Did you know that 26% of the entire US population aged 18 to 29 regularly uses meal planning apps? The positive impact such software solutions have on society is hard to overestimate. These fitness apps are transforming wellness.
As for today’s market of diet and nutrition digital solutions, it has tripled in value since 2017. By 2028, the nutrition apps market is set to reach $8.29 billion, with a CAGR of 11.31%. The revenue of nutrition apps worldwide has been increasing year by year, and it is forecasted that by 2027, it will reach $7.60 billion with an annual growth rate of 11.28%.
The demand for diet and nutrition apps is driven by the growing customer demand for personalized nutrition advice and the ease of tracking and managing one’s nutrition. The growth of nutrition-related conditions, including diabetes and heart diseases, is contributing to the expansion of the diet and nutrition app market. Increases in disposable incomes, high health awareness, and better internet access are making diet and nutrition apps more accessible than ever.
REVENUE CHANGE
To decide whether diet and nutrition software is a trustworthy investment, you should have a vast knowledge of the industry. In this post, you will learn the cost to create a diet app, steps to develop one, and the necessary features to include in it. Successful diet planner app development requires a clear strategy.
Contact Weelorum and build your own diet and nutrition mobile product with our team!
Table of content
What are Diet and Nutrition Applications?5 Steps to Develop the Best Diet and Nutrition AppNecessary and Useful Features for a Diet and Nutrition AppHow Much Does It Cost To Create a Diet and Nutrition App?Quality Examples of Nutrition and Diet ApplicationsConsider Weelorum Your Trusted Partner in Developing Your Mobile AppFinal ThoughtsFAQWhat are Diet and Nutrition Applications?
Nutrition and diet apps are types of fitness software intended to help people stay in shape overall. In contrast to fitness apps, the best food nutrition apps are specifically focused on providing a healthy diet.
Diet apps help you with diet and nutrition tracking, which often includes a built-in calorie calculator, and calculate the nutrients consumed. They can also gather your personal information, including health data and dietary preferences, and suggest personalized meal plans. Automated meal planning can generate weekly shopping lists based on verified metabolic equations. Crucially, they draw on extensive food databases to accurately track a user’s food intake and its nutritional value. Users increasingly prefer verified databases over crowd-sourced ones to avoid high error rates in food data. Real-time food recognition from photos or voice commands is an AI-powered feature in nutrition apps. Some diet apps may even teach you how to promote maintaining healthy eating habits and prevent accidental consumption of allergens.
If you are into a healthy lifestyle, you may have heard of the 80%-nutrition-to-20%-fitness rule. In other words, proper dieting contributes to the quality of your life and your well-being even more than sport does. Every mature person who cares for their health is advised to increase their health awareness by using a diet app.
Request a free quote from Weelorum, and we will help you make a popular diet and nutrition digital app!
5 Steps to Develop the Best Diet and Nutrition App
If you wonder how to develop a diet tracking software that will attract customers, consider these five developmental steps.
Every tracking app development process starts with an idea. You should have a well-thought-out plan where you specify the peculiarities of your future product that will help it stand out from the competition in the nutrition app market. Market research is the foundation for successful nutrition tracking app development.
Also, you should define your app’s target users and decide how you will address their needs.
2.Prototyping and DesignIt is always worth taking an initial look at how a future app will function after the release. For this purpose, developers create a software prototype, which is essentially a model of a future app. It will help decide what functions are lacking and what should be ruled out.
What’s even more important, you should decide on your future health app’s design at this stage. Consider creating a user-friendly interface that will facilitate the familiarization of customers with your app and will be convenient in everyday use. The design of your software will also define how your target audience perceives your brand, so decide wisely.
3.CodingThe main phase of the complete nutrition app development process is building a complete, digital system using a programming language. Diet app development relies heavily on clean and efficient code. The result should look much like the initial prototype, but should already be fully-fledged and well-functioning.
4.TestingHere is an obvious yet often forgotten piece of advice on how to create a diet app that will succeed. Bugs, lags, and errors severely deteriorate the experience of using a diet and nutrition app. They also negatively affect your brand image. That’s why careful and complete app testing, including usability testing, is critical to your project’s success.
If your app is complex, you may require more than one stage of in-house testing. You may also consider allowing a narrower range of external QA testers to use alpha and beta editions of your software. This way, you will gather extensive feedback and improve your diet and nutrition app accordingly.
5.Release and MaintenanceAfter QA testing is completed, the app is ready for the first commercial release. Now you can apply to digital marketplaces like App Store or Play Store so that they can start offering to purchase and download your software. Post-launch maintenance is a continuous part of the successful development process.
But the development process is not limited to the first release. Respectful development teams constantly monitor their software solutions and adjust their functionality according to user feedback.
Necessary and Useful Features for a Diet and Nutrition App
If you have researched the nutrition app market but are still unsure what functions to include in your app, consider the following must-have features.
Profile Personalization
Other apps’ means of personalization are limited to colors and other design attributes of the interface. But these applications may significantly enhance their nutrition suggestions and offer personalized meal plans if they knew their users’ sensitive personal information, including dietary preferences, and use secure data storage associated with health and wellbeing.
Meal Plans Charts
Still unsure how to build a diet assistant app that will go viral? Consider incorporating in-depth healthy diet charts in your app. They are a simple and convenient way to visualize meal plans that most users love to follow. Meal plans are essential features in all leading apps.
Physical Activity Observations
These applications are vital for a healthy lifestyle and may serve as digital bodybuilding tools for a successful diet. They should have capacities to choose workout plans and recommendations regarding fitness activities. It is also a great idea to integrate a timer and a progress tracking feature toward fitness goals achievement, often facilitated by integration with wearable devices.
Push Notifications
When regular phone notifications are rather annoying, apps designed for diet and nutrition greatly benefit from them. Frequently, users forget about exercising or personalized meal planning. Your app should help them stick to their healthy eating habits. Push notifications are crucial for increasing user engagement with the app.
Customer Support
Any diet and nutrition app cannot go without letting users contact a support team at any time. Regardless of the urgency, whether it is a difficulty paying for the premium or a technical issue, your customer should feel support and care from your company.
How Much Does It Cost To Create a Diet and Nutrition App?
Statistics say the median cost range is $50,000-$150,000. Our experience shows that a simple one-platform app based on open-source analog with basic features only starts at $38,000, while costs to develop complex, proprietary diet and nutrition software solutions start from $100,000. The total cost of a project is a key consideration in any nutrition app development project.
Price formation for diet and nutrition app developmentservices in 2026 depends on the following main factors:
- Location of developers. The contractors’ wages make up most of the healthcare software development costs. In their turn, hourly pay rates significantly fluctuate based on the developers’ locations. The highest wages are in the US, the lowest — in India.
- Developers’ expertise. It means how trustworthy a mobile app development company is overall and how extensive its experience is in a particular domain. The location where contractors are based also impacts the potential level of their expertise. Ukrainian developers are among the best ones worldwide.
- App complexity. The overall app complexity includes the innovativeness of the design, the level of security, the need for a scalable and flexible architecture, and the app’s functionality. Apps must integrate essential third-party APIs, such as verified food databases and wearable technology. The latter will require the use of a robust tech stack and the inclusion of multiple licensed and expensive application programming interfaces (APIs), like health and fitness APIs, or integrations with third-party services for the most advanced features, leveraging native mobile OS features for a smoother user experience. Advanced features of a nutrition app may include AI-driven recommendations, personalized meal plans, and wearable device integration.
- Turnaround time. This depends on the developers’ expertise and the complexity of the app requested. Also, whether the project involves building cross-platform mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms will impact the turnaround time and nutrition app development cost. The price for development services for an app on the App Store will likely fall somewhere between $38,000 and $100,000.
If you wonder where you can find the best diet tracker app development services at an affordable cost, consider partnering with outsourcing agencies from Ukraine.
Quality Examples of Nutrition and Diet Applications
The best way to learn how to develop a diet and nutrition app that will outperform competitors is to learn from the experience and mistakes of others. Here are the three biggest players to get you started!
Lifesum: Healthy Eating
Lifesum was explicitly designed for people struggling to lose weight. It has an extensive recipe library, supports precise calorie counting, and includes a food logging feature. Premium functions include personalized diet plans, macro counting, and body composition tracking. Compatibility with wearable devices is another key differentiator. The latter is, probably, the kicker of the app that made Lifesum so popular.
Spokin
In case you have a food intolerance or allergies, Spokin may do the world of good as its development team knows how to build a diet app for individuals with special preferences. The software allows you to select specific ingredients you want to avoid. Then, the app will suggest recipes/products based on your food preferences. As a bonus, it gathers reviews from restaurants so that you can check for allergy-free options.
Noom
Noom is a virtual library that can educate about food choices. It also provides access to a virtual coaching team, so a customer can always have a professional consultation on any matter. Everyday tracking app features, including a handy barcode scanner and other nutrition app features, are also included. This ensures accurate food logging, often more efficient than manual entry, especially with a quick-access barcode scanner.
Consider Weelorum Your Trusted Partner in Developing Your Mobile App
Do you feel that you require a guide to build a diet and nutrition application? With Weelorum, you don’t need one, as we completely take care of the entire development process!
Weelorum is your reliable contractor that excels in diet and nutrition app development. We have been on the market for years, and our products are typically rated five stars.
We understand how difficult it may be to trust someone with your valuable project. But Weelorum knows how to develop a diet and nutrition app that will become popular with your target audience. And our portfolio, comprising many comprehensive, in-demand digital solutions, is the evidence.
Weelorum aims to build software that goes beyond our customers’ expectations. Contact us to get a quote on our nutrition application development services and build your own digital product with our development team.
Final Thoughts
Creating a popular diet and nutrition app is a creative process comprising five steps, from researching the market to releasing and maintaining healthy eating habits. You should always compare your product to the biggest competitors to ensure that your software will be viable among others. Including helpful diet tips and up-to-date health information can increase the app’s success.
Costs for development services fluctuate greatly, but there are good chances to find a reliable contractor that will offer an excellent price-quality ratio.
FAQ
How much does it cost to develop a diet and nutrition app?
The price for development services will likely fall somewhere between $38,000 and $100,000, depending on the factors listed above.
How do I make a diet and nutrition app?
Start by researching the market and the competitors. Once you have a grandiose idea for offering customers something that none of your rivals do, follow the five subsequent steps detailed in our guide and consider incorporating engaging diet tips.
What can I consider a devoted diet and nutrition app development guide?
The best guide is to learn from your own mistakes and the mistakes of your competitors. Find areas where they haven't succeeded and do better. However, if you still need some inspiration, we offer you a look at the short guide you can find above.
