Short answer
The heaviest features in our allowances are chat / messaging, admin dashboard, social feed. Light features such as analytics or push notifications cost a fraction of that. The dollar figures below are feature build hours only, at one platform, before design, testing and project management, which the calculator adds.
Feature allowances
| Feature | App h | Backend h | US agency | Latin America | Asia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat / messagingOne-to-one or group messages, read state, real-time delivery. | 80 | 96 | $13,000 | $9,400 | $5,600 |
| Admin dashboardA web back office to manage users and content. | 0 | 120 | $8,900 | $6,400 | $3,800 |
| Social feedPosts, likes, comments, follow graph, pagination. | 56 | 56 | $8,300 | $6,000 | $3,600 |
| Booking / calendarAvailability, booking flow, reminders, cancellations. | 48 | 64 | $8,300 | $6,000 | $3,600 |
| Offline mode and syncLocal storage, conflict handling, background sync. | 64 | 40 | $7,700 | $5,500 | $3,300 |
| AI feature (LLM via API)A chat, summarise or generate feature calling a model API, with guardrails. | 32 | 64 | $7,200 | $5,100 | $3,000 |
| Sign-up and loginEmail and social sign-in, password reset, sessions. | 40 | 40 | $6,000 | $4,300 | $2,500 |
| Card payments / checkoutCheckout through a payment provider, receipts, refunds. | 32 | 48 | $6,000 | $4,300 | $2,500 |
| Subscriptions / in-app purchaseStore billing, entitlement checks, restore purchases. | 40 | 32 | $5,400 | $3,800 | $2,300 |
| Photo / video uploadCapture, upload, compression, storage and display. | 32 | 40 | $5,400 | $3,800 | $2,300 |
| Maps and locationMap views, geolocation, distance or radius search. | 40 | 16 | $4,200 | $3,000 | $1,800 |
| Search and filtersText search, filters and sorting over your content. | 24 | 32 | $4,200 | $3,000 | $1,800 |
| User profilesEditable profile, avatar, preferences. | 24 | 16 | $3,000 | $2,100 | $1,300 |
| Push notificationsOpt-in, targeted and scheduled notifications. | 16 | 24 | $3,000 | $2,100 | $1,300 |
| Multiple languagesTranslatable strings, locale formats, right-to-left check. | 24 | 8 | $2,400 | $1,700 | $1,000 |
| Product analyticsEvent tracking and a basic funnel set-up. | 12 | 8 | $1,500 | $1,100 | $635 |
| Each third-party integrationA CRM, shipping, accounting or similar API. | 16 | 32 | $3,600 | $2,600 | $1,500 |
How a feature's hours grow in a real estimate
- Platforms multiply the app-side column: x1.25 for one cross-platform codebase, x1.9 for two native apps.
- Backend choice scales the backend column: 60% with a managed backend, 50% when connecting to an API you already run.
- Design adds 8%, 20% or 30% of app-side hours depending on design depth.
- Testing adds 20% of app and backend hours; project management adds 10% of everything.
Questions
Which app features cost the most to build?+
In this site's allowances, the most expensive are chat / messaging (176 hours), admin dashboard (120 hours), social feed (112 hours), before platform multipliers and overheads. They combine real-time or data-heavy server work with substantial app-side screens.
How much does it cost to add login to an app?+
Our allowance for sign-up and login (email and social sign-in, password reset, sessions) is 80 hours for one platform: 40 app-side and 40 backend. At the midpoint of Clutch's $50 to $99 US band that is about $6,000 before testing and project management. A managed backend reduces the backend share.
Where do these feature hours come from?+
They are this site's own planning allowances for a competent team building a typical version of each feature. They are not survey data, and no neutral publisher we could find publishes per-feature hours with a stated method. The methodology page explains how they combine with platform, backend, design, testing and project management.
Sources for this page
- Clutch (Software Development Pricing Guide). Software Development Company Pricing Guide, updated September 21, 2026. clutch.co/developers/pricing (read 2026-10-02)
- Accelerance (blog post by Peter Griffin, November 24, 2025, summarising the Accelerance 2026 Global Software Development Rates & Trends Guide). Price Pressure and Performance: The New Equation for Global Dev Rates. www.accelerance.com/blog/2026-outsourcing-rate-trends-asia-europe-latam (read 2026-10-02)
Hours are this site's own planning assumptions, set out line by line on the methodology page. Full quotes for every figure are on the sources page.