Healthcare app development cost
Healthcare software costs more than equivalent software in any other vertical, and features are not the reason. A patient-facing app that would cost $95,000 in retail costs $170,000 to $240,000 in healthcare once HIPAA controls, audit logging, consent management and an EHR interface are in scope. Compliance and integration are typically 30-40% of the build.
Cross-platform mobile, 30 screens, 3 user roles, with the compliance posture this vertical carries.
- Timeline
- 5.8 – 7.9 months
- Engineering hours
- 2,925 – 3,700
- Data sensitivity
- 5 of 5
- Default security posture
- Audited
Compliance and security add $79,444 here
That is 18% of this build, measured rather than asserted: we priced the identical app with no named regime and a baseline security posture, and this is the difference. None of it produces a user-visible feature, and none of it can be retrofitted cheaply.
Regimes that apply in this vertical
- HIPAACovered entities -- providers, health plans, clearinghouses -- and their business associates. A direct-to-consumer wellness app is usually outside it until it contracts with one of those.
- $8K – $26K audit
- SOC 2 Type IINobody by law. In practice it is the entry ticket for selling software to any US mid-market or enterprise buyer, and it is asked for during procurement rather than after.
- $20K – $48K audit
- HITRUST CSFVendors selling into large health systems that ask for it contractually.
- $40K – $125K audit
- FDA Software as a Medical DeviceSoftware making a medical claim -- diagnosis, treatment recommendation, dosing. Wellness and administrative tools are generally out of scope.
- $60K – $260K audit
- GDPRAnyone offering services to people in the EU or UK, wherever your company is. A US-only product with US-only users is generally outside it.
- $0 – $12K audit
- ADA / Section 508 accessibilityPublic sector procurement contractually, and in practice any consumer or education product large enough to attract a complaint.
- $6K – $20K audit
Systems you will likely integrate with
- EHR (Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth)App-program onboarding, scopes, review, and their timeline.
- complex
- HL7 / FHIR interfaceResource mapping, terminology, an interface engine, conformance.
- complex
- TwilioSMS, voice and WhatsApp, plus US 10DLC registration.
- simple
- StripePayments, subscriptions, payouts and hosted checkout.
- moderate
- HealthKit / Health ConnectDevice health data, permissions and background delivery.
- moderate
- Custom / in-house APIA system you own, but did not build for this product.
- moderate
What makes healthcare different
HIPAA is engineering, not paperwork
Audit logging, access control, key management, retention and deletion policy all have to be built and then maintained. Expect 15-25% of a healthcare build to be compliance engineering that produces no user-visible feature.
Integration with systems you do not control
Almost every healthcare product must exchange data with an EHR, and that timeline is gated by the vendor review queue rather than your engineering speed. Read-only access is dramatically cheaper than write-back.
Clinical safety review
Anything that influences a clinical decision attracts scrutiny. Software that diagnoses, recommends treatment or calculates dosing may be a regulated medical device, which turns a build into a programme.
Who uses software in this vertical
Each additional role brings its own screens plus a row in a permission matrix that grows faster than the role count — because every new role is a question about every role that already exists.
End customer
The public-facing app
Staff / operator
Day-to-day operational screens
Manager / supervisor
Approvals, oversight, reporting
Administrator
Configuration, users, permissions
Compliance officer
Access reviews, audit logs, incident response
Four standards of finish
The same app in healthcare, built to four different levels of depth.
| Level | Cost range | Timeline | Hours | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MVP Prove it works | $280K – $390K | 4.8 – 6.7 months | 2,400 | 7 |
| Standard Production ready | $390K – $550K | 5.8 – 7.9 months | 3,250 | 7 |
| Advanced Built to grow | $490K – $675K | 6.5 – 8.8 months | 4,100 | 7 |
| Enterprise Audited and integrated | $625K – $875K | 7.2 – 9.9 months | 5,250 | 7 |
per month, cloud and vendors, at 45,000 monthly users
21% – 28% of build cost
Drives peak concurrency, and therefore the architecture.