Digital space is getting crowded, and wellness space is no exception. Even though quality apps are not as frequent, for a user, it is hard to tell one from the other without an extra effort on the app side. In fact, David Cox’s 2025 article for the Guardian mentions: “… the industry facing a degree of scepticism. One study of mobile health users around the globe found that 53% of all such apps are uninstalled within 30 days of being downloaded.” Branding is exactly the tool to stand out and give your app the chance to resonate with the user. After all, wellness apps usually undergo a rigorous conceptualization process. They might include working with patients, clinicians, or healthcare providers to develop functionality and test it. And to make the user engage and understand how an app will help requires a brand. With this in mind, custom healthcare app development services grow in demand. Building a holistic app that promotes engagement and personalization requires a custom approach.
It must be noted that wellness brands often stand at the intersection of lifestyle and healthcare. They help manage a user’s wellness journey holistically. For instance, it can target all: counting steps, tracking water intake, and managing a chronic condition, and then give personalized recommendations. In other wellness apps, it might be about mindfulness sessions and tracking their ADHD medication. The spectrum of solutions is vast, and they often take a holistic approach to users’ wellness needs.
The Growing Demand for Custom Healthcare Apps
A wellness brand can be defined as a company that approaches a user’s wellness goals holistically, by combining traditional approaches and integrating lifestyle changes along with educational content. It often targets physical, emotional, and mental health in combination.
In terms of statistics, health and wellness apps were downloaded 3.6 billion times globally in 2024, according to Statista. The point is that in 2020, the wellness category made the news with surpassing 200 million global downloads (figure below).
This constitutes an explosive growth going from only 200 million to 3.6 billion in a 4-year period. However, not every wellness app category experienced such growth. For instance, here is the data for fitness and workout apps below.
Figure – Fitness and workout app downloads globally from 2019 to 2025
Their growth is consistent but not as significant. This is because not every fitness app moves towards a holistic approach. There are fitness apps that are not considered wellness apps because they provide only workouts or simply a counter for calories consumed and burned. But the Noom app, for instance, utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help users not simply lose weight but also incorporate health habits, practice mindfulness, and reach their weight targets. As such, it is considered a wellness app.
In line with that, developing a simple workout app can be done using an off-the-shelf solution. There is little complexity and minimal customization. Branding with such solutions is limited to choosing a different color palette and using a different logo, as shown in the screenshot below.
This is why off-the-shelf solutions are no longer an option for wellness apps. Wellness apps require a healthcare app development company to implement the complexity and differentiate from others in more ways than a color palette and a logo.
Why Wellness Brands Are Embracing Digital Health Solutions
These are two major reasons why custom healthcare app development services are growing so rapidly:
- Need to cater to explosive demand for holistic wellness apps;
- Need for distinct and unique branding.
Other reasons might include:
- the need for compliance, especially if the app relates to healthcare to a high degree;
- the need to source funding and make an impression on potential investors;
- the need to build a solution with numerous stakeholders (healthcare providers, wellness coaches, users, administrators, etc);
- The need for AI/ML-enabled customization and personalization.
It must be noted that any time a wellness app includes healthcare app development, the app must comply with regulations. These can be HIPAA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, CCPA, PIPEDA, POPI, and LGPD, depending on the country or region the app will operate in.
Key Features of Custom Healthcare Apps for Wellness Brands
Standing out in a growing industry is a constant and iterative process. A healthcare mobile app development company often works consistently on improving user experience, fine-tuning existing functionality, and developing new features. Key features are shown in the table below.
Key Features of Custom Healthcare Apps for Wellness Brands
| Feature | Description |
| Customizable dashboards | They allow an app to offer an overview of the user’s progress against the user’s goals or reference indicators and offer quick actions to improve. This is often a central engagement points and should offer selected information and actions. |
| Consultation recommendations & scheduling | Sometimes progress requires the help of specialists. An app can offer a tailored selection of specialists: coaches, therapists, or healthcare providers. |
| Integration with wearables | Wellness includes a range of health-related decisions that should be based on interpreted data from devices. Having measurable data instills more confidence in improvements and progress. |
| Curated content | Brand identity and values are often relayed through content, such as wellness tips and learning resources. This allows wellness brands to provide valuable wellness insight aligned with the brand voice |
| Encrypted chat and video | When a wellness brand provides consultation with specialists, the app has to follow data security protocols and regulations like HIPAA, which is applicable to any patient information and sensitive data within healthcare application development |
| Unique branding | A solid wellness brand showcases its identity through a variety of elements: animation effects, transitions, custom fonts, and overall consistency of design aesthetics. |