Top App Design Agencies Worldwide
Find the best App Design Agency in the world for startups, B2B, SMB, enterprise, SaaS, boutique. In San Francisco (SF), New York (NYC), London (UK), Portland, Los Angeles (LA)
Last Updated: February 21, 2024
App design agencies are essential in creating effective and engaging mobile applications.
They focus on the visual and functional aspects of apps, vital for user experience.
The right agency can significantly impact a business’s success in the digital marketplace.
Hire the Best App Design Agency for your project
1. Ramotion
App design company that create mobile apps and web products with great conversion, low cost of maintenance and consistent user experience.
- Website: ramotion.com
- Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
- Clients: Stripe, Firefox, Oppo, Descript, Clearbit, Volusion, Citrix, Salesforce, Truebill, Okta, NBCUniversal, Xero
- Hourly Rate: $100 — $149 / hr
- Team Size: 50+ employees
- Founded: 2009
- Services: Branding, Web Design, UX/UI Design
- Industries: Consumer products & services, Financial services, Information technology, eCommerce, Business services, Retail
- Best for: Tech SMB and Startups
- Clutch rating: 4.9 out of 5.0 (25+ reviews)
2. Rootstrap
Outcome-driven web app design agency
- Website: www.rootstrap.com
- Location: West Hollywood, CA, United States
- Clients: MasterClass, Google, Salesforce, Universal Music Group, FanBread, Cash Money Records, Spotify, Snoop Dogg, CES, Disney
- Hourly Rate: $50 — $99 / hr
- Team Size: 500+ employees
- Founded: 2011
- Services: Mobile App Development, Web Development, AI Development, Custom Software Development, UX/UI Design, Application Testing, Blockchain, DevOps Managed Services, IT Staff Augmentation
- Industries: Education, Medical, Media, Financial services, Non-profit, Retail, eCommerce
- Best for: tech companies seeking scalable solutions in digital product development, particularly those requiring innovative technologies like AI, blockchain, and AR/VR
- Clutch rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 (40+ reviews)
3. Robosoft Technologies Inc.
- Website: www.robosoftin.com
- Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
- Clients: Warner Bros. Discovery, McDonald’s India, Daimler Benz, ESPN, Paytm, British Standards Instituition, Invesco Mutual Fund, HP, Mercury Financial
- Hourly Rate: $100 — $149 / hr
- Team Size: 1000+ employees
- Founded: 1996
- Services: Mobile App Development, UX/UI Design, Custom Software Development, Product Design, Web Development
- Industries: Financial services, Media, Education, Hospitality & leisure, Real estate, Retail, eCommerce
- Best for: global enterprises and ambitious startups seeking comprehensive digital transformation services, especially in banking, media, retail, and real estate sectors.
- Clutch rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (20+ reviews)
4. Singlemind
- Website: www.singlemindconsulting.com
- Location: Portland, OR, United States
- Clients: Kaiser Permanente, The Juilliard Store, Clark Public Utilities, Portland State University, Cengage Learning, Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
- Hourly Rate: $150 — $199 / hr
- Team Size: 15+ employees
- Founded: 2005
- Services: Mobile App Development, UX/UI Design, Web Development, AI Development, Application Management & Support, Product Design
- Industries: Consumer products & services, Information technology, Manufacturing, Automotive, Education
- Best for: enterprises, startups, and non-profits seeking innovative software design and development to thrive in the digital presence.
- Clutch rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 (15+ reviews)
5. ENO8
- Website: www.eno8.com
- Location: Dallas, TX, United States
- Clients: Naturally Slim, Alcon, Collin College , Concentra, Orora Visual, Asset Panda, DaVinci Vaporizers , Voice Media Group / Dallas Observer
- Hourly Rate: $100 — $149 / hr
- Team Size: 5+ employees
- Founded: 2016
- Services: Custom Software Development, Mobile App Development, Product Design, UX/UI Design
- Industries: Information technology, Medical, Hospitality & leisure, Retail, Advertising & marketing, Education, Energy & natural resources, Financial services, Government, Real estate, Supply Chain, Logistics, and Transport, Utilities
- Best for: companies seeking to innovate and develop impactful digital products, with a strong focus on mobile and web application development, AI integration, and voice user interfaces.
- Clutch rating: 4.9 out of 5.0 (10+ reviews)
How Do We Review These App Design Agencies?
Our review of app design agencies is based on a comprehensive set of criteria that ensures a thorough and unbiased evaluation. We consider:
- Location: Geographical presence and accessibility.
- Clients: Clientele range and reputation.
- Hourly Rate: Cost-effectiveness and pricing models.
- Team Size: Scale and diversity of the team.
- Founded: Agency’s experience and market presence.
- Services: Range and specialization of services offered.
- Industries: Industries catered to and expertise.
- Best for: Ideal client or project type for the agency.
- Clutch Rating: Independent ratings and client feedback.
These parameters offer a holistic view of each agency, ensuring that our recommendations are well-rounded and reliable.
How to Choose a Proper App Design Agency?
Selecting the right app design agency involves several key steps:
- Define Your Needs: Clearly understand your project requirements, target audience, and desired outcomes.
- Match Services with Requirements: Ensure the agency’s services align with your project needs.
- Consider the Team Size and Expertise: A team that resonates with your project scale and complexity.
- Review Past Clients and Industries: Look for experience in your industry or with similar projects.
- Assess the Cost: Consider the agency’s pricing in relation to your budget.
- Location Relevance: Decide if geographical proximity is important for your project.
- Read Independent Ratings: Check Clutch ratings and other independent reviews for unbiased opinions.
- Compatibility Check: Ensure the agency’s philosophy and working style aligns with your own.
This process will help in making an informed decision, tailored to your specific needs.
While choosing the right app design company, make sure the follow a standard design process:
With all the various processes and methodologies evolving in the industry all the time, how do you choose the right one for your app design project? Luckily it doesn’t need to be that complicated. Pick one and run with it, or follow a simplified process with a few considerations for the specific platform of mobile apps. Most UI/UX processes include the same basic elements and can be scaled to fit the project size and complexity. The important thing is that you define your process and stick to it. Even a simple process can help keep your project on track and running smoothly. These steps usually look something like this:
- Describe the Problem to be Solved
- Brainstorm Solutions
- Iterate and Test Best Solution
- Develop and Deliver Solution
Describing the Problem
Sometimes a project is initiated without a clear reason. Simply because everyone has an app these days isn’t a great reason to tackle this type of project. Why does your client or business need an app specifically? Is it intended to be an alternative to a mobile web site? A quick and easy way to access your services? An open mind is essential here.
This step has a variety of names but essentially comes down to research. Start with your client or business stakeholders. Using interviews or surveys explore the goal of the app. Look for key functionality and features, but also why they think their users will want the app. You can also conduct competitive research to get a feel for what other businesses are doing with their apps. Download their apps and see first hand what they do and how they work. Check out their social media presence, the app reviews, and other online resources to get different perspectives.
Next, talk to existing customers and other potential users. The tools and techniques are similar. Surveys, interviews, and observations of real customers can help you determine whether the stakeholders are on the right track, what they are missing, and what is just not needed.
At the end of all this research, you should have a good idea of what the app needs to offer. Artifacts of this phase should include a simple problem statement, personas, and use cases.
Brainstorming Solutions
Now that you know why you are doing the project, you can start thinking about all the various ways you might be able to solve the problem you identified. Open minds are still important in this step. No idea should be left unspoken, and many should be explored.
The entire design team can collaborate here to throw out ideas. Start with sketches and concepts. The more the better. Your competitive research is helpful to generate more ideas and get a feel for what just plain doesn’t work.
This step is also iterative. Once you’ve generated a lot of ideas, select the best options and plan some user testing. Tailor the test for the design concepts and functionality. If the app has a lot of features and information, a card sort exercise may be helpful. Interviews and talk aloud testing with low fidelity sketches, storyboards, or wireframes will help you narrow down the concepts to the best ones to refine and flesh out.
Don’t be surprised if you develop a new perspective on your problem statement or a novel way to tackle it. In addition to the artifacts already mentioned, you may also have a good feel for the taxonomy to be used, the overall architecture of the app, and even some early content.
Iterating and Testing
In the last step, you developed lots of ideas, exploring the breadth of possibilities. During this step, you dig deep into the full functionality of one or two great ideas. Develop more detailed, higher fidelity prototypes and content that can be tested thoroughly with users. Refine, test, repeat until most of the user issues and points of confusion are ironed out.
Include a design review, or two, with your client or stakeholders during this step as well. Prepare a professional presentation with the overall concept, high-level feature list, and early sketches of a couple of options you are designing. Avoid details like colors and graphics in the early part of this step to keep the reviews focused on flow and behaviors, rather than easy distractions. At the end of the step, when you’ve worked through challenges and have a solid design you can add these elements in and review again with the team.
Developing and Delivering
After obtaining approval, it’s time to bring your design to life. Provide all artifacts and assets you created in the iterating step to the development and testing teams. This could include graphics, style guides, templates, content, and of course wireframes and prototypes.
The development team will turn all of this into real code and the testing team will create test cases based on the functional requirements you documented in earlier steps. Your job isn’t complete though, as you may be called upon to answer clarifying questions, work through issues, and do functional testing to identify bugs. You might need to design edge case solutions or other functionality that got missed as well.
Summary
Using a set process to design your app not only keeps you on track but helps you to communicate with your client or stakeholders. When designing an app, there are special considerations for size, interactions, common design patterns, and users. Overall, however, the underlying fundamentals of UX and UI design should be followed whatever process you choose.
Disclaimer
This review is presented as an expert opinion, based on objective and comprehensive evaluation criteria.
It is intended to guide businesses in making informed decisions but should not be the sole factor in choosing an app design agency.
Individual business needs and thorough personal research are crucial in selecting an agency that best fits specific project requirements.
