Diet and Nutrition Planning App Development: Features & Cost

This article is dedicated to fitness and diet planner apps that help users lose or gain weight by following a proper diet and keeping tabs on their calorie intake.

 

If you plan to create a diet planner app or website that will attract and engage audiences with a variety of valuable features, here you can find professional tips: our fitness app development company has vast experience.

 

Here are a few examples of exercise and meal planning app development by Onix:

 

• AI Chef – a web app that transforms meal planning through the power of artificial intelligence (AI) 
• Clubhouse – a sports and fitness app that includes personalized nutrition support  
• JSA – a web and mobile workout and diet plan maker app
• Stridist – a web platform for fitness and nutrition businesses

Below, you can find a complete guide to diet and meal planner app development. But let’s provide some context first.

 

Why Is It High Time to Build a Diet & Nutrition Planner App?

On the one hand, technology is making our lives easier. Various web and mobile apps help people study, buy groceries, and even access healthcare and dentistry services from the comfort of their homes. Virtual reality (VR) technology enables them to meet colleagues and collaborate remotely, amuse themselves, or even visit a museum while sitting on a couch.  

 

On the other hand, these developments also contribute to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle that can lead to obesity, cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, psychological problems, etc. Urban stress makes it more difficult to maintain a work-life balance with proper nutrition and regular workouts. 

 

Luckily, technology can also offer solutions for these challenges, e.g., through mental health, fitness, and nutrition application development. Users can choose from a variety of fitness websites and mobile apps, walk and run tracking apps, mental health apps, and even VR and AR experiences promoting fitness and mental well-being.

The popularity of smartphones and rising prevalence of lifestyle diseases promise immense opportunities for diet and nutrition tracking app development.

 

Moreover, such apps’ target audiences (TA) are not limited to overweight people. Many groups need assistance with their diets, such as patients with eating disorders, pregnant women, vegans and people with specific dietary requirements, athletes, and others. Moreover, health and wellness are global trends, so a handy app will appeal to anyone interested in healthy eating. 

Revenue in the nutrition apps market is expected to reach 6.05 billion USD in 2025 and grow at a CAGR of 10.9% in 2025-2029. User penetration is expected to reach 4.57% in 2025 and exceed 5% by 2029.

Diet and nutrition tracking has been instrumental in the nutrition app market development so far, and functionalities like product scanners, calorie, macro- and micronutrients, and activity tracking are expected to further its growth. The growing focus on dietary restrictions has caused a surge of diet-specific apps. 

The growing competition among key market players and demand for greater functionalities is expected to increase the cost of nutrition and diet planner app development in the coming years. While the moment is propitious, entrepreneurs that invest in health, nutrition, and fitness apps now may become leaders and make a fortune.

Read also: How to Build a Fitness and Nutrition App Like MyFitnessPal?

Ideas for Nutrition Planner App Development

The market offers a variety of nutrition-related apps that can be classified by:

 

• their primary goal and functionality, such as calorie counters, nutrition planners, diet trackers, online marketplaces, or platforms that connect users and nutrition experts;
• niche, e.g., nutrition apps for bodybuilders, pregnant women, vegans, and others.

It’s more practical to develop a diet assistant app catering to multiple categories. Users also appreciate apps with multiple functionalities as they seek one-stop solutions for all their fitness-related needs.

However, with a limited budget, it’s OK to start with a minimum viable product (MVP), a minimal set of features addressing one issue. Once the MVP gains traction and builds trust among users, you may expand its scope and service catalog.

Here are several ideas for nutrition planning app development that you can realize as a specialized app, combine, enrich with your unique solutions, adapt to your specific market, and so forth.

 

Diet planning

Users may enter their current and desired weight, diet, food preferences, allergies, etc., into the app and it will suggest a diet chart for a day, week, or month according to the user’s needs, preferences, budget, and schedule. The app usually also includes a calorie calculator. 

 

For example, the Affordable Online Coaching website and mobile fitness application, formerly known as James Smith Academy (JSA), enable users to receive a personal workout and nutrition plan and support from a live coach and compete in weight loss challenges.

James Smith Academy is an example of exercise and diet tracker app development by Onix. 

 

Our cooperation with James Smith began with a UX/UI audit of their existing application, which resulted in a complete redesign. Soon, he hired Onix’s specialists to work on all aspects of the project.

 

We offered ideas for improvements and worked on modifying and enhancing existing features, implementing new functionality, several design updates, changes to the membership plans and subscriptions, redesigning the coaches’ admin panel, etc.

 

A meal generator was one of the key features Onix implemented. The app can generate a meal plan based on the goals, preferences, and data the user submitted during onboarding. Our team created an API for this purpose. There’s also a huge library of healthy recipes.  

 

Over three years of collaboration with Onix, the platform grew its user base to over 100K users.

 

Cooking app

For many people, cooking is the most challenging part of healthy eating. Regardless of their goals and circumstances, they want delicious and diverse meals without much effort. This is a job for cooking apps.

A virtual book of fast-to-cook or pre-made healthy recipes will not only motivate and help users to cook healthy meals faster but also encourage them to open your app more frequently. For example, users may want to enter the food they already have in the fridge so that an app recommends a recipe with those ingredients.

Onix also has experience in cooking app development.

 

The project started with our client’s idea of a cooking app that could relieve stress and promote healthier choices when cooking for people with busy lives or specific dietary needs. Artificial intelligence provided a solution – AI-powered personalized recommendations and recipe generation.    

AI Chef, built by Onix, is an example of AI-powered meal planner app development.

 

Within this project, the Onix team

 

• designed a user-friendly and visually appealing website
• built a huge ingredient database for users to browse, search, categorize, and pick ingredients based on taste and dietary requirements
• created an AI recipe generator that tailors dishes to dietary needs and available ingredients in real time
• implemented a nutritional analysis feature that offers users detailed insights into their dishes, including calorie and proteins, fats, and carbohydrates counts
• implemented GPT API technology to provide recommendations tailored to each user’s preferences
• developed a dashboard where users can store and manage their recipes

 

The resulting app transforms meal planning into a seamless personalized experience that combines convenience with creativity.

 

You may also offer author recipes from celebrities, chiefs, nutritionists, or other influencers as your USP, as well as encourage users to add and share their recipes on your platform.

 

Professional platform

These apps connect users with nutrition experts and coaches to help with specific goals like weight loss, muscle gain, health issues, etc.

 

Usually, a consumer browses the app’s database to find a suitable professional. Then, they’d schedule an appointment during which the health and fitness expert can analyze the client’s current situation and goals and suggest improvements.

 

Professionals can provide users with personalized meal plans, recipes, and tips, educate, guide them through a diet regime, track their progress, and even generate reports using nutrition tracking tools.

 

The feature set may include a search engine with multiple filters, a calendar, chat, video conferencing for virtual diet consultations, online classes, and online payment functionality.

 

Onix also built a comprehensive business management web platform for fitness and nutrition professionals. Stridist empowers these customers to run their businesses and provide their services online in one easy-to-use digital place.

 

The platform’s best features include:

 

• an intuitive workout builder for personalized coaching experiences
• effortless client management and progress tracking
• a convenient dashboard with client filtering
• secure payments
• ability to keep in touch with a coach every day
• easy-to-see training and nutrition data at users’ fingertips

The Stridist platform, which Onix also helped to build, has been helping fitness and nutrition professionals grow their businesses since 2016.

 

Stridist users reportedly save hundreds of dollars by replacing other software, retain clients longer, and raise revenue per client per year.

 

However, when Stridist first approached Onix, their fitness website was facing serious product operation and scalability problems. Our specialists implemented a number of improvements:

 

• Prioritizing the project’s migration to a new architecture, they used Amazon ECS clusters that help guarantee high-quality product operation, enhance its capacity, and significantly broaden functionality.
• Onix’s team developed an easy-to-use editor that allows fitness coaches to quickly create gym or home workouts, exercise demo videos, or full follow-along workout videos. Saved program templates automated the program creation process.
• The new ability to sort and filter clients by name, due date, and tag simplified navigation for coaches.
• We added a step counter, nutrition targets, goals, and progress photos on the client profile page to help nutritionists and fitness coaches track their clients' results and assess their training performance.
• Onix’s specialists integrated the Stripe system, allowing users to send and accept payouts online securely. This helped automate the finance process and track payments within the platform.
• We streamlined the registration process by adding the ability to sign up with Google, link the coach card before registration, and choose one of the subscription plans. 

 

"We’ve had a fantastic experience working with the team at Onix. They’ve delivered the vision we had for our platform. Communication has been great, they go the extra mile to make sure work is done to a high standard and delivered on time. It’s been a pleasure to have them on board. Highly recommend them."
Sukh Sidhu, Stridist CEO

Healthy food online shop or marketplace

If an app is integrated with an online grocery store, its healthy recipes can be converted into grocery orders. An AI-powered feature can also display or recommend the most relevant foods or meals based on surveys, past orders, user feedback, or other information.

The app owner can use this diet and nutrition app to sell their own goods, as an online expansion of a physical stores chain, or generate revenue as an online marketplace. They can sell healthy and organic foods, health supplements, and meals. An integrated shipping service will enable prompt delivery of healthy meals and groceries.

Read also: Web and Mobile Grocery App Development in 2025

Diet monitoring app

The primary function of these apps is to count calories. They can record the food a user consumes, daily water consumption, or the number of calories absorbed and burnt. Visualization of the data in an easy-to-understand way is a good user experience.

Users can enter the amounts of calories manually or scan packaged food items with an in-app barcode scanner before or after a meal. The calorie monitoring tool can also fetch information on calorie intake from a native or third-party meal database or an activity tracker, e.g., the number of steps a user walked or other activities.

The logged data allows seeing trends to understand whether the user is taking an appropriate number of calories and nutrients. It can also help suggest dietary or fitness program recommendations from a comprehensive database.

Wager app

Challenges and betting will motivate users to reach their fitness goals even more. For example, a user bets some money that they will achieve a specific weight goal. If they lose the required number of stones by a specified date, they get their money back or win a cash prize. If they fail, they lose the money.

Such diet calendar app development implies functionalities for financial transactions, calculations, and verification of the participants’ weight, e.g., using photo recognition..

It’s also helpful to know how various nutrition and diet apps earn money for their owners. The niche offers a variety of monetization methods.

 

In-app advertising

A website or mobile app with a considerable user base can generate revenue through advertising. The key to success is to display ads relevant to the users’ needs and to make them unobtrusive.

 

For example, you can display ads that promote food supplements, health-related events, sportswear, equipment, etc., as banners or as “native ads” incorporated in blog posts or other content.

Freemium model

This model attracts users by making an app’s basic functionality available for free and then offering paid access to advanced features and exclusive content. The key is to have a considerable part of the audience so interested in the premium version of your application that they are ready to pay for it. The freemium model can also be combined with other monetization methods.

Subscription / paid membership model

This model is one of the best ways to monetize a diet and nutrition app. If users are totally satisfied with or even become addicted to an app during a free trial period, they will likely convert into paying members afterward.

 

Constantly improving the app’s service catalog and offering several subscription plans and regular discounts, an app developer can nurture a loyal paying customer base and secure a steady revenue stream.

Pay to download

This monetization model implies paying for an application only once. To convince consumers to pay the price indicated on the app’s Google Play or the App Store page, you need either a massive promotional campaign or to develop a product that people won’t be able to give up after a short trial.

Read also: 12 Mobile App Monetization Strategies to Use in 2025

Ecommerce

An online store or marketplace can provide a source of revenue through sales or a percentage from each transaction. It’s key to provide a customer experience and payment process that is on par or better than at major online stores.

Transaction fees

A platform that connects online dietitians, nutritionists, or fitness trainers with clients can charge a percentage of the transactions and fees for the listings.

Read also: How to Build Fitness Website: Features, Best Practices & Cost

Sponsorships

A nutrition and diet app owner can form partnerships with relevant brands to place their logos on interfaces, publish sponsored content, and organize weight loss challenges with prizes from sponsors.

Finally, you may build a nutrition planning website or mobile app not for direct monetary benefits but as an instrument of brand promotion or support for offline activities.

Depending on your goals, the type of your diet and nutrition application, and your preferred monetization strategy, the app can have several types of users, such as regular users/consumers, nutrition experts, vendors, admins, etc. The following chapter should give you an idea of the consumer features you may need to include in your app.

Key Features of a Diet and Nutrition Mobile App or Website

 

Registration

The app should facilitate easy sign-up manually, using the email or phone number, or via their social media profile (like Facebook or Twitter).

 

The creation of a user account should promote personalization. The system may need to know a user’s age, gender, height, weight, goals, food allergies, and other health indicators and preferences to provide the most value. However, make sure not to ask users too many questions during the registration. 

 

Diet planning apps are not essentially healthcare apps, but the GDPR and other regulations can be rather strict.

 

It’s a good practice to store as little personal data as possible and to be cautious when working with it. A secure authorization process should ensure that the users’ data isn’t lost or compromised if they lose or change their device or reinstall your mobile app.

 

Goals

This feature should enable the user to set a goal of using your app and then monitor their progress. The app may mark and celebrate users’ micro-achievements and completion of the goals to help them stay positive.

 

Macro-calculator 

The app may help users calculate the amounts of calories, proteins, carbs, and fat they need daily based on their shape, age, lifestyle, and particular needs.
 

Food logging and calorie tracking

This feature is essential for persons trying to increase, decrease, or control their weight. They can track their calorie intake by entering the type and amount of food they are about to eat or have eaten.

 

The app will display the respective number of calories and, if needed, determine whether the user has consumed the required daily amount and even provide recommendations.
 

Barcode scanner

Packaged food products typically come with a barcode that consumers can scan using their smartphones to fetch accurate nutrition information, such as calories and ingredients.

 

A barcode scanner embedded in a diet mobile app will facilitate calorie tracking as an alternative to manual food logging and assist consumers when they shop.

Сlubhouse is another example of Onix’s fitness and nutrition application development.  

 

For example, the Сlubhouse fitness platform, which Onix also helped build, includes a website that provides personalized calories and macros based on users’ goals and example meal plans, as well as an all-in-one mobile app with features like:

 

• goal setting and progress tracking
• a calorie counter with a barcode scanner
• daily step counter Integration

 

Physical activity tracking

Although this optional feature isn’t directly related to nutrition, it can be valuable to audiences that need to see the difference between burnt and consumed calories. This will help them evaluate the dynamics and change their meal or workout plans if needed.

This functionality will require integration with fitness trackers and wearable devices that automatically and accurately record physical activity data, such as steps, sleeping, pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. This data will be transferred to the diet planner app to analyze and consider when recommending meal plans, tracking and visualizing progress, etc.

Read also: Wearable App Development: Build Next-Gen Solutions

It’s essential to ensure a seamless connection between the nutrition app and wearables like Apple Watch, Fitbit, Xiaomi Smart Band, or less popular devices. It may be reasonable to cover as many options as possible to cater to wider audiences. Make sure your product development team has adequate experience in building similar applications.

Hydration tracking

The logic of this optional but valuable feature may include a calculator to determine daily quantities of water for each user based on their parameters (height, weight, and age) and a water consumption tracker. The optimal water intake may be visualized by several glasses or a bottle gradually filling up as the user enters their consumption of water and other liquids.

The feature will be most beneficial as a “remind & control” function of a mobile app. The app can also provide analytics and offer recommendations, e.g., regarding the combination of certain foods with liquids like coffee or soft drinks.
 

Dashboard

The dashboard may provide an overview of the user’s daily/weekly calorie and nutrient intake and other essential key performance indicators (KPIs), the user’s progress toward their fitness goals, the current meal plan, recommended foods, nutrition tips, and more.

 

The dashboard should be customizable, e.g., so it can present specific KPIs and other information most relevant for a particular user in the most convenient way.

 

Diet plans

To get started, the app can offer a list of popular diet plans classified by goals and restrictions (e.g., vegan, gluten-free, etc.) for the user to browse, select, and follow.

 

Ideally, the app should employ artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) to recommend or generate a health and diet plan for each user according to their goals and considering data like body type, preferred foods, lifestyle, geographical location, health issues, etc. 

Onix implemented a meal plan generator using a consumer’s goals and data in James Smith Academy and another fitness app for the same client.

 

The more personalized experience you can offer, the better. If users have a dietitian’s or doctor’s prescription, it would be useful to enable them to manage their diet plans accordingly. Users may also appreciate functions for food supplement intake.

Alternatively, or as an add-on, the app may offer live private professional consultations. During an online meeting, a nutrition expert can modify the user’s selected diet plan, create a custom plan, and provide valuable tips. This can become your USP.

Rating and reviews reflecting other users’ experience with a particular meal plan will help users make better decisions and improve the overall app experience.

Recipe database

Ideally, there should be thousands of recipes. The format of recipes can be limited to plain text, include photos, or even provide step-by-step voice or video instructions.

Implement an effective search by title, ingredients, etc., and rich filtering options.

The creation and manual uploading of such content will take considerable time and effort. Alternatively, an integration with a third-party database will enable instant access to thousands of recipes.

Chatbot

A chatbot may prove effective at recommending meal plans, recipes, and foods, scheduling appointments with professionals, answering frequently asked questions, and other tasks.

Read also: Onix's Guide to Custom Chatbot Development
 

Shopping list

A simple shopping list can help users shop at physical stores faster and easier.

The app may import selected foods and ingredients to the shopping list automatically, but users should also be able to delete and add goods manually.

Online shopping

Ecommerce functionality directly linked to diet plans and healthy recipes will make a nutrition app even more valuable. The app may include a store where users can buy healthy foods and nutritional supplements or be connected with a whole marketplace where trusted vendors sell nutrition-related goods.

The meal plans, recipes, and healthy food recommendations offered by the app can be connected to vendors, enabling faster shopping for consumers and commissions for the app owner.

The required functionalities include a browser with many filter options and the ability to visit a vendor’s page, see a store’s rating and reviews, compare prices, place an order, and pay for it. Purchase history and templates may be helpful too.

Read also: How to Build an eCommerce Website

Push notifications

Suppose your diet planner is a mobile application. In that case, notifications and alerts won’t let users miss their meal time, calorie intake logging, a glass of water, consultation, workout session, or other important health-related tasks. The app can also:

 

• deliver motivational messages to inspire users to continue their diet
• send “Have a great day” notifications to improve user engagement
• send personalized recommendations, offers, etc.

 

However, don’t overuse the functionality so notifications don’t become annoying.

 

Professional consultations

This feature targets consumers that seek professional help with weight loss/gain or other goals and are ready to pay for a more personalized app experience. 

The professionals should be able to provide consultations through an in-app chat or video calls, access a client’s medical files, create and share diet plans, recipes, tutorials, and other content, track their client’s progress, and more.

Be ready to build a personal nutritionist app, i.e. a separate registration and verification flow for the professionals and an interface enabling them to provide the required services and receive payments.

 

You also need a selection and qualification authentication process in place, which can include personal interviews via the app, uploading certificates and other documents, etc.

Stridist is another example of apps for nutritionists and fitness coaches built by Onix.

 

Blog/educational section

This optional section can be valuable both for newcomers interested in healthy eating habits and for more sophisticated audiences that appreciate industry news, recent research, etc.

 

This will improve the overall app experience and increase user engagement. Moreover, if people enjoy the content, they will likely share it on social media, spreading the word about the app.

You can also monetize this feature by offering free content to all users but restricting exclusive content from guest experts, celebrities, and partners to premium members.

Community

Users may appreciate communication with others who are on the same journey and an opportunity to share their experiences and achievements. In-app forums or blogs can help meet the need for support and advice.

Clubhouse, which Onix helped to build, connects users with peers so that they can motivate and support each other.

 

Social sharing

Users may like sharing recipes, blogs, nutritionists’ contact details, or the entire diet and nutrition app with family, friends, and colleagues. By spreading the word, they are expanding your potential audience.

Help and assistance section

The help and advice section can include FAQs, video tutorials, or even a chat with the support team.

Feedback

User feedback is invaluable for app developers as it helps improve the app experience, increasing customer retention and the competitive edge. App users should be able to evaluate the app’s features and post complaints and requests for more features.

 

The system should be built with scalability and flexibility in mind so it can be easy to modify according to changing user needs and accommodate new functionalities, monetization methods, and new categories and increasing numbers of users in the future.

 

How to Create a Diet App or Website – Onix’s Advice

 

1. Conduct proper research and discovery.

Firstly, you need to identify the group or groups of customers to target. For example, do you want to cater to all people who want to develop healthy eating habits, or are you ready to tailor your app to senior citizens, children, or diabetic, anorexic, or other patients? 

Analyze the TA’s needs and problems. For instance, if you target nutritionists, gym trainers, or other fitness industry professionals, figure out the ways to bring value to them.

For example, preparing for James Smith’s app redesign, Onix’s expert went to the gym and played sports using his advice and application to understand its issues and figure out optimal solutions.

Research the market and competitors. Explore the rivals’ diet applications to identify their best features and drawbacks and understand the best practices in nutrition planning app development and design.

For instance, to create an inviting and valuable user experience for Clubhouse, we asked the client to complete a survey with his preferences and conducted a competitor analysis to come up with the best design ideas.

 

The knowledge of the end-user’s needs, goals, and preferences will enable you to determine and prioritize the features of your diet planner app. Their age, education and income levels, cultural specifics, or special needs should inform your decisions when you choose the platform or platforms for the app, its visual style, content, monetization methods, etc. 

For example, mobile technology facilitates the use of reminders and alerts. You can cover a wider audience by making a diet application for Android devices first.

Involve experts as early as possible in the product development. Flaws in the app’s logic and algorithms may result in a bad customer experience or even affect the users’ well-being. All calculations and recommendations in your app must be based on scientific data and professional nutritionist expertise. So, you need to engage:

 

1. certified dietitians or at least nutritionists or fitness coaches;
2. software engineers with a track record of similar application development.

Onix’s experts nearly always advise clients to ‘start small,’ i.e. to build an MVP with the core diet and nutrition app features plus something that will set it apart from the competition.

 

The lean development approach works best if you want to enter the market faster, have a limited budget, or are not sure that your original solution will hit the product-market fit. 

It’s wise to split your nutrition planning app features into two categories: functions that fit the MVP scope and nice-to-have features that you can implement after receiving early adopters’ feedback and pitching your project to investors to support scaling.

In any case, you should have at least a project requirements document at the end of this phase. It will facilitate the consequent steps: the search for app developers, product design, and proper diet planner app development.

2. Assemble a team of experienced app developers.

The product development team’s size, lineup, and qualifications may depend on the project scope, timeframe, and budget. For example, a diet planning website development will likely require at least one:

 

1. User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) designer
2. Frontend developer
3. Backend developer
4. Quality assurance (QA) specialist
5. DevOps engineer (if necessary)
6. Project manager (PM)

 

A diet mobile app development team may include: 

 

1. Mobile app designer
2. Android developer and/or iOS developer
3. Backend developer
4. QA engineer
5. DevOps
6. PM

 

Onix’s recommended technology stack for diet planning app development includes, but is not limited to:

 

• Frontend – React for a website and React Native for mobile app development
• Backend – Python or NodeJS
• Database – PostgreSQL or MongoDB

 

The programmers’ level should be at least Middle in small teams like these. If you need to complete numerous features by a specific deadline, you can increase the number of specialists.

Suppose you do not have the required expertise in-house. In that case, you can delegate the task to external developers. Offshore software development may save up to 50% of your project budget, but it’s essential to check whether the devs know how to develop a diet app properly, i.e. have worked on similar projects, are familiar with regulatory compliance, integration with wearables and third-party APIs, and other technicalities. 

 

3. Prototype and create the UX/UI design to help and engage users.

Prototyping allows for verifying design ideas and checking whether the features will work as intended without coding. Simultaneously, the designer will develop your app’s color scheme, style, and original brand elements.

 
The look-and-feel of a diet and nutrition app is a major deciding factor. It must be adapted to the TA’s needs, establish credibility and trust through every element, and be more user-friendly, convenient, and attractive than the competitors’ applications. It must be easy to navigate all of the app’s features and access the tools and resources with minimal scrolling and clicks. 

UX/UI standards for cooking and nutrition planner app development imply minimalism and simplicity combined with vivid images, like in AI Chef, built by Onix.

There are distinct design patterns for such websites and apps, and it’s reasonable to follow them; an experienced designer will be an invaluable asset to your project.

 

Simultaneously, original elements like gamification or cute animated “assistants” can help establish an emotional connection with the users and distinguish your app from the competition.

For example, for Stridist, after thorough competitor research, Onix’s UX/UI experts divided basic functionality into several logical parts and developed an intuitive interface that enables users to find the required feature easily and access them quickly. They made the UI design visually cohesive and clean but added bright color accents.

4. Have your diet and nutrition website and/or mobile apps built and tested.

At this stage, the web and mobile developers must implement the designed features while the backend developers build databases and implement APIs, services, and libraries for the system’s inner workings.

For example, food logging and calorie tracking require the system to instantly access accurate information about the number of calories and nutrients in each food, product, or meal. APIs will enable your app’s integration with relevant third-party databases.

Onix recommends an incremental development approach, starting with a minimum of core features and further building up the app based on user feedback. The software also must continuously go through

 

• functional testing
• usability testing
• interface testing
• performance testing
• security testing
   

The mobile app must run equally well on different devices and be synchronized with the web version of your diet and nutrition service.

Hopefully, you have got the answers to most of your questions regarding diet and nutrition app development by this time, except the final critical question.
 

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Diet & Nutrition Planning App?

A general formula can help you roughly calculate a nutrition planner app development cost: app development time X app developers’ hourly rate.

 

However, even these two variables are tricky to estimate because each application and business is unique. The factors that directly influence the cost include, but are not limited to:

 

• the app’s type
• the number of the desired features and their complexity
• for which platforms the app is being developed
• type of mobile application development (native, hybrid, or cross-platform)
• the choice of technologies and third-party services, such as payment gateways and feed providers
• the development team’s location
• the developers’ qualifications
• any deadline, etc.

 

The app’s type and complexity are the most significant factors determining its design requirements, technologies, software development and testing methods, and app development time.

 
On the other hand, if you choose to outsource the job, you can reduce the budget dramatically. For example, here’s a breakdown of the approximate time required for diet and nutrition tracking mobile app development:

 

Multiplying this development time by the hourly rate of specialists in North America leaves you with the approximate minimal price tag of $120K. Suppose you outsource the app development to countries with a lower cost of living, such as Eastern Europe or the Indian subcontinent. In that case, you can negotiate lower rates and save up to half your budget.

 

 

For example, at Onix’s rate of around $37/hour, the same project can cost around $45K-$62K to build. For a more accurate preliminary estimate of your product development, please feel free to contact Onix’s experts right now.

 

Our company can build a custom food/nutrition app for you from scratch, improve your existing product, or provide the required specialists or an entire dedicated team for your ongoing project.

 

Onix can cover all your needs pertaining to:
 

• product discovery
• proof of concept
• web and/or mobile app design
• web and/or mobile app development
• quality assurance, etc.

 

FAQ

 

What types of nutrition and diet apps are popular currently?

 

• Meal planner
• Calorie counter/diet monitoring app
• Wager app
• Nutritionists marketplace/social platform
• Healthy food online shop or marketplace

 

What monetization strategies do nutrition and diet mobile apps employ?

 

• In-app advertising
• Freemium model
• Subscription / paid membership model
• Pay to download
• Ecommerce
• Transaction fees
• Sponsorships

 

What features can a nutrition and diet app or website include?

 

• Goals
• Macro-calculator 
• Food logging and calorie tracking
• Barcode scanner
• Physical activity tracking
• Hydration tracking
• Dashboard
• Diet plans
• Recipe database
• Chatbot
• Shopping list
• Online shopping
• Professional consultations
• Push notifications
• Blog/educational section
• Community
• Social sharing
• Help and assistance section
• User feedback

 

How much can nutrition planner app development cost?

The factors that can determine the cost of your app development include, but are not limited to:

 

• the app’s type
• the number of the desired features and their complexity
• the choice of platforms and the type of mobile application development (native, hybrid, or cross-platform);
• the choice of technologies and third-party services, such as payment gateways and feed providers
• the development team’s lineup and the developers’ qualifications
• the team’s location

The app scope and team’s location are the most significant factors. For example, the same set of features can cost at least $120K to develop in the US or Canada and around $45K-$62K with Onix in Ukraine.