It's not about the cost, it's about the tradeoffs. That number is necessarily going to be different for every startup because every founder is going to value d

It's not about the cost, it's about the tradeoffs. That number is necessarily going to be different for every startup because every founder is going to value design differently, and make different compromises with regards to executing on a particular design versus shipping at a particular time versus developing it in a particular way. Most recently, SFCD posted examples of their pricing. "Strategy & concept" + "User experience" + "Design" is a quarter to a half of the time spent working on the app. Good design always makes a lot more work for development. http://sfcd.com/blog/cost/ http://sfcd.com/blog/cost/ Other examples include Twitterific's response in this StackOverflow question, "Anyone who's done serious iPhone development can tell you there's a lot of design work involved with any project. We had two designers working on that aspect of the product. They worked their asses off dealing with completely new interaction mechanics. Don't forget they didn't have any hardware to touch, either (LOTS of printouts!) Combined they spent at least 25 hours per week on the project. So 225 hours at $150/hr is about $34,000." Other answers are similar. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/209170/how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-an-iphone-application http://stackoverflow.com/questions/209170/how-much-does-it-c... You can reduce the cost and amount of time spent on design if you've done market research and customer development up front. I'm working on an article about that; if you'd like to read a draft, my contact information is discoverable through my profile.