Should You Build a Mobile App or a Web App for Your Business

This question comes up in almost every early-stage product discussion. You've got an idea, you know you need to build something, and you're trying to figure out whether that something should live in an app store or a browser.

There's no universal answer. But there is a framework for thinking about it that makes the decision clearer.

Start With Distribution

The first question isn't what you want to build. It's how people are going to find it.

Web apps have a massive distribution advantage. Anyone with a browser can access your product through a link. Google can index it. People can share it on social media and others will land directly in your experience. There's no installation step, no app store approval, no friction between discovery and use.

Mobile apps have to be found and downloaded from an app store. This adds an extra step before users can engage, and that step has real costs. The App Store is crowded. Discovery is hard. Paid acquisition is expensive. Unless you have an existing audience or a built-in viral loop, getting people to download your app is an uphill battle.

That said, once someone has your app installed, you have a presence on their home screen. You're one tap away instead of one Google search away. For products that people use repeatedly, that persistent presence matters.

User Behavior Is Different

Here's a number that surprises people: 90% of mobile internet time is spent in apps, not browsers. That's over 100 billion hours per year spent in mobile apps.

When people are on their phones, they gravitate toward apps. The experience is smoother. Performance is better. Native gestures feel right. Users explore 4.2 times more products per session in apps than on mobile websites, and conversion rates are three times higher.

Different industries see different impacts. Entertainment apps convert 233% higher than mobile websites. Travel apps convert 220% higher. Even retail apps see a 94% improvement. If your business involves repeat engagement, transactions, or any kind of habitual use, apps have a real behavioral advantage.

But if people are going to use your product once a month or less, making them download an app for that is asking a lot. A web app might serve them just as well without the install friction.

The Cost Reality

Let's talk money. A native mobile app typically costs five or six figures to build. Web apps are generally quicker, easier, and cheaper. The development talent pool is larger, the tooling is more mature, and you don't have to deal with the quirks of two separate mobile platforms.

If you're building natively for iOS and Android, you're essentially building two apps. Even with cross-platform frameworks like React Native (which I'd recommend), there's overhead. You need to handle app store reviews, device-specific bugs, and OS updates that can break things.

Web apps deploy instantly. You push a change and everyone sees it immediately. Mobile apps have review times, version fragmentation, and users who don't update. The operational overhead is higher.

But here's the flip side: mobile apps can have higher ROI for long-term engagement. If your business model depends on building a loyal customer base that returns frequently, the higher upfront cost can pay off.

Speed to Market

When you're early, speed matters more than almost anything else. You need to validate your idea before you run out of money or enthusiasm. The faster you can get something in front of users, the faster you learn.

Web apps win on speed. You can go from idea to deployed product faster because the toolchain is simpler and the deployment is instant. No app store review. No waiting for approval. No explaining to Apple why your submit button is the wrong shade of blue.

Most startups begin with web apps for exactly this reason, then expand to mobile apps once they've validated the product and raised funding. This isn't a compromise; it's smart sequencing.

That said, if your core value proposition is fundamentally mobile (think cameras, location, notifications, offline use), a web app might not capture what makes your product special. You'd be validating a watered-down version of your idea.

Progressive Web Apps: The Middle Ground

There's a hybrid approach worth considering. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are web apps that behave more like native apps. They can be installed on a home screen, work offline, send push notifications, and load quickly. They're trying to offer web reach with some of the engagement benefits of native apps.

PWAs are a reasonable choice if you want broader reach but need some native-like features. They're not quite as polished as true native apps, and some features (especially on iOS) remain limited. But for certain use cases, they're the right compromise.

A Framework for Deciding

Here's how I'd think about it:

Build a web app first if: you need to reach people through search or social sharing, your users are mostly on desktop, you're pre-product-market-fit and need to iterate fast, or you have limited budget and need to stretch your runway.

Build a mobile app if: your core experience depends on mobile-specific features (camera, GPS, background processing), your users will engage with you daily or weekly, you've already validated demand and want to deepen engagement, or your competitors are in the app stores and users expect to find you there.

Consider both if: you're building for repeat engagement but need web for discovery. Many successful products have a mobile app for core users and a web experience for acquisition and onboarding.

The Honest Answer

Most businesses that ask this question should start with web. Not because mobile is bad, but because web is faster to build, easier to iterate, and cheaper to maintain. It lets you validate before you commit.

Once you have users who love your product and return to it regularly, that's when mobile apps start making sense. You'll have the revenue or funding to afford the build, and you'll have users who will actually download it.

The mobile app industry generated $935 billion in 2024. There's clearly massive value in mobile. But getting there is a journey, and for most early-stage products, web is the better first step.

If you're exploring mobile but want to move fast, Nucleate lets you prototype React Native apps with Expo in your browser. You can test ideas quickly, get real device previews, and figure out if mobile makes sense for your use case before committing to a full build. It's a way to explore without the traditional overhead.