The build cost is the same in both — so stop comparing quotes and start comparing what happens in year two. Real India numbers, the 18% reverse-charge tax nobody adds to the toolchain, and the cases where we tell clients to overrule our own default.
Pick Flutter if your app is under about ₹2,50,000 and its job is screens, forms, lists and payments. Pick React Native if you already run a React or Next.js web product, or if you plan to hire an in-house mobile developer in India within twelve months. The build cost is the same either way — at a small Indian agency in 2026 a simple app is ₹50,000–₹1,00,000 and a medium app with logins and payments is ₹1,00,000–₹2,50,000, in both frameworks, because the price is driven by screen count and backend complexity, not by the SDK. The framework does not decide your build cost. It decides your year-two hiring cost.
We build in both. Our internal default is Flutter, so read everything below with that bias in mind — and then read the section headed “when we tell clients to overrule us,” because on roughly one project in three we do. Every rupee figure on this page is the price we actually charge, published on our pricing page, not a range collected from other people’s blogs.
Most comparison tables are written for developers and argue about rendering engines. If you are paying for the app rather than writing it, almost none of that reaches you. These are the rows that change a business decision.
| React Native | Flutter | |
|---|---|---|
| Build cost, same scope | Identical | Identical |
| Language | JavaScript / TypeScript | Dart |
| Hiring pool in India | Deep — shares the web JS pool | Narrower — a separate specialism |
| Shares code with a React website | No — but shares the team | No |
| UI consistency across devices | Uses native components; small variations | Pixel-identical — draws its own UI |
| Heavy animation / custom design | Workable | Easier and faster |
| Third-party Indian SDK coverage | Usually first to ship | Good, occasionally lags |
| Install size added | Smaller | Larger (roughly 4–8 MB more) |
| Mac needed for iOS release | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that already write React | Design-led apps built from zero |
| Worst for | Heavy bespoke animation on a tight budget | A company whose whole stack is JavaScript |
Install-size figures are the typical framework overhead added to a release build and vary with what you include. “Hiring pool” reflects the Indian market specifically, where React Native and web-React recruitment draw from one pool.
This is the table nobody publishes, because it kills a useful sales lever. Here is what we charge for the same scope in each framework. The columns are the same on purpose.
| What you’re building | React Native | Flutter | What actually moves the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple app, 4–8 screens, no login | ₹50,000 – ₹1,00,000 | ₹50,000 – ₹1,00,000 | Screen count and how custom the design is |
| Medium app, logins + payments | ₹1,00,000 – ₹2,50,000 | ₹1,00,000 – ₹2,50,000 | The backend and the payment gateway, not the app |
| Marketplace / on-demand app | ₹2,50,000+ | ₹2,50,000+ | Two or three user roles, live tracking, payouts |
| Backend hosting, monthly | ₹3,000 – ₹25,000 | ₹3,000 – ₹25,000 | Users and data, framework irrelevant |
| Maintenance cover, monthly | ₹5,000 – ₹30,000 | ₹5,000 – ₹30,000 | OS releases and store policy changes |
Read that table and you have the whole argument: the framework is not a line item. What consumes an app budget is screen design, API integration, the payment gateway, testing on real Indian devices and getting through store review — and every one of those costs the same in Dart as it does in TypeScript. If a vendor quotes you meaningfully cheaper “because Flutter,” they are discounting to win the job and will find the money back somewhere. Our full breakdown of what drives an app quote is in the mobile app development cost guide.
This is the part of the framework decision that no React-Native-vs-Flutter comparison publishes, and it is not a technical point at all. Whichever framework you pick, you are choosing a stack of foreign subscriptions — and for a GST-registered Indian company an imported service is not a simple credit-card charge.
Under section 5(3) of the IGST Act read with Notification 10/2017-Integrated Tax (Rate), the Indian recipient pays IGST at 18% on an import of services, not the overseas supplier. You raise a self-invoice on yourself under section 31(3)(f) of the CGST Act, and then comes the part that actually costs cash: reverse-charge tax cannot be paid out of your existing input-tax-credit balance. Section 2(82) of the CGST Act excludes reverse-charge tax from the definition of “output tax,” and section 49(4) permits the electronic credit ledger to be used only for output tax — so the money leaves your bank account, and the credit comes back to you in a later return. It is a timing cost every single month, and for a founder who is not yet GST-registered it is not a timing cost at all, because there is nothing to reclaim it against.
Run the arithmetic on the two line items every cross-platform project has. The Apple Developer Program is not US$99 a year — it is US$116.82 of cash out. Google Play’s one-time US$25 is US$29.50. Small sums on their own; the point is that they are the two smallest items on the list.
| Recurring foreign service | Which framework commits you to it | List price | Actual cash out with 18% RCM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Developer Program | Both, unavoidable for iOS | US$99 / year | US$116.82 / year |
| Google Play developer account | Both, unavoidable for Android | US$25 one-time | US$29.50 one-time |
| Hosted build / CI service | Both — and it is how you avoid buying a Mac | US$0–100 / month | US$0–118 / month |
| Over-the-air code updates | React Native natively; Flutter only via a third-party service | US$0–100 / month | US$0–118 / month |
| Crash & performance monitoring | Both | US$0–50 / month | US$0–59 / month |
Two things follow, and only one of them is about frameworks. The first: ask your accountant whether these imports oblige you to register for GST at all — section 24(iii) of the CGST Act requires registration, irrespective of turnover, for persons liable to pay tax under reverse charge, which is a threshold question a great many small Indian app owners have never been asked. The second: the framework quietly picks the shape of that recurring bill. React Native ships over-the-air JavaScript updates as a first-class capability, so React Native teams typically buy a hosted build-and-OTA service and use it constantly; Flutter compiles ahead of time and has no first-party code push, so a Flutter team either accepts a full store release for every fix or buys a separate third-party service to get the same thing. Neither is better. But if you are picking on total cost of ownership, the recurring foreign bill and the 18% riding on top of it belong in the comparison, and they never are.
Current as at July 2026. General information about how these charges work, not tax advice — confirm your own position with your CA before you rely on it.
One paragraph, because this is not a framework question and we have written it up properly elsewhere. A framework choice that saves three developer-days cannot save you a fortnight of Google’s clock: a brand-new Android app published from a personal developer account has to clear a closed-testing requirement before it may even apply for production access, and that gate is indifferent to your SDK, your agency and your code quality. Start it in week one of the build rather than at the end — our timeline guide sets out exactly what the gate requires, how long it runs and who is exempt, alongside the rest of the launch calendar.
Cross-platform means one codebase. It does not mean one machine. iOS release builds must be compiled and signed on macOS in React Native and in Flutter alike — neither framework removes Apple’s requirement. Add to that the Apple Developer Program at 99 US dollars a year and Google Play’s one-time 25 US dollars, and if nobody on the project owns a Mac you are paying for hardware or for a cloud build service on top of the quote. It is the most common surprise in an Indian cross-platform app budget, and choosing the other framework does not avoid it. Ask any vendor, in writing, whether iOS build and signing infrastructure is inside their price.
We prefer Flutter, mostly because a design-led app built from zero comes out closer to the mockups with less fighting. But an agency that recommends the same framework to every client is describing its own comfort, not your project. These are the cases where we say React Native, against our own default:
And the mirror image — where we hold the Flutter line even when a client arrives asking for React Native: a heavily designed, animation-rich app; a product that must look pixel-identical on every device; a first app at a company with no existing JavaScript team; and anything where the design is the product rather than a wrapper around a database.
Switching frameworks later is not a migration. It is a rewrite. Expect it to cost 60–80% of the original build: every screen is built again from scratch, while the backend, the API, the design and the product decisions carry over. On a ₹2,00,000 app that is a ₹1,20,000–₹1,60,000 bill to end up exactly where you already were, feature for feature, with nothing new to show a customer.
Which is why the protective moves matter more than the choice itself. Keep business logic on the server, not in the app — anything that lives in the API survives a rewrite untouched, and anything hard-coded in the app dies with it. Own the repository from day one and have code pushed to it continuously, not delivered in a zip at the end. Insist the API is documented as part of the deliverable. Do those three things and a framework switch in year three is expensive but survivable. Skip them and the framework choice becomes a trap you pay to escape.
One last honest note. For the large majority of business apps — a catalogue, a booking flow, a dashboard, a customer portal — either framework will do the job well, and the project will succeed or fail on the quality of the requirements, the design and the testing, not on the SDK. If you have spent more than a week on this decision, the decision is not what is holding you up.
No. Any quote where the two differ by more than about 10% for the same scope is telling you about the vendor, not the framework. We price the same app identically in both, because the work that consumes the budget — screens, APIs, payments, device testing, store submission — is framework-independent. The real difference is hiring supply later, and that lands in maintenance, not in the build invoice.
Neither. Framework build-speed differences are measured in developer-days; the launch date of a new Android app is set by Google’s closed-testing gate, which is measured in weeks and does not care which SDK you used. The full requirement, its duration and the exemption are in our timeline guide.
Both commit you to a stack of foreign subscriptions, and a GST-registered Indian company pays IGST at 18% on each of them itself under reverse charge — section 5(3) of the IGST Act with Notification 10/2017-IT(R) — self-invoicing under section 31(3)(f) of the CGST Act. That tax has to be paid in cash and cannot be set off against an existing credit balance, because section 2(82) excludes it from “output tax” and section 49(4) restricts the credit ledger to output tax. So Apple’s US$99 is US$116.82 of cash out and Google’s US$25 is US$29.50. The framework decides the shape of the rest of that bill: React Native teams buy an over-the-air update service, Flutter teams buy hosted CI and, if they want code push, a third-party service. Current as at July 2026; general information, not tax advice.
Yes, for iOS release builds — and equally for React Native. Neither framework removes Apple’s macOS requirement. Budget for a Mac or a cloud build service, plus 99 US dollars a year for Apple and a one-time 25 US dollars for Google Play.
Not the screens. You can share business logic, validation, types and API clients, but every piece of UI is rebuilt because the web renders HTML and React Native renders native components. What you genuinely reuse is the team and the hiring pipeline — which is worth a lot, just not the 50% saving people expect.
Take the SDK audit — list every third-party service your app needs and check official support in both. If that is a tie, and you have no React team and no in-house hiring plan, pick Flutter and move on. The cost of a further week of deliberation is higher than the cost of the difference.
Tell us what the app has to do and which devices actually matter to your users. We will recommend React Native or Flutter for your specific case — and say plainly when the choice makes no real difference — with a fixed-price quote in 24–48 hours.
We will price your scope in React Native and in Flutter and tell you honestly which one we would build it in — including when that answer is “neither, you do not need an app yet.”