How Much Does It Cost to Turn a Shopify Site into an App? (2025 Guide)

Ask a developer how much it costs to build a mobile app, and you’ll get the world’s most vague answer: "It depends."

And to be fair, they aren’t wrong. Building the next Uber or TikTok could cost millions. But you aren’t building a tech startup from scratch. You’re an ecommerce brand on Shopify.

You already have the essentials: your catalog, checkout, design system, and a responsive, mobile-friendly site. You’ve done the hard part. Your Shopify store is already 90% of an app. All that’s left is turning it into one.

For you, the answer shouldn’t be vague.

The cost to turn a Shopify store into an app ranges from $50/month for a basic DIY template to $200,000+ for a custom agency build. But the sticker price is only half the story. The real cost includes your time, ongoing maintenance, and the opportunity cost of a delayed launch.

In this guide, we’re going to break down the true total cost of ownership for the three main paths: Custom Development, DIY App Builders, and MobiLoud.

The 3 Main Paths to Building a Shopify App

Before we talk numbers, you need to understand the three ways you can build this.

• Custom Development: You hire an agency or freelancers to write code from scratch (Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android, or React Native). This is the traditional "tech startup" route.
• DIY App Builders: You use a SaaS tool from the Shopify App Store to drag-and-drop a generic template together. This is the "budget" route.
• MobiLoud (The Hybrid Route): You use a fully-managed service to convert your existing mobile site into a native app. This is the "efficiency" route.

Let’s look at the price tag for each.

Want a clear number for your own Shopify app? Get a free preview and pricing estimate for your store

Option 1: Custom Development

If you ask a premium agency for a quote, be prepared to sit down. Custom mobile app development cost is notoriously high because you are essentially paying for hundreds of hours of highly skilled labor.

Upfront Costs: $50,000 – $200,000+

Building a native shopping app from scratch is a massive project. You need to recreate every single feature of your Shopify store natively. That means rebuilding your product pages, collection logic, search functionality, customer accounts, and checkout integration.

According to app development cost benchmarks, a medium-complexity ecommerce app typically costs between $50,000 and $150,000 for a single platform (iOS or Android). If you want both, you’re looking at $100,000 to $200,000+.

The Agency Markup vs. Freelancer Risk

You might think, "I'll just hire a freelancer on Upwork." While you can find developers for $50/hour, you are taking on a massive project management burden.

You’ll need a designer, an iOS developer, an Android developer, and a QA tester. If one of them ghosts you, your entire project stalls.

Agencies charge a premium because they manage this chaos for you, but you pay for that peace of mind with a 6-figure invoice.

The Hidden Cost of Scope Creep

The initial quote is rarely the final price.

As you build, you'll realize you forgot to scope out the "Wishlist" feature, or the "Related Products" carousel. Every change order adds thousands of dollars to the bill.

Timeline: 6–12 Months

Time is money. A custom build takes months of planning, design, development, and testing. While you wait 9 months for your app to launch, you are missing out on mobile revenue.

If your app could generate $50k/month, a 6-month delay costs you $300,000 in lost revenue. That’s an "invisible" cost that most brands forget to calculate, but it hits your bottom line just as hard as the development fee.

Ongoing Maintenance

The biggest shock for most brands isn’t the build cost, it’s the maintenance. Software isn’t a one-time purchase; it’s a living thing.

OS Updates: Every year, Apple and Google release new iOS and Android versions. Your app will break if you don’t update it.

Shopify Updates: When Shopify changes its API or you add a new plugin to your store, your custom app won’t automatically know about it. You have to pay developers to manually update the app’s code to match.

Bug Fixes: Users will find bugs. You need a developer on retainer to fix them.

The industry rule of thumb is that annual maintenance costs 15–20% of the initial build price.

If you spent $100,000 building the app, expect to pay $15,000 to $20,000 every single year just to keep the lights on. Mobile developer salaries are high, and even a few hours of work a month adds up fast.

Option 2: DIY App Builders

On the other end of the spectrum, you have DIY Shopify mobile app builder tools. These promise a mobile app for a low monthly subscription.

Subscription Costs: $50 – $1,000+/month

At first glance, the pricing looks great. Most app builders charge a monthly fee, often tiered by features, push notifications, or how much of your website you want integrated. But once a brand wants all their existing features in the app, costs jump quickly, many builders charge $1K per month or more for their top plan, sometimes with custom dev fees added.

And remember: “DIY” still means Do It Yourself. Your time isn’t free.

The Hidden Cost of Your Time

With a DIY builder, you are the project manager, the designer, and the quality assurance tester.

• You have to drag-and-drop the layout.
• You have to design the banners and graphics.
• You have to figure out why your loyalty plugin isn’t working (spoiler: it might not be supported).
• You have to handle the Apple and Google submission process.

If you or your ecommerce manager spends 10 hours a week for the first two months setting this up, and then 5 hours a month managing it, that’s hundreds of hours of internal time.

Calculate your hourly rate. If your time is worth $100/hour, you’re "spending" $10,000+ in internal resources just to get the app live.

The "Submission Nightmare"

Submitting an app to the App Store isn't like publishing a blog post because Apple has strict guidelines. If your app gets rejected because of a metadata issue or a design violation, you have to figure out how to fix it. This back-and-forth can take weeks, delaying your launch and frustrating your team.

Limitations & Opportunity Cost

The biggest cost of a DIY builder is performance. These tools rely on generic templates. Your app will look exactly like thousands of other apps.

More importantly, they often can’t support the custom features that make your brand special. Do you use a specific bundle builder? A complex subscription flow? A custom search tool?

If the DIY builder doesn’t support that plugin, you have two choices:

• Drop the feature (and lose revenue).
• Don’t use the app builder.

If your DIY app converts at 1.5% because it’s clunky, but a premium app would convert at 3.5%, that 2% gap is costing you real sales every single day.

Option 3: MobiLoud

MobiLoud was built to solve the gap between "too expensive" (agencies) and "too limited" (DIY). We turn your existing Shopify store into a native app, keeping all your design, plugins, and functionality intact.

Upfront Investment: Monthly Subscription + One-Time Setup

MobiLoud is an ongoing service, not a one-time project. Your investment has two parts: A monthly subscription, starting from a few hundred dollars per month

A one-time setup fee that covers the build, configuration, and submission of your app. Because we don’t have to rewrite your store’s code from scratch, our setup cost is significantly lower than an agency, and your total upfront investment (setup + first month) typically comes in the low four figures, depending on your requirements.

• Startup Plan: $850 one-time setup fee, best suited for very small businesses and content-focused apps like news sites.
• Growth Plan: $1,500 one-time setup fee, this is where most ecommerce brands start.

Take note that there may be additional costs depending on your stack and needs. But we handle all the heavy lifting, no clunky builders, no drag-and-drop page editors. You bring the store, and we turn your high-performing mobile website into a full-featured shopping app with smooth navigation, fast browsing, and built-in push notifications. .

The Tech Stack

We take your high-performing mobile website and turn it into a full-featured mobile app that feels right at home on your customers’ phones, just like the other shopping apps they use every day.. This gives you:

• Native Power: Push notifications, home screen icon, native tab bar.
• Web Flexibility: Any change you make to your site updates in the app instantly. No waiting for app store approvals for a banner change.

Ongoing Flat Fee: Predictable & All-Inclusive

Our simple, flat pricing is designed for stability.

• Startup Plan: $299/month.
• Growth Plan: $549/month.
• Annual Billing: Save 15%.

This subscription covers:

• Unlimited Push Notifications: Send as many messages as you want.
• Ongoing Updates: We handle all iOS/Android updates for you.
• Maintenance: If a bug pops up, we fix it. You don’t need a developer on retainer.
• Support: You get a dedicated team that knows your app.

There are no surprise bills. You know exactly what your app costs every year.

ROI & Value

The real value here is time. We act as your mobile product team.

• No internal dev time: Your team can focus on marketing, not coding.
• Feature Parity: Since we use your existing mobile web stack, everything works. Your bundles, your upsells, your weird custom checkout logic—it all works out of the box.
• Speed: We launch in weeks, not months. You start making mobile sales sooner.

Summary Comparison Table

Here is the breakdown of the true cost to turn a Shopify store into an app.

Still weighing custom dev vs builders vs MobiLoud? Read our full breakdown of Shopify mobile app development costs.

Why "Cheaper" Isn't Always Better

When looking at sticker prices, it’s easy to get fixated on the lowest number. But an app is an investment, not an expense. You shouldn't be asking "what is the cheapest app I can build?" You should be asking "which app will give me the highest ROI?"

The Revenue Multiplier

According to our 2025 Ecommerce Mobile Apps Report, app users have a 2.8–5x higher Lifetime Value (LTV) than mobile web users. They convert at a rate 1.7–3x higher than your website.

If you build a cheap, buggy app that frustrates users, they won’t use it. You save money on the build, but you lose the massive upside of retention and repeat purchases.

Push Notifications

The real killer feature of an app is push notification campaigns. Unlike email, which has a 20% open rate, push notifications are almost guaranteed to be seen.

Brands using MobiLoud often generate $10,000 to $200,000 per month just from abandoned cart push notifications. This one feature alone often pays for the entire cost of the app in the first month.

A premium app experience pays for itself. Brands like John Varvatos and Yon-Ka Paris didn’t choose MobiLoud because it was the "cheapest" option on paper. They chose it because it delivered a premium, custom-feeling experience that drives millions in revenue, without the headache of managing a custom build.

Check out our successful mobile app examples to see how these brands used their apps to drive growth.

Not sure what a “good” app ROI looks like? Download the 2025 Ecommerce Mobile App Benchmark Report and see real revenue numbers.

Final Thoughts

So, how much does it cost to turn a Shopify site into an app?

• Custom Dev: Hundreds of thousands of dollars and a year of your life.
• DIY Builders: A low monthly fee, but a high cost in your time and lost sales due to limitations.
• MobiLoud: A balanced investment that delivers a premium app in weeks, fully managed by experts.

If you want an app that drives real business results without draining your bank account or your team’s time, MobiLoud is the answer.

Ready to see the numbers for your specific store? Book a demo today and let’s build your app.

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