How Much Does it Cost to Build Fitness App like Strava?

Let’s explore cost to build Fitness App like Strava.

Today, people need advanced fitness solutions to track every movement. It has made Mobile health (mHealth) a part of our daily lives, revolutionizing how we approach fitness.

From getting real-time health updates to personalized workouts, technology is changing fitness aspects. 

One of the most popular fitness apps among athletes is Strava.

The revenue generated by Strava is promising. This growth has influenced businesses to enter the rising fitness app market.

Understanding the cost of developing a fitness app like Strava is crucial to staying competitive. 

For businesses like yours spearheading innovation in the fitness industry, we have provided an estimated cost to develop a fitness app like Strava. 

Understanding Strava and Its Unwavering Popularity

“Community is our core, people say they do not download Strava, they join Strava”

As I was going through the Strava app, it touched me. It has become a community that goes beyond any fitness app.

With its seamless compatibility on iPhone and Android devices, you can track your favorite activities on the go.

It has become the most loved fitness app of modern-age athletes to track their activities be it cycling, running, or swimming.

Some of its mesmerizing features are-

• Measuring real-time performance, including heart rate, pulse, and more
• Record your activity and add it to strava feeds to share with your community to compete
• Share real-time location
• Create your own routes and embed them for others to follow
• AI-Enabled Leaderboard Integrity, Strava uses machine learning to automatically flag suspicious or improbable activities, ensuring fairness and improving the integrity of leaderboards.
• A new subscription option allows up to four people (friends, family, or fitness groups) to share a discounted annual subscription.
• Strava is rolling out a Dark Mode feature to reduce eye strain, improve accessibility, and better user experience, especially in low-light areas.

• Flyover Feature (Enhanced) now includes an overlay with activity stats, allowing users to see more detailed information about their routes. 
• Strava is introducing AI-powered Athlete Intelligence for personalized insights based on a user’s training data.

• New features such as Night Heatmaps, which highlight safe, well-trafficked routes after dark, and Quick Edit, which allows users (especially women) to control their privacy settings more easily.

And more. In 2024, Strava added many of these new features to help provide a better, personalized, and more comfortable fitness experience. 

Strava, with over 120 million athletes, has introduced Best Efforts for Ride for mobile subscribers to help cyclists track their progress and set new records.

Based on Strava’s research, 77% of active cyclists recorded a Best Effort in 2023, and 33% did so in February 2024. This new feature expands on the existing Best Efforts for runners and adds new categories for cycling, including distance, elevation gain, single climbs, power, and time for specific intervals.

Like the running version, the cycling Best Efforts feature is available to paid subscribers and can be found on the “You” page of the Strava app. It displays a cyclist’s top three efforts in five categories, helping riders track their performance and progress.

It sounds challenging to beat the Strava app. But, with the right fitness app development company, you can build a clone that offers similar features. But, first understand the need to invest in Strava-like app development.

Strava Market Overview

• 120 million registered users
• Over 2 billion activities have been completed on Strava.
• 76% of Strava users say exercising with friends makes it more enjoyable and motivates them to get outside.
• 40 million activities are recorded on Strava each week.

These stats show the immense popularity of Strava. But, as a business owner, you must understand what is driving this growing market.

Reasons to Investment in Fitness App Development Like Strava

Investing in a Strava-like fitness app offers businesses the opportunity to tap into a growing market of USD 32.42 billion. 

Here are some reasons why the mHealth industry has a larger impact.

Why must you invest?

• Growing demand for fitness and wellness
• Modern-age users need digital fitness solutions to stay active, track their progress, and connect with others.
• Demand for a greater sense of collaboration and community for joyful competition
• The need to predict and reduce healthcare injuries with AI/ML integrations
• Need to reduce costly subscription plans
• Integration with wearable technology and fitness devices for a seamless user experience
• The need for continuous innovation Adapting to User Needs
• The growing demand for personalized workouts and fitness goals
• A well-designed app can target a wide audience and expand to international markets, offering the potential for high growth.

The market demand for a Strava-like app is high. If you seek to invest in fitness app development, it is the right time. But, do you know how much it costs to develop an app like Strava? Let’s consider the cost involved. 

Cost of Strava-like Fitness App Development in 2025

Developing a fitness app like Strava may cost you a fortune. Being an advanced fitness app including features like heatmap, AI coaching, and more AI-led features to be included in the coming time. To build a Complex Fitness App (like Strava with advanced features, integrations, and scalability), you might need $150,000–$500,000+.

However, the cost is just an estimation and depends on several factors, like features, complexity, UX/UI design, developers’ location, and skills required. If you make the right choice, you could build a fitness app just like Strava in your budget. But, yes the budget is high. 

So, first understand the factors that could impact your overall fitness app development costs. Later, we will discuss some tips to reduce this cost.

Factors Affecting Strava-like App Development Cost

Here are some factors that impact the fitness app development cost significantly.

1. Features and App’s Complexity

Strava is an advanced fitness app with many features like heatmaps, geo-tracking, AI athlete experience, dark mode, and more. If you want to build an app like Strava, the cost is higher than the basic fitness app. 

However, the more the features, the more the app’s complexity. So, make sure you understand the goal of your app and target audience to choose the best features for your app. Otherwise, you will end up spending on unnecessary features.

2. Choice of Platform

Choosing the platform decides your user base. Developing a cross-platform app will have a higher user base as compared to a native app. But cross-platform fitness app comes with some downfalls like limited customization, performance issues, and responsiveness. 

But, to your knowledge, Strava itself is a cross-platform app that is compatible with iPhone and Android devices. So if you choose to build a cross-platform app like Strava, it will reduce your development cost and time with a higher audience.

3. Design and User Interface

Integrating many advanced features requires expertise to design a highly navigational interface. You might need to hire skilled designers who can help you build seamless design while keeping your audience engaged. It is necessary for delivering an exceptional use and fitness experience.

4. Technology Stack and APIs Integrations

Strava is a high-end fitness app with several integrations for extended functionalities and connection with other apps and devices. Not only this but to make it work across devices, delivering the same experience requires a chosen tech stack that might be costly. 

It also analyzes a huge amount of athletes’ data, requiring high storage, security factors, and real-time analytics. All these require a large tech stack. To build a fitness app like Strava, here is a detailed tech stack.

5. Data security and Compliance

Strava handles athletes’ sensitive information (e.g., health metrics, and workout data). To ensure their trust, businesses must use data security and encryption, and comply with privacy laws (like GDPR, and HIPAA). Adding Features like privacy controls adds additional complexity, increasing development time and costs.

6. AI and ML integrations

To stand out in the crowded fitness app market, it is necessary to use the latest trends and technologies like AI/ML. It improves the fitness experience and helps users get real-time and personalized fitness which is the key to such fitness apps. 

But, implementing and maintaining AI and ML algorithms requires skilled AI developers, who can keep the algorithm updated to provide accurate results. As Strava has gone for AI integrations to make it better, it has become necessary for new businesses to integrate it too. 

7. Development Team and Location

Choosing the right development team can put a dent in your budget. There are mainly three ways to hire expertise- creating an in-house team, hiring freelancers, or outsourcing developers. Each has its pros and cons, but outsourcing is the best option possible- cost-efficient and durable.

In the case of outsourcing, you can choose the developer’s location that contributes to development costs. Some countries offer lower development charges than leading countries like the UK and the US. But, outsourcing AI developers in India is the best choice that can help you reduce your development cost. 

8. Testing and Quality Assurance

Testing your app is crucial as it helps you check its functionality. Conduct rigorous testing to identify potential bugs and user experience. It helps you-

• Check the integrations are working fine.
• The app provides accurate data based on the analysis
• App’s responsiveness across devices
• Identify functional issues
• Track user experience
• Make informed changes and key updates

Testing the app is costly as it takes most of the time, cost, and effort to check each functionality. 

9. Marketing and App Store Fees

Launching your app across stores will cost you. Before launching, the app must adhere to all laws and requirements needed to launch your app, otherwise, it will get rejected. It comes with additional costs, including-

• App Store Optimization (ASO)
• Apple and Google charge a commission (typically 15%-30%) on in-app purchases and subscriptions.

Apart from this, you need to spend on marketing campaigns that take most of your budget, from 10-12%. 

10. Maintenance and Updates

To keep your fitness app competitive and ready for the next era, you must keep it updated with the latest trends. Make sure to invest in maintaining your app throughout to deliver next-level user experience. It includes-

• Training AI/ML models and update algorithms
• Add advanced functionalities to stay ahead
• Identify athletes’ pain points and offer potential solutions and more.

Here is a complete timeline.

4 Key Steps for Fitness App Development Like Strava

1. Understand User and Market 

First, start with analyzing the fitness market, competitors, and user’s demand for fitness. It helps you find the necessary features that you must include in your app. This step is necessary to

• Identify existing loopholes in the mHealth industry
• What are the demands of athletes?
• What features would work out?
• Analyze the performance of competitors

2. Select Technology Stack

Make sure to choose the tools and frameworks that are cost-efficient while offering scalable options.

• Choose React Native for cross-platform development
• Use AWS services for security, storage, backup, and others
• Backend on Node.js for exceptional performance

3. Development and Testing

After choosing your tech stack, you can start creating MVP with the help of your leading app development company. MVP is the fastest way to gather feedback and make small improvements and faster time-to-market, followed by rigorous testing. 

4. Ongoing Maintenance, Support, and Improvement

Launching your fitness app is just the beginning. You need to monitor closely after launch, providing ongoing tech support and maintenance to keep your app running smoothly.

It helps you offer regular updates, bug fixes, and new features based on user feedback and industry trends. It includes-

• Stable operations with minimal disruptions
• Scalable infrastructure that adjusts to the app’s needs
• Reduced downtime
• Enhanced security with strong encryption and industry-standard compliance

Decide your revenue streams wisely. 

Monetization Tips of Your Fitness Apps like Strava

1. Premium Features for Serious Runners

Strava makes most of its money from paid memberships, starting at just a few dollars per month. If you’re creating a similar app, consider offering a “pro” version with extra features for serious runners.

Features like custom training plans, coaching tips, route planning, and performance tracking can justify a fee. Even casual runners might pay for extras like virtual challenges, training videos, or discounts on gear.

2. Premium Features for Serious Athletes

Offer in-app purchases like personalized training plans for pro runners. For sports teams, include team management features that let coaches track their athletes. These premium services can be priced higher for added value.

3. Sponsored Challenges

Strava charges companies to sponsor challenges on its platform, with brands like Red Bull and Reebok already on board.

Sponsored challenges start at $20k and can run for up to a month, helping brands reach a larger audience. Businesses can partner with sportswear, nutrition, wearable, or gear brands to promote their products to your users.

4. Data Licensing

Strava’s data is valuable to brands, cities, and planners. Tracking runs and rides shows where infrastructure needs improvement.

If you build an app like Strava, you can sell data reports to brands. These could help researchers and gear companies create better products and programs.

You can share data like:

• Running routes, distances, and locations
• Trends in running habits (frequency, duration, intensity)
• User demographics (age, gender, income, education)

How Can OnGraph Transform Your Fitness Experience?

At OnGraph, we specialize in creating advanced fitness apps, similar to Strava, customized to meet the specific needs of our clients.

Our expert team combines innovation and technical skills to build engaging and functional apps, including Android app development services.

We understand that knowing the cost of building a fitness app is key to our collaboration, so we offer clear and detailed cost breakdowns to avoid any surprises.

We use the latest technologies and trends in the fitness and healthcare app markets to ensure your app is competitive and ahead of the curve. 

Partnering with OnGraph means working with a company dedicated to quality and customer satisfaction, delivering a product that perfectly matches your vision and budget.