React Native AI app cost in 2026, line by line

Every agency quote for a React Native AI app collapses into one fuzzy bracket: $60K–$150K. That bracket is useless. Here's the actual line-item breakdown — hours, dollars, API bills — for what a React Native AI app cost looks like in 2026.

Solo indie, from scratch:   436–832 hours = $32K–$62K
Agency, from scratch:                       $80K–$180K
Template starting point:    $79 + 20–60 hrs customization
Year-one ongoing (API + infra):             $3.6K–$30K

The line items

1. Discovery + IA + design — 60-100 hrs

The part juniors think doesn't count. Data model. Routing graph. What an "AI session" means in your domain. Empty states. Permission denials. Offline behavior. Under-estimated by 4x in every indie project I've seen.

2. Auth + Supabase + RLS — 40-80 hrs

-- The 30-line policy file that takes a full week to get right
create policy "users can only see their own transcripts"
  on transcripts for select
  using (auth.uid() = user_id);

create policy "users can insert their own transcripts"
  on transcripts for insert
  with check (auth.uid() = user_id);
-- ...repeat for every table, every action

Plus schema migrations, OAuth wiring, edge functions for secrets. The Supabase RLS guide is excellent but policy design is on you.

3. AI integration — 80-160 hrs

4. UI screens — 120-240 hrs

A real AI app is not one chat screen:

• onboarding (4–6 screens)
• history list + detail
• settings
• paywall + manage-subscription
• empty / error / offline states
• accessibility labels on everything

Twenty-plus production screens, each needing a dark mode, a tablet layout, and a VoiceOver label. This is the block that swallows half the budget on every project I've seen.

5. Stripe + license grants — 40-60 hrs

// The 200-line webhook handler nobody writes a tutorial for
export async function POST(req: Request) {
  const sig = req.headers.get('stripe-signature');
  const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(body, sig, secret);

  switch (event.type) {
    case 'checkout.session.completed':
      await grantLicense(event.data.object);
      break;
    case 'customer.subscription.deleted':
      await revokeLicense(event.data.object);
      break;
    // ...11 more cases for restore-purchases, refunds, disputes
  }
}

iOS IAP restore flow alone is two days.

6. Push notifications — 16-32 hrs

Topic logic, do-not-disturb, deep links, permission UX, silent-push retries. Expo's push service is great but the policy of when to send is yours.

7. EAS Build + store submission — 20-40 hrs

eas build --platform all --profile production
eas submit -p ios --latest

Two commands. Forty hours of metadata, screenshots at every device size, privacy nutrition labels, ATT prompts, the "what does your AI actually do" review questions, one rejection.

EAS docs cover the build; nobody covers the rejection.

8. QA + edge cases + accessibility — 60-120 hrs

VoiceOver labels. RTL. Dark mode. Tablet. Tiny phones. 4,000-item scroll test. Apple genuinely checks accessibility now.

Recurring costs

GPT-4o Vision:        ~$0.01 / image
OpenAI Whisper:       ~$0.006 / minute audio
Claude/GPT-4 chat:    $3–$15 / 1M input tokens
Supabase Pro:         $25 / month
EAS team plan:        $99 / month
pgvector (in Supabase):     $0
Pinecone (if you outgrow):  $70+ / month
Sentry developer:     $26 / month
Apple Dev Program:    $99 / year
Maintenance:          15–25% of initial build / year

Year-one all-in for an indie React Native AI app: $45K–$78K.

Comparison: scratch vs template

The $79 isn't a discount on the engineering — it's the cost of buying a copy of architecture that already exists. If you want to see what a production template actually ships (RLS policies, BYOK AI wiring, Stripe license grants, 20+ screens), the Applighter blog has the full line-item breakdown and three real budget shapes.

Three real shapes, three real budgets

Image → AI insight (calorie scanner, plant ID, skincare): 380–620 hrs from scratch ($28K–$47K). Template: $79 + ~30 hrs.

Voice → transcript + summary: 480–740 hrs from scratch ($36K–$56K). Template: $79 + ~40 hrs.

Document → chat (RAG): 520–820 hrs from scratch ($39K–$62K). Template: $79 + ~50 hrs.

What free boilerplates miss

A free Expo boilerplate gives you:

• Expo Router setup
• A login screen
• Maybe a tab bar

A free boilerplate does not give you:

• AI provider abstraction (BYOK pattern)
• RLS policies + migrations
• Stripe webhook handlers with signature verification
• License grant logic
• 20+ designer-vetted screens
• Push notification topic logic
• Accessibility audit
• Dark mode tested across every screen

Paid UI kits from competitors like React Native Base ($99–$299) typically ship as UI only — backend, AI, and licensing are still yours. That's where 70% of the hours live.

When build-from-scratch wins

Three cases:

1. Genuinely novel on-device AI (ExecuTorch, custom-trained vision)
2. HIPAA / FedRAMP / on-prem constraints a template's RLS can't satisfy
3. Existing in-house React Native team with idle capacity

For everything else — solo indies, two-person teams, agencies shipping client demos fast — buy the architecture.

FAQ

Q: Do production AI templates include API keys?
A: The good ones don't — they use a BYOK pattern. Pick OpenAI, Anthropic, Whisper, Deepgram, AssemblyAI — your call. You pay the provider directly.

Q: Year-one ongoing costs?
A: $3.6K–$30K. Mostly AI API spend. Supabase + EAS + Sentry are ~$2K/year combined.

Q: Is React Native fast enough for streaming AI responses?
A: Yes. Reanimated v4 handles streaming text and audio waveforms at 60fps. See React Native performance docs.

What did your last React Native AI build actually cost — in hours or dollars? I'm collecting real numbers from indie devs in the comments, because the honest ones are almost impossible to find online.