TL;DR
23 cross-platform agencies compared. 22 offer React Native, 10 offer Flutter. Average rates: $98-157/hour. Typical cost savings: 30-40% vs native. Code sharing: 95%+ between iOS and Android. Best for: startups needing both platforms, MVPs, budget-conscious projects.
Cross-platform development using React Native or Flutter lets you ship one codebase to iOS and Android simultaneously. Teams write business logic, API integrations, and state management once. The framework translates this into native components for each platform. Real-world projects achieve 85-95% code sharing, with platform-specific code needed only for specialized features. Major apps like Discord, Bloomberg, and BMW use React Native. Google Pay, eBay, and Alibaba built production apps with Flutter.
The financial argument for cross-platform is straightforward. Instead of hiring an iOS team and a separate Android team, you hire one cross-platform team. Instead of maintaining two codebases with diverging features, you maintain one. Bug fixes deploy to both platforms simultaneously. Feature parity stays automatic. For a typical $150,000 project, cross-platform development saves $45,000-60,000 in initial development costs and reduces ongoing maintenance by 40%. These savings compound over time as your app evolves.
Cross-platform frameworks have matured substantially since 2020. React Native 0.70+ introduced Fabric architecture improving rendering performance by 30%. Flutter 3.0 added desktop and web support from the same mobile codebase. Both frameworks now support hot reload for instant development feedback, comprehensive testing libraries, and robust production monitoring. The performance gap between cross-platform and native has narrowed to 10-15% for most use cases, imperceptible to typical users.
Best for: Teams with web experience, apps with complex business logic, projects needing many third-party integrations
Best for: UI-heavy apps, custom animations, consistent look across platforms, newer projects without legacy constraints
Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne, Australia fastest-growing app agency founded 2016 by Jamie Shostak and Michael MacRae. Team of 100 across Melbourne, Sydney, NYC, and Singapore. Two clients achieved billion-dollar valuations.
Hourly Rate
$125-175/hr
Min Project
$50K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
Startups, Healthcare
Noida, India
Noida, India CMMI Level 3 company founded 2015. Team of 1,050-1,600 mobile experts with offices in USA, UK, UAE, and Australia serving enterprise digital transformation.
Hourly Rate
$25-75/hr
Min Project
$15K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Finance, Healthcare
Krakow, Poland
Krakow, Poland software house founded 2013-2014. Team of 50-70 experts completed 120+ projects in fintech and logistics. Xamarin Consulting Partner since 2014 specializing in cross-platform apps.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
Fintech, Logistics
New York, New York
NYC-based app agency founded by two ex-Microsoft developers in 2009. 100+ remote team across NYC, Seattle, SF, and India. Minority-owned business recognized in FT Americas fastest-growing companies 2023.
Hourly Rate
$150-200/hr
Min Project
$50K
Team Size
100-250
Industries
Media, Healthcare
Florianopolis, Brazil
Florianopolis, Brazil nearshore agency founded 2013 by team with Uber experience. 100+ Brazilian developers and designers delivered 300+ apps for Silicon Valley startups and Fortune 500s.
Hourly Rate
$75-125/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
100-250
Industries
Startups, SaaS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia-based app agency since 2009. Team of 70+ launched 500+ apps for startups, Fortune 500s, and nonprofits. Offices in 7 US cities serving Siemens, Wawa, and Six Flags.
Hourly Rate
$150-200/hr
Min Project
$50K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
Retail, Food Service
Wroclaw, Poland
Wroclaw, Poland mobile specialist founded 2011 by Wojciech Szwajkiewicz and Tomek Muter. 100% office-based team of 60+ serving Carlsberg, Unilever, and Giphy. Acquired by Apadmi January 2025.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
Consumer Goods, Food & Beverage
New York, New York
NYC-based full-service digital agency with 300+ experts across mobile, web, and AI. Merged with 10up in 2023 to expand WordPress and enterprise web capabilities. Clients include Google, Mayo Clinic, and Warby Parker.
Hourly Rate
$175-250/hr
Min Project
$75K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Media, Healthcare
Montreal, Canada
Montreal, Canada mobile agency founded 2011, originally from Brazil. Team of 11-50 delivered 170+ apps with 35M+ users using Swift, Kotlin, React Native, and IoT technologies.
Hourly Rate
$125-175/hr
Min Project
$50K
Team Size
25-50
Industries
Consumer Apps, Retail
Ahmedabad, India
Ahmedabad, India CMMI Level 3 certified company founded 2011. Team of 1,000-1,200+ developers delivered solutions for Google, Motorola, IKEA, and Johns Hopkins with 500+ mobile apps.
Hourly Rate
$25-75/hr
Min Project
$10K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Healthcare, Retail
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh, NC-based custom app development company founded in 2011. Team of 50+ employees serving clients like Nestle, MetLife, and UNC Pembroke with offices in Raleigh and Charlotte.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
Healthcare, Education
Krakow, Poland
Krakow, Poland Google-certified software company founded in 2011. 50-80 mobile engineers delivered 250+ products for Warner, Abbey Road Studios, Skyscanner, and TUI with London and Manila offices.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
Media, Entertainment
Houston, Texas
Houston-based app development company founded in 2009. ISO 27001:2013 certified with 140+ team and 250+ apps delivered. 8th fastest growing company by Houston Business Journal 2014.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
100-250
Industries
Energy, Healthcare
Poznan, Poland
Poznan, Poland software consultancy founded in 2008. 600-900 person team delivered 1,000+ projects for Volkswagen, IKEA, Keller Williams, and Solarisbank across global offices.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Automotive, Finance
Ahmedabad, India
Ahmedabad, India CMMI Level 3 and NASSCOM certified company founded 2009 by Jayneel Patel. Team of 120-500 delivered 500+ mobile apps for Google, Motorola, and IKEA.
Hourly Rate
$25-75/hr
Min Project
$10K
Team Size
100-250
Industries
Finance, Healthcare
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills-headquartered nearshore agency formed 2016 from LA agency and Uruguayan firm merger. 200-250 team across USA, Uruguay, Argentina, and Colombia serving Fortune 500 and startups.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$50K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Startups, Enterprise
Zurich, Switzerland
Zurich-headquartered mobile vendor founded 2014 in Ukraine. Team of 250+ across Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Ukraine, and Armenia with 90+ IT solutions shipped to 27 countries.
Hourly Rate
$75-125/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Fintech, Healthcare
Ahmedabad, India
Ahmedabad, India product engineering company founded 2010 by Prayaag Kasundra. Team of 200+ AWS-certified experts solving complex software engineering problems with US office in San Francisco.
Hourly Rate
$50-100/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
100-250
Industries
SaaS, Healthcare
Poznan, Poland
Europe's largest Python software house founded 2005 in Poznan. Nearly 500 team (600+ post-Brainhub merger) delivered 1,000+ projects across 5 Polish offices with Mexico expansion.
Hourly Rate
$100-150/hr
Min Project
$25K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Finance, Healthcare
Noida, India
Noida, India CMMI Level 3 company founded 2015 by Ankit Singh and Harjot Kaur. Team of 120-237 delivered 750+ applications with HQ in Canada and offices in USA, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
Hourly Rate
$25-75/hr
Min Project
$10K
Team Size
100-250
Industries
Healthcare, Finance
Boston, Massachusetts
Boston-based product design and development consultancy known for Ruby on Rails expertise and open-source contributions. Strong focus on product strategy and design sprints for startups and enterprises.
Hourly Rate
$200-300/hr
Min Project
$50K
Team Size
50-100
Industries
SaaS, Fintech
Remote (Global)
Fully remote talent network founded in 2010 connecting companies with top 3% of freelance developers worldwide. 10,000+ vetted professionals across 100+ countries with hourly rates starting at $60+.
Hourly Rate
$60-200/hr
Min Project
$10K
Team Size
250+
Industries
All Industries, Startups
Charlottesville, Virginia
Large-scale digital product agency acquired by TELUS International for $1.2B in 2022. Specializes in enterprise mobile apps for Fortune 500 companies with a data-driven, user-centered design approach.
Hourly Rate
$175-250/hr
Min Project
$100K
Team Size
250+
Industries
Healthcare, Hospitality
Cross-platform savings come with trade-offs. Initial development costs 30-40% less, but certain features require "native bridges" adding $5,000-15,000 per complex feature. Apps needing Bluetooth LE, advanced camera controls, or custom native UI elements see reduced savings. Budget 10-15% of development time for platform-specific optimization and testing that wouldn't exist in native development.
Long-term maintenance costs favor cross-platform strongly. Single codebase means one update process, one bug fix deployment, one security patch. When iOS 18 or Android 15 releases, you update once instead of twice. Over 3-5 years, maintenance savings often exceed initial development savings. Agencies charging $100+/hour typically include ongoing compatibility maintenance in retainer agreements, while lower-cost agencies may bill these updates hourly.
The decision framework is economic for most teams. Calculate: (native iOS cost + native Android cost) vs (cross-platform cost + performance optimization budget + native module costs). If cross-platform totals less and your app doesn't fall into the "choose native" categories above, cross-platform makes financial sense. Most business applications, social apps, e-commerce platforms, and content apps benefit from cross-platform development. Games, AR applications, and performance-critical tools justify native investment.
Choose React Native if your team knows JavaScript/TypeScript, you need to integrate with existing web codebases, or you want a larger ecosystem of third-party libraries. Choose Flutter if you prioritize consistent UI across platforms, need custom animations, or want faster development once learned. React Native has more production apps and battle-tested solutions. Flutter offers better performance for graphics-heavy apps. Both achieve 95%+ code sharing between iOS and Android.
Cross-platform typically costs 30-40% less than building separate native iOS and Android apps. A $200,000 native app for both platforms might cost $120,000-140,000 with React Native or Flutter. Savings come from shared codebase (95%+ shared), single team instead of two, unified testing, and simultaneous deployment. However, cross-platform apps may need more optimization work, partially offsetting savings.
Cross-platform apps run 10-20% slower than native for CPU-intensive tasks. UI animations can drop frames on older devices. App size is typically 20-50% larger than native equivalents. React Native uses JavaScript bridge causing slight latency; Flutter compiles to native code but bundles its own rendering engine (adds 10-15MB). For most business apps, these differences are imperceptible. Gaming, AR, or video processing apps notice the gap more.
Modern cross-platform frameworks access 90-95% of device features through plugins and native modules. Camera, GPS, biometrics, push notifications, and payments work well. Limitations appear with newer or platform-specific features: iOS widgets, Android work profiles, or manufacturer-specific APIs may require native code. Agencies add native modules when needed, which increases cost and complexity but maintains the cross-platform benefits for the rest of the app.
Simple apps take 2-3 months, medium complexity 4-6 months, complex apps 6-10 months. This is roughly 30-40% faster than building two separate native apps. The biggest time savings come from shared business logic and single QA process. However, platform-specific bugs add unpredictable debugging time. Budget extra weeks for iOS and Android certification processes running in parallel.
A standard team includes 2-3 React Native or Flutter developers, 1 UI/UX designer familiar with both iOS and Android guidelines, 1 backend developer, and 1 QA engineer testing on both platforms. Larger projects add a native iOS and Android specialist (20-30% of their time) for platform-specific optimizations. This team structure costs less than maintaining separate iOS and Android teams.
No. Both stores accept cross-platform apps without discrimination. Review processes are identical to native apps. The stores cannot distinguish between React Native, Flutter, or native apps from the binary submission. However, poorly optimized cross-platform apps may receive lower user ratings for performance issues, indirectly affecting store rankings.
Avoid cross-platform for: apps requiring deep OS integration (custom keyboards, system extensions), performance-critical applications (3D games, video editors), apps heavily using platform-specific features (Apple Watch complications, Android widgets), or when your team already has strong native expertise. Also avoid if your app needs to feel indistinguishable from native apps in terms of animations and transitions, since subtle differences remain noticeable to discerning users.
Compare agencies specializing in React Native and Flutter. Review their cross-platform portfolios and verify their experience building for both iOS and Android.
Browse All Agencies