“How long will it take to build our app?” is the first question every client asks, and the honest answer is always the same: it depends. But “it depends” is not useful, so this guide will give you the realistic timelines we have seen across 100+ projects, broken down by complexity, along with the factors that push timelines forward or backward.
If you leave this article with one takeaway, let it be this: the biggest variable in how long an app takes to build is not the code. It is the decisions. Teams that make fast, clear decisions ship faster. Teams that revisit requirements, delay feedback, or expand scope mid-build take longer. The development itself is surprisingly predictable when the inputs are stable.
The 5 Phases of App Development
Every app project at Apptitude follows a 5-step process: Discovery, Design, Development, Testing, and Launch. Understanding these phases is essential for understanding timelines because each one has its own duration, dependencies, and potential bottlenecks.
Phase 1: Discovery (1-2 Weeks)
Discovery is where we define what we are building and why. This includes stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, user persona development, feature prioritization, and a technical feasibility assessment.
What comes out of Discovery:
- A Product Requirements Document (PRD) defining features, user stories, and acceptance criteria
- A Technical Specification outlining architecture, integrations, and infrastructure
- A project timeline with milestones
- A budget breakdown
Discovery is the most important phase for timeline accuracy. The quality of the decisions made here determines whether the rest of the project runs smoothly or gets bogged down in rework. Skipping or rushing Discovery almost always costs more time than it saves.
Timeline impact: Discovery typically takes 1 week for straightforward projects and 2 weeks for projects with complex integrations, multiple stakeholder groups, or regulatory requirements.
Phase 2: Design (1-3 Weeks)
Design translates the requirements from Discovery into screens, flows, and interactions. This includes information architecture, wireframing, high-fidelity mockups, and interactive prototypes.
What comes out of Design:
- Wireframes for all core screens
- High-fidelity mockups with visual design applied
- An interactive prototype you can tap through on your phone
- A design system with reusable components, colors, and typography
The design phase is where clients first see their app take shape, and it is also where scope creep most commonly begins. “Can we also add…” is a phrase that extends timelines. A disciplined approach to design — focused on the MVP feature set defined in Discovery — keeps the project on track.
Timeline impact: 1 week for apps with simple, well-defined UIs (dashboards, forms, lists). 2-3 weeks for apps with complex interactions, custom animations, or multiple user roles.
Phase 3: Development (4-16 Weeks)
Development is the longest phase and the most variable. This is where the app is actually built — frontend, backend, API integrations, database, authentication, and all the functionality defined in the previous phases.
We build most apps with React Native, which lets us ship to both iOS and Android from a single codebase. This typically saves 30-40% of development time compared to building separate native apps.
What happens during Development:
- Sprint-based delivery with working software every 1-2 weeks
- Continuous integration and automated testing
- Regular demos and feedback sessions with the client
- Progressive feature delivery, starting with core functionality
Timeline impact: This is where project type matters most, and we will break it down in detail below.
Phase 4: Testing (1-3 Weeks)
Testing is not a single phase at the end — quality assurance runs throughout development. But there is a dedicated testing period after feature-complete that covers end-to-end testing, performance optimization, security review, and user acceptance testing (UAT).
What happens during Testing:
- Functional testing across devices and OS versions
- Performance profiling and optimization
- Security review and penetration testing (for sensitive applications)
- UAT with real users or stakeholders
- Bug fixing and polish
Timeline impact: 1 week for simple apps. 2-3 weeks for apps with complex integrations, payment processing, or compliance requirements.
Phase 5: Launch (1 Week)
Launch covers production deployment, app store submission, DNS and SSL configuration, analytics setup, monitoring configuration, and team training.
What happens during Launch:
- Production deployment to cloud infrastructure
- App Store and Google Play submission and review
- Analytics and crash reporting setup
- Monitoring and alerting configuration
- Handoff documentation and team training
Timeline impact: Typically 1 week, though app store review times can occasionally cause delays (Apple’s review process usually takes 1-3 days but can occasionally take longer).
Timelines by Project Type
Now let us get specific. Here are the realistic timelines we see for different categories of apps, based on our experience across 100+ projects.
Simple MVP: 8-12 Weeks
What qualifies: A focused app with a clear, limited feature set. Typically 5-15 screens, a single user role, straightforward data models, and minimal third-party integrations.
Examples:
- An event check-in app with QR scanning and attendee management
- A simple marketplace listing app with search and favorites
- A basic booking/scheduling app with calendar integration
- An internal tool for field data collection with forms and photo capture
Typical breakdown:
| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| Discovery | 1 week |
| Design | 1 week |
| Development | 4-6 weeks |
| Testing | 1 week |
| Launch | 1 week |
| Total | 8-10 weeks |
Key assumptions: Decisions are made quickly, scope is well-defined, no complex integrations, single platform priority (iOS or Android, with the other following shortly on React Native).
Simple MVPs are where we see the biggest variance between “could have been” and “what actually happened.” An 8-week project can easily become a 14-week project if the team takes 2 weeks to review designs, changes the feature set after development starts, or introduces new integrations mid-build.
Medium Complexity: 12-20 Weeks
What qualifies: A more full-featured app with multiple user roles, third-party integrations, payment processing, and moderate backend complexity. Typically 15-40 screens.
Examples:
- A healthcare patient portal with appointment booking, messaging, and medical record access
- A delivery management platform with customer, driver, and admin interfaces
- A fitness app with workout tracking, social features, and subscription billing
- An e-commerce app with product catalog, cart, checkout, and order management
Typical breakdown:
| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| Discovery | 1-2 weeks |
| Design | 2 weeks |
| Development | 8-12 weeks |
| Testing | 2 weeks |
| Launch | 1 week |
| Total | 14-19 weeks |
Key assumptions: Requirements are well-defined but may evolve during development, 2-3 third-party integrations (payment processor, analytics, one domain-specific API), multiple user roles with different permissions.
Medium complexity projects benefit enormously from a structured process with clear milestones. The risk of scope creep is higher because there are more features to “just add one more thing” to.
Complex / Enterprise: 20-40 Weeks
What qualifies: A large-scale application with complex business logic, multiple integrations, real-time features, AI capabilities, regulatory compliance requirements, or multiple interconnected applications. Typically 40+ screens with complex state management.
Examples:
- A fintech application with banking integrations, regulatory compliance, and fraud detection
- A logistics platform with real-time tracking, route optimization, and multi-party coordination
- An AI-powered enterprise tool with RAG systems, workflow automation, and analytics dashboards
- A multi-tenant SaaS platform with white-labeling, billing, and admin controls
Typical breakdown:
| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| Discovery | 2 weeks |
| Design | 2-3 weeks |
| Development | 12-24 weeks |
| Testing | 2-4 weeks |
| Launch | 1-2 weeks |
| Total | 19-35 weeks |
Key assumptions: Multiple stakeholders, complex approval processes, regulatory review, significant backend engineering, custom infrastructure, and integration with legacy systems.
For complex projects, we strongly recommend a phased approach: build and launch the core product first (often achievable in 12-16 weeks), then iterate with additional features in subsequent phases. This gets value into users’ hands sooner and provides real-world feedback that improves the features built in later phases.
What Speeds Things Up
After over a hundred projects, the patterns are clear. Here are the factors that consistently lead to faster delivery:
Clear Decision-Making Authority
The single biggest accelerator is having one person (or a very small group) who can make decisions quickly and definitively. When design feedback requires a committee meeting, or feature questions need to go up three levels of management, every decision adds days to the timeline.
Our recommendation: Designate a single product owner with the authority to approve designs, prioritize features, and make tradeoff decisions without escalation.
A Well-Defined MVP
Teams that ship fastest are the ones that ruthlessly define what is in scope and what is not. Every feature you add increases development time, testing complexity, and the likelihood of bugs. The best MVPs include the minimum set of features needed to validate the core value proposition — and nothing else.
Fast Feedback Cycles
We deliver working software every 1-2 weeks during development. Teams that review these builds promptly and provide consolidated, actionable feedback keep the project moving. Teams that take a week to review a demo build, or provide contradictory feedback from different stakeholders, introduce delays that compound over time.
Existing Brand and Design Assets
Teams that come to the table with established brand guidelines, logos, color palettes, and design preferences move through the design phase faster. Starting from zero on visual identity adds time.
Proven Technology Choices
Using established, well-supported technologies like React Native for cross-platform development reduces risk and speeds delivery. Exotic technology choices or bleeding-edge frameworks can introduce unpredictable delays.
What Causes Delays
Conversely, these are the most common sources of timeline expansion:
Scope Creep
“While we are at it, can we also…” is the phrase that has delayed more projects than any technical challenge. Every addition — no matter how small it seems — requires design, development, testing, and integration with the rest of the app. A dozen “small” additions can add weeks to a timeline.
How to manage it: Maintain a backlog of ideas for post-launch iteration. If a new feature is truly essential, evaluate what you are willing to cut to make room for it.
Slow Feedback and Approvals
If design reviews take a week instead of two days, and stakeholder approval requires scheduling a meeting that is two weeks out, those delays flow directly into the timeline. Development cannot proceed on features whose designs have not been approved.
Underestimating Backend Complexity
The visible part of an app — the screens and interactions — is often the minority of the work. Authentication, data modeling, API design, third-party integrations, error handling, caching, and security can each be more complex than the frontend that sits on top of them.
Third-Party Dependencies
Integrations with external services — payment processors, banking APIs, healthcare systems, government databases — introduce variables outside your control. API documentation may be incomplete, sandbox environments may differ from production, and partner organizations may have their own review timelines.
Changing Requirements
Revisiting decisions that were made during Discovery is the most expensive form of change. If the app’s core user flow changes after three weeks of development, much of the work done to that point may need to be reworked. This is why we invest heavily in the Discovery phase — getting it right upfront is dramatically cheaper than fixing it later.
A Note on Estimates vs. Reality
Every timeline in this guide is a range, not a guarantee. Software development involves inherent uncertainty, and any team that gives you a single, fixed number for a complex project is either padding their estimate or setting themselves up to miss it.
What we can guarantee is transparency. Our process is designed to surface risks early, keep you informed about progress against milestones, and make tradeoffs explicit rather than hidden. If a project is trending longer than expected, you will know why and you will have options — cut scope, accept the extension, or find a middle ground.
Getting Your Timeline Started
The timelines in this guide are generalizations. Your specific project will have its own characteristics, constraints, and opportunities that affect duration. The best way to get an accurate estimate for your app is to go through a proper scoping conversation.
We offer a free consultation where we will discuss your project in enough detail to provide a realistic timeline and cost range. If you are planning a build and want to understand what the timeline looks like, get started here. We will give you straight answers — no inflated estimates, no unrealistic promises, just an honest assessment based on what we have seen work across 100+ projects.