An iOS build at PixelForce runs in four stages: a free discovery call, Phase 1 Scoping & Design at $35,000 to $65,000, Phase 2 Development, QA and Release at $100,000 to $350,000, and Phase 3 Post Launch Support. Apple reviews most submissions within 24 to 48 hours, so the part of the App Store timeline you can actually influence is not how fast the review runs - it is whether you pass it the first time. Across 100+ products shipped, PixelForce holds a 98 percent first-time app store approval rate.
What changed since this article was first published
The 2013 version of this article described a free design phase of three or four hours that ended in a development contract, and a wireframing step done largely in isolation. Two things moved.
The first is our own process. Design is now a paid, standalone phase that produces a complete blueprint, because a free phase has to stay shallow and a shallow blueprint cannot support a fixed-price build. The second is the platform. Objective-C gave way to Swift, SwiftUI changed how screens are built, and Apple periodically raises the minimum SDK that new submissions must be built against, so "current tooling" is a maintenance commitment rather than a one-off choice. As of August 2026 we build with Xcode 26 and Swift 6, targeting iOS 26.
Stage 1: The discovery call
Free, pre-engagement, and covered by a mutual non-disclosure agreement. We work through the business, the users and the vision, then give a 1-3-1 recommendation: one problem, three options with their trade-offs, one recommendation across budget, timeline and scope. Budget is aligned here rather than after a proposal, because we do not scope something a client cannot afford to build.
Stage 2: Phase 1 Scoping & Design
The mandatory first phase of every iOS build, typically $35,000 to $65,000, and a standalone commitment so you can stop after it. It produces preliminaries and two strategic workshops, a Business Requirements Document, an enterprise-grade design system and high-fidelity designs for every screen, a Product Requirements Document covering feature logic and integrations, and a fixed-cost Statement of Work for development.
On iOS this phase also settles which Apple surfaces are in scope - iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV - because that decision drives more of the eventual cost than almost anything else in the build.
Stage 3: Phase 2 Development, QA and Release
Development runs against the signed Statement of Work in numbered milestones. The shape is consistent even though the specifics are project-dependent: foundation setup covering the database schema, authentication framework and core API scaffolding; a prototype demo of a key technical pipeline; backend completion with cloud infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines; the app build and integration; then internal testing against the PRD acceptance criteria.
Quality assurance runs as its own discipline, on real devices in real conditions, rather than as a phase engineers do to their own work at the end. PixelForce reaches 95 percent test coverage, subject to agreed scope and engagement.
Stage 4: UAT, submission and App Store review
You run User Acceptance Testing on a real build. Defects are addressed before anything is submitted, then the app goes to Apple with its metadata, privacy disclosures, reviewer notes and working demo credentials prepared upfront.
Apple reviews most submissions within 24 to 48 hours, though a brand-new app submitted for the first time generally takes longer than an update from an established account, and sensitive categories take longer again. That clock is not ours to control. What is ours is the rejection rate, and preparing the submission properly is the whole of it: 98 percent first-time app store approval across 100+ shipped products. A rejection is rarely a technical failure. It is usually a missing demo account, an unclear privacy disclosure, or a feature a reviewer could not reach.
Stage 5: Phase 3 Post Launch Support
An app in the App Store is a product with an annual operating system release aimed at it, not a delivered project. There are two ways to engage. Warranty, Monitoring and Support is $4,000 per month and covers critical-bug defect resolution under warranty, 24/7 infrastructure monitoring, business-hours incident response and a monthly platform health report. The Product Retainer adds a roadmap workshop, continuous sprints and quarterly business reviews, priced per four-week cycle from $10,000.
What this looks like when it works
Revia reached number 3 in Apple's Health and Fitness category within 48 hours of launch, after a 4-month build. SWEAT went further: we built and scaled it from launch to a $400M acquisition by iFIT - 30 million users across 155 countries, and the platform passed Big 4 due diligence at exit. That last detail is the one worth sitting with. The code and infrastructure were examined by an acquirer's auditors, and they held.
Where to go next
The full engagement, the case studies and the current pricing sit on our iOS app development service page. If the design phase is what you are weighing up, we have written that up separately in our web design process.