use existing libraries, third-party plugins, and frameworks to reduce the development cost. 

For instance – if you build a custom payment gateway, it requires more development time and cost; then the best way to reduce the cost is using Stripe/PayPal for payments. 

3. Outsource app development to cost effective regions 

To reduce costs, businesses can outsource development to skilled teams in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. 

By outsourcing app development to a firm located in India, you can still get a high-quality product at a lower cost. 

For instance – if you work with an Indian developer, you can get the work at $50/hour while if you outsource the same work to a US developer, they will charge at least $100/hr. 

4. Use cross platform development 

Using frameworks such as React Native or Flutter can help you save development time and resources. Doing that helps you develop apps for both platforms such as Android and iOS at lower costs. 

5. Use Agile development methodology 

Adopting an agile methodology is another way to reduce fitness app development cost. 

Its continuous feedback loop improves your product quality and fixes errors in the early stages of development. Thus, you don't need to incur significant costs in the future. 

6. Does your fitness app idea have market demand or not? 

Before launching your app on the market, it's important for you to validate your app idea. There are numerous ways to validate your fitness app idea such as: 

How BigOhTech can help you with Fitness app development?

The above guide has given you a quick walkthrough of what all factors can affect the fitness app development cost. 

Some factors might up your costs as well but outsourcing to the right technology vendor can save your costs in the long run. 

It can even tell you exact strategies that you can use to reduce the cost. It can be as simple as developing an MVP and not adding more features to the app. 

As a leading Fitness app development company, we can help you develop engaging fitness apps by adding gamification features. 

Whether you need custom fitness software or a nutrition and planning app, we provide you with a dedicated development team who can deliver the app on time so you can market it faster.