React Native vs Native Development Cost?
Direct answer
Building one React Native codebase typically costs 30–40% less than building separate native iOS and Android apps, because most business logic, UI, and testing effort is shared. Most cross-platform projects I scope land between $30K and $150K depending on feature depth, while the same product built natively twice often runs 1.6–1.9x that figure. The savings are rarely the theoretical 50%, because roughly 10–20% of any serious app still needs platform-specific work. Native only becomes the cheaper long-term option for graphics-heavy, AR, or deeply platform-integrated products.
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Where the savings actually come from
The cost gap comes from three places: one codebase instead of two, one team instead of two platform teams, and one QA cycle covering both stores. In my engagements, 80–90% of code is genuinely shared — screens, navigation, state, API integration, business rules. What is not shared is the platform edge: push notification setup, in-app purchases, background tasks, and any custom native module work.
That is why the honest number is 30–40% savings rather than the 50% that marketing pages promise. You still pay for two app store submissions, two sets of device testing, and occasional platform-specific bug fixes. Teams that budget for a straight halving of native cost end up surprised in the last third of the project, which is exactly when surprises are most expensive.
Cost tiers you can benchmark against
A simple app — a handful of screens, standard auth, one API, no offline mode — typically runs $30K–$50K in React Native versus roughly $50K–$80K built natively for both platforms. A standard product with payments, push notifications, real-time features, and a polished design system usually lands at $60K–$100K cross-platform against $100K–$170K native.
Complex builds — offline-first sync, heavy animations, video, chat, or fintech-grade security — run $100K–$150K+ in React Native, where the native equivalent can exceed $200K. The gap narrows at the complex end because that is where native modules, custom bridging, and platform-specific tuning eat into the shared-code advantage. If a quote shows identical savings percentages at every complexity tier, the estimator has not thought hard about your specific app.
When native genuinely costs less over time
There are honest cases where React Native is the wrong economic choice. Games and graphics-intensive apps fight the framework instead of benefiting from it. Apps built almost entirely around one platform's APIs — a watchOS companion, deep CarPlay or Android Auto integration, heavy ARKit use — end up writing so much native code that the shared layer becomes overhead rather than leverage.
There is also a maintenance dimension buyers miss: React Native itself gets upgraded several times a year, and staying current takes recurring effort — typically a few developer-days per upgrade cycle on a well-structured app, more if you have many native dependencies. Native apps trade that for tracking two platforms' SDK changes instead. For most business, marketplace, and SaaS-companion apps, the math still favors React Native clearly; for the exceptions above, it does not.
Hidden costs that wreck cross-platform budgets
The line items that blow up React Native budgets are almost never the screens. They are: native modules that turn out not to exist for your niche hardware or SDK, requiring custom bridge work at $5K–$20K a piece; app store review cycles that force rework late in the schedule; and design specs drawn only for iOS that need re-thinking for Android navigation patterns.
Ongoing costs matter too. Budget roughly 15–20% of the build cost per year for maintenance — dependency upgrades, OS version compatibility, and small fixes. If a proposal quotes you a build price with no mention of the third-party SDKs your product depends on (payments, analytics, maps, KYC), ask specifically whether each has a maintained React Native integration. That one question surfaces most of the risk in an estimate.
How to sanity-check a quote
Ask any bidder three things. First, what percentage of the code do they expect to share, and which features they expect to need native work — a credible answer names specifics for your app, not a generic 95%. Second, ask how they will handle the two or three riskiest integrations; vague answers here predict overruns. Third, ask for the estimate split by feature rather than one lump sum, so you can cut scope intelligently later.
As a rough cross-check: a competent senior React Native build runs on the order of $8K–$15K per developer-month depending on region and seniority. Divide the quote by that range and ask whether the implied team-months pass the smell test for your feature list. A $150K quote for what is plainly a six-week app, or a $20K quote for a fintech product, both fail that test in different directions.
People also ask
Is React Native cheaper to maintain than two native apps?
Usually yes — one codebase means one fix ships to both platforms, and in my experience maintenance runs meaningfully cheaper than maintaining parallel iOS and Android teams. The caveat is framework upgrades: React Native releases require periodic migration work, typically a few developer-days per cycle. Overall, budget roughly 15–20% of the original build cost per year either way.
Does a React Native app feel as good as a native app?
For most business, e-commerce, and SaaS apps, users cannot tell the difference when the app is well built — 60fps animations and native navigation are achievable with today's architecture. The gap shows in games, heavy AR, and apps pushing complex custom gestures. Discord, Shopify, and Coinbase all ship React Native at scale, which is a reasonable signal for typical products.
How much does it cost to build an app for both iOS and Android?
With React Native, most production apps for both platforms fall between $30K and $150K — simple apps near the bottom, feature-rich products with payments, real-time features, or offline sync near the top. Built natively as two separate apps, the same range shifts to roughly $50K–$250K. Timeline is typically 10–24 weeks either way.