How Much Does It Cost to Build A radio app?
Realistic cost to build a radio app: USD 15k–220k depending on scope. Features, tech stack, timeline, team and monetisation…
How Much Does It Cost to Build an App Like Dailyhunt?
Realistic cost to build an app like Dailyhunt: USD 15k–220k depending on scope. Features, tech stack, timeline, team and monetisation explained.
Founders ask us about the cost of building an app like Dailyhunt every month. Below is the breakdown we give them: realistic ranges, what drives the price up or down, and where you can save without hurting the product.
The short answer
Building an app like Dailyhunt typically costs USD 15,000 to USD 90,000 for most businesses, with large-scale platforms going beyond USD 100,000. Here is how that breaks down:
| Version | What you get | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| MVP | Core user journey on one or two platforms, basic admin | $15k – $35k | 8–12 weeks |
| Full product | All main apps, payments, notifications, analytics | $40k – $90k | 14–22 weeks |
| Advanced platform | Scale, automation, AI features, integrations | $100k – $220k+ | 26–38 weeks |
These figures assume a professional team in India working at typical market rates. The same scope built entirely in the US, UK or Australia usually costs two to three times more.
How Dailyhunt works
News apps like Dailyhunt compete on speed, relevance and habit. Personalisation and push notifications done respectfully keep readers coming back.
We are not affiliated with Dailyhunt; we reference it only as a familiar example. You do not need to copy any product — the goal is to understand the building blocks and design something that is better for your own market.
Core features and the apps you will need
Reader app
- Personalised feed
- Categories and local news
- Short summaries and full articles
- Bookmarks and sharing
- Breaking news alerts
- Multiple languages
Newsroom CMS
- Story publishing
- Media library
- Scheduling
Admin console
- Ad management
- Analytics
- Moderation
Advanced features that add cost (and value)
Once the core works, these are the upgrades that typically move a news and media product from good to category-leading. Each can add anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars:
- AI summaries and translations
- Audio news
- Video stories
- Paywalls
Where the budget goes
For a full product of around USD 65,000, a typical split looks like this:
| Phase | Share | Approximate cost |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery, UX and UI design | 12% | USD 7,800 |
| Mobile and web front ends | 33% | USD 21,500 |
| Back end, APIs and integrations | 30% | USD 19,500 |
| Quality assurance and testing | 13% | USD 8,500 |
| Project management and DevOps | 12% | USD 7,800 |
How location changes the price
The same features cost very different amounts depending on where your team sits. Indicative market rates:
| Region | Typical hourly rate (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| India | 25 – 50 | Deep talent pool; best value for full product teams |
| Eastern Europe | 40 – 75 | Strong engineering, good EU overlap |
| UAE & Saudi Arabia | 50 – 100 | Local presence, higher overheads |
| United Kingdom | 70 – 150 | Agencies in London at the upper end |
| Australia | 80 – 160 | Senior local talent is scarce and expensive |
| United States | 90 – 180 | Silicon Valley and New York at the top of the range |
A hybrid model — product leadership close to your market and engineering in India — is how many companies get the best of both.
Recommended technology stack
There is no single correct stack, but a sensible, well-supported starting point for news and media products is:
- Apps and front end: Flutter for mobile and Next.js for web dashboards
- Back end: Node.js (NestJS) or Python (FastAPI)
- Database: PostgreSQL with Redis for caching
- Cloud: AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, with a region close to your users
- Also relevant: Flutter, React Native, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS
The team you need
A typical team for the full-product version:
- 1 product manager / business analyst
- 1 UI/UX designer
- 2–4 mobile and front-end developers
- 2–3 back-end developers
- 1–2 QA engineers
- A part-time DevOps engineer and solution architect
Timeline
| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| Discovery and design | 2–4 weeks |
| MVP build | 8–12 weeks in total |
| Full product | 14–22 weeks in total |
| Post-launch iteration | Ongoing, in 2-week sprints |
How to make money
Common monetisation models for news and media products:
- Advertising
- Subscriptions and paywalls
- Sponsored content
Compliance to plan for
Depending on where you launch, budget time for media and intermediary regulations, copyright and content licensing. Building these in early is far cheaper than retrofitting them after launch.
Ongoing costs after launch
- Maintenance: budget roughly 15–20% of the build cost per year for updates, OS changes and fixes
- Cloud hosting: from a few hundred dollars a month at launch, scaling with usage
- Third-party services: maps, SMS/OTP, payments, email and analytics fees
- Marketing and support: often larger than the tech budget for consumer products
How to reduce the cost without cutting corners
- Buy commodity components (payments, chat, maps) instead of building them
- Defer advanced AI features until you have real user data
- Launch an MVP in one city or segment before expanding
- Use cross-platform frameworks unless native performance is truly required
- Release the admin console as a simple internal tool first
Get an estimate for your idea
Every product is different. Share a few lines about your idea through our contact page or try the app cost calculator for a quick ballpark. If you want to go deeper, see our OTT & Media App Development page.