Want to build the next big fantasy sports app, but don’t know how much it will cost you? Then you’ve opened the right link.
Your app idea will definitely have better gameplay, smarter picks, and bigger engagement, but the question, what is the cost to build fantasy sports app like FanDuel or DraftKings? Hits every founder.
It’s not just about UI and APIs. It’s legal frameworks, AI-powered real-time data engines, payout systems, and the kind of app development tech that scales on game day without crashing. Before investing, understanding all the factors that affect the cost to develop fantasy sports mobile app can help optimize expenses and improve profits.
For the last 13 years, we helped many startups and enterprises launch their high-performing sports and gaming apps. Based on our proven expertise in building real-time, revenue-ready, AI-driven fantasy platforms, we’ve seen what drives up costs and what keeps them lean.
Let’s break down the actual cost of developing a fantasy sports app like FanDuel so you can plan smart from day one.
What is a Fantasy Sports App?
A fantasy sports app is a type of online gaming application that lets users create virtual teams made up of real athletes. App users can earn points based on how those selected athletes perform in actual games. The better their players or team performs, the higher they rank on leaderboards, and in many cases, the more money they can win.
These fantasy sports app developments consist of mixing sports knowledge with strategy, competition, and real-time gameplay. Mostly popular games like cricket, football, etc., offer leagues, contests, live score updates, and even cash rewards in fantasy mobile apps. This way, fantasy sports apps become widely popular among fans and a great opportunity for businesses.
What is a FanDuel App?
FanDuel is one of the leading online sports betting applications. This fantasy sports betting app is live in more than 20 states across the United States. It had the first-mover advantage because FanDuel began as a daily fantasy sports company.
Later, FanDuel introduced sports betting features when several states across the US legalized it. The app provides a welcome bonus for gamers with the “bet & get” promo code. It allows gamers to receive bonuses of between $5 and $200.
With the legalization of sports betting across several countries, including the UK, Australia, and many European nations, fantasy sports apps have gained traction. What has made fantasy sports betting apps so famous is the ease of,
What Are the Fantasy Sports Betting App Market Statistics?
Such ease of sports betting and increased interest in online betting have led to the market growing at a CAGR of 14.1%. The fantasy sports betting app market is set to reach $92.52 in revenue by 2032. Here are some more numbers on the rising popularity of fantasy sports betting apps.
These numbers may tempt you to develop an app for your business based on the market size. And yes, you should, as it can be a profitable business venture. However, you must also consider the cost to build fantasy sports app like FanDuel.
How Much Does It Cost To Build A Fantasy Sports App Like FanDuel?
The development cost of a sports betting app ranges between $14,000 to $150,000+. But for any other fantasy sports app with different complexity, it can differ. For instance, for a basic app, it’s $14,999 to $18,999; for a medium complexity app, $18,999 to $22,999; and for an advanced sports betting app, it costs $22,999 to $45,999+.
The variation in the cost is due to different factors that affect the price of developing a fantasy sports app. These factors include the cost of designing the app, the tech stack needed, and even testing expenses.
| App Type | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|
| Sports betting app like FanDuel | $49,999 – $89,999+ |
| Basic sports betting app development | $14,999 – $18,999 |
| Medium complexity sports betting app development | $18,999 – $22,999 |
| Advanced sports betting app development | $22,999 – $45,999+ |
Understanding these factors helps startups and online betting businesses plan their development costs better. Budgeting is crucial, especially when mobile app development costs can significantly contribute to the total expense of developing a fantasy sports app.
What Are the Factors that Affect the Cost to Develop a Fantasy Sports App Like FanDuel?
There are many factors that influence the fantasy sports app development cost, including features, complexity, tech stack, AI integrations, platform choice, third-party APIs, development team location, etc. Let’s break down all the key factors that matter to the cost to build app like FanDuel.
1. Design Costs
The cost to develop a fantasy sports mobile app can vary based on the design needs. For example, if you are creating an application like Fanduel’s fantasy app, consideration of animation complexity, responsive design, and functionality is crucial.
A fantasy sports app like FanDuel needs AI-powered and user-friendly design with responsive elements. This includes user research, details on platforms where the app will be deployed, and complex UX requirements. For example, consider designing a dashboard UI for your fantasy sports app. You must consider the visual representation of sports data with which users will interact in real time.
The best practice is to create a design wireframe based on a planned user journey map. This ensures that your fantasy sports betting app covers all the touchpoints along the map where users interact. The design costs for a fantasy sports betting app can range from $5,000 to $25,000.
2. Tech Stack
Every fantasy sports app like FanDuel needs an advanced technology stack. What’s a technology stack? It’s a suite of tools and frameworks at the core of FanDuel sports betting app development. Tech stack cost to build fantasy sports app can be significant, considering the scale, scope, and features needed for a fantasy sports app.
For example, fantasy sports apps like FanDuel allow users to place game bets. This means the app needs to show live data of the matches. IoT-powered real-time data analysis, processing, and integration into a fantasy sports app need a reliable backend. Plus, you also need a front-end tech stack to support sports betting app UI design and deliver a responsive experience.
As your fantasy sports app grows, your user base will increase, and a scalable backend will be able to cope with the rise in demand. This is why the tech stack becomes crucial; its cost is a significant part of your development budget. The cost of the tech stack for developing a FanDuel fantasy app can be within the range of $15,000 to $55,000.
3. Platform-based
The platform you choose to deploy can impact the fantasy app development cost. For example, if you are to create an app like FanDuel, deploying the app on both Android and iOS is obvious. Considering two separate applications for each platform, the development cost is significant. Plus, you also need to build both apps with scalable backends.
| Platform Type | Cost of Development |
| iOS Development | $45,000 to $100,000 |
| Android Development | $20,000 to $60,000 |
| Cross-platform App Development | $10,000 to $55,000 |
The Android platform has a massive user base using several different devices. Your app needs to work uniformly across Android devices. However, you can opt for a cross-platform app that works well on both platforms.
4. Testing and maintenance
Testing is one of the most essential parts of your sports betting app development process. The reason is simple: Testing is necessary for your users to be exposed to a half-baked product. A need for a better user experience can impact your business growth.
With proper AI-based automated testing, you can find out possible bugs with features and functionality, also determining issues with the user flow. Plus, testing the application allows you to ensure a secure experience for your users. A fantasy sports app must comply with specific regulations, and testing helps ensure compliance.
Security testing is not everything if you don’t have a maintenance team tracking and tuning the fantasy sports betting app. Applying an observability approach and security testing can help you have a robust response in case of any incident.
Observability offers an overview of a system’s internal state and external outputs. It provides actionable insights into complex and multilayered systems to understand the root cause of significant issues.
Why is observability so critical?
A significant chunk of the maintenance costs goes into resolving issues and incidents with the application. So, if your fantasy sports app suffers from any considerable crash, the observability framework will help determine the problem quickly. This, in turn, reduces the cost of maintenance.
5. Compliance and licensing
Compliance with different state regulations is essential if you create a fantasy sports website and app for the United States audience, like FanDuel. For example, Arizona has specific rules and licensing laws for fantasy sports betting apps.
Some of the critical provisions for compliance are,
Further, you need to consider licensing costs. For example, the initial license fees are around $2000 if you are a fantasy contest operator. At the same time, the renewal fee will be $1000. Similarly, the cost of licensing a fantasy sports betting app for a holding company is $500.
Apart from the overall cost to build fantasy sports app we discussed, there are also expenses associated with integrating third-party services and APIs. This is why planning the entire sports app development and leveraging an agile approach matter.
Using an agile method, you can achieve continuous improvement for a FanDuel fantasy sports betting app-like product. It has an iterative process where you can leverage incremental updates to ensure a robust fantasy sports app. Another major contributor to the cost of developing fantasy sports mobile apps is the feature complexity.
More complex features contribute to higher costs. Complexity depends on the feature type and how it will work. So, here are key features you need to create if you want to develop a product like the FanDuel sports betting app.
What Are the Must-Have Features for a Fantasy Sports App Like FanDuel?
The fantasy sports betting app features are one of the major cost factors that can increase or decrease your app development budget to match your vision. Our experts at Excellent Webworld have helped numerous clients choose the best features for developing fantasy sports apps. These features can be categorized as follows:
Admin Panel Features
In the admin panel, you add features to better control user activities and app functionalities.
User Panel Features
FanDuel fantasy apps offer engaging features for users. You can replicate the same through features like,
Developing these features for a fantasy sports betting app requires an advanced tech stack, which includes frameworks, tools, and third-party services.
Which Technologies Are Best for Fantasy Sports App Development Like FanDuel?
The ideal tech stack used in fantasy sports app development, like FanDuel, covers backend, frontend, databases, and real-time data tools. Let’s see what you need in technology:
For Android
1. Frontend
2. Backend
3. Database: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Firebase Realtime Database
4. API Integration: RESTful APIs, GraphQL for data fetching, WebSockets for real-time updates
5. AI Tools: TensorFlow Lite, Firebase ML Kit, ML Kit by Google, Dialogflow, OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure AI, Amazon SageMaker
For iOS
1. Frontend
2. Backend
3. Database: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Firebase
4. API Integration: RESTful APIs, GraphQL, WebSockets
5. AI Tools: Core ML, Create ML, TensorFlow Lite, Firebase ML Kit, Dialogflow, OpenAI API, Microsoft Azure AI
SEE ALSO – API Development And Intergration
How Do Sports Betting Apps Like FanDuel Make Money?
Fantasy sports apps like FanDuel leverage multiple revenue models to earn money. FanDuel fantasy app alone made more than $3.23 million in 2022. So you can understand the money-making opportunity it presents for startups looking to build fantasy sports betting apps.
Here are some of the monetization models that you can use for your fantasy sports app,
1. Fees for participation
Fantasy sports betting apps generate revenue through vigs(betting commission)and transaction fees. Sportsbook apps primarily use Vigorish or Vigs to charge a commission for each bet. Many platforms also charge transaction fees or charges for deposits or withdrawals from the app.
2. Advertisement
One significant method by which fantasy sports apps earn money is advertisement. The first approach is to partner with sports teams, major leagues like the NBA, or brands that want to promote their business on a massive scale. Another approach is to add ads to the application for other products and services, generating revenue.
3. User engagement models
A typical user engagement model that fantasy sports betting apps use to earn money is loyalty programs. These programs do not impact revenue directly but improve user retention and conversions. Due to loyalty points and rewards in the betting app, many users repeatedly engage, generating more revenue.
You can build a custom rewards system app for your fantasy sports business, retaining users and improving engagement to increase revenue. Another approach is integrating additional features, premium content, and exclusive betting options to allow users to make in-app purchases.
What Makes Excellent Webworld a Top Choice for Fantasy Sports App Development?
Fantasy sports apps like FanDuel are growing rapidly, with advanced data visualization and scalable systems offering real-time engagement. Capitalizing on this market surge and fantasy sports app popularity requires consideration of the tech stack and costs. Entrepreneurs looking to build apps like FanDuel must consider the costs of design, tech stack, testing, security, and compliance.
It can be challenging to manage all the costing factors and ensure optimal cost to build fantasy sports app. This is where a top-rated #1 AI-driven sports app development company like Excellent Webworld can help. Their fantasy sports app developers have expertise in various tech stacks, including AI-based development. It provides you with,
So, if you want to leverage massive market opportunity and build a fantasy sports app, contact us now.
Article By
Paresh Sagar is the CEO of Excellent Webworld. He firmly believes in using technology to solve challenges. His dedication and attention to detail make him an expert in helping startups in different industries digitalize their businesses globally.
