How to Create a Social Media App: Steps & Cost (2026)

By Sigsten Gustavii· 27 October 2026· 11 min read

Every social app does the same three things. People post something, other people see it in a feed, and everyone has a way to deal with the ones who spoil it. Stories, live video and a clever ranking algorithm can come years later. What decides whether a small social app works is whether the right few hundred people find a reason to open it every day.

This guide walks through how to create a social media app for iPhone with Borel, an AI app builder that writes real Swift code. It covers what the app needs, the steps from an idea to the App Store, Apple's rules for apps where strangers see each other's posts, and what it all costs.

What a social media app needs

Before you write a prompt, it helps to know the parts. A social app is mostly a database with good manners: who wrote what, who follows whom, and who is allowed to see it.

Borel calls the database, sign-in and file storage Borel Cloud. There is no Firebase project to set up and no key to paste: the app gets its own Postgres database, and Borel writes the access rules so a private post stays private.

How to create a social media app in 6 steps

Step 1: Pick one community and one thing to post

The general-purpose social network is taken. The social apps that still get made are small and specific: a feed for a running club, a place for film photographers to share rolls, a board for parents at one school. Write down who it is for and the one thing they post. A good test is a sentence like "runners in Malmö post their morning route and a photo". If you can't fill in that sentence, the app will be hard to describe and harder to grow.

Step 2: Describe the app to Borel

Open Borel and say what you want in plain words. Name the community, the thing they post, and how the feed works. You don't need to list database tables; Borel plans those from your description.

Make a social app for film photographers. People sign up with email, set a profile photo and a short bio, and post one photo with a caption and the film stock they used. The home tab is a feed of posts from people I follow, with the newest at the top. Each post can be liked and commented on. There is a profile screen with a grid of that person's posts and a Follow button. Keep the look calm and dark, like a darkroom.

Borel's planner, Penny, reads the idea and asks a question when something is unclear. Then Rivet, the builder, writes the app in Swift with SwiftUI and Xcode compiles it on Borel's Mac. You don't need a Mac of your own; this works from a Windows PC too.

Step 3: Let Borel build the feed, profiles and follows

This is where a social app usually gets expensive, and where Borel does the most work for you. When the app keeps data, Borel declares its tables with an access rule for each one:

• Posts that followers read. A post can be readable by its author and their followers only, or by everyone signed in.
• Comments and likes that inherit. A like or a comment is readable exactly when the post it belongs to is.
• Counts the database keeps. The like count beside a post is kept by the database, so the screen only reads it.
• Photos in file storage. Uploads go to the app's own storage, and the feed shows them from there.
• Search. A search field over captions and names, when you ask for one.

Direct messages work the same way: a conversation lists its members, and only those members read its messages. Say "add private messages between two people" and Borel adds the conversation and its rules.

Within a minute or two, the app opens on a live iPhone in your browser. Make two test accounts, follow one from the other and post something. Watching your own post land in a second account's feed is the quickest way to see that the rules are right.

Step 4: Add safety before anyone else joins

Apple turns down social apps that skip moderation, so build it in from day one. Ask Borel for report and block if it isn't there already, and it adds them from its moderation kit:

1. A long press on any post, comment or profile offers Report and Block.
2. A report or a block hides that post or that person at once, on every device the reporter signs in on.
3. Reports reach you, the app's owner, so you can act on them.
4. Text is checked before it is posted, and something that may break the community rules is sent back with a plain sentence.
5. Settings gets a list of blocked people, so a block can be undone.

Add a line with your contact email to the settings screen as well, since Apple asks that people can reach you. And write short community rules in plain words; the report reasons are spam, abuse, sexual content, violence and other.

Step 5: Refine the design

A feed is looked at more than any other screen, so spend your changes there. Ask for what you see: "make the photos edge to edge", "show the film stock as a small tag under the photo", "add pull to refresh". Each change is built and opened again on the live iPhone, and every version is kept, so a change you don't like rolls back in a click. The native design page shows what SwiftUI gives a feed for free: Dynamic Type, dark mode and iOS 26's glass tab bar.

Step 6: Test on your iPhone and publish

The simulator is enough for the feed and the rules. Taking a photo with the real camera needs a real iPhone, and with Pro, Borel Companion installs the app on yours from a Windows PC or a Mac. Ask a few people from the community to try it through TestFlight before you submit.

When it is ready, Stamp, Borel's reviewer, checks the app for the rules Apple most often turns apps down for, and then Publish builds, signs and uploads it to App Store Connect under your own Apple Developer account. Include a demo account for Apple's reviewer, because a social app sits behind sign-in.

App Store rules for social media apps

Apple reviews every app before it goes on the App Store. These are the App Review guidelines that matter most for a social app:

Stamp checks these before you send the app, but only Apple decides. A clean check lowers the chance of a rejection; it is not a promise.

What it costs to make a social media app

The cost depends far more on the route than on the idea. Here is what each route costs to reach the App Store, from the sources listed in each row.

So a year with Borel Pro on the lowest tier and an Apple membership is $339: $240 for Borel and $99 for Apple, plus what the app's cloud uses. Paid yearly, Borel's lowest tier is $192, which makes it $291. See pricing for every tier.

What an AI builder won't do for you

Being honest about the limits saves you a month of surprises:

• Live video and voice rooms. These need streaming servers. Borel doesn't build them.
• Push notifications. Borel apps don't send push notifications yet. A post shows up when the feed is opened or refreshed. Reminders scheduled on the phone do work.
• A ranking algorithm. Newest at the top, or most liked this week, is easy. A feed tuned by machine learning is not something to ask for in one message.
• Android. Borel makes iPhone apps, and they run on iPad too. There is no Android version.
• The community. No builder brings people. Early members come from where your community already meets.

How to choose the right social media app builder

The right tool depends on where your members are and who will maintain the app.

• Borel, if your members are on iPhone and you want a native app: SwiftUI, a database with access rules and moderation built in, publishing from the browser, and code you can download.
• [CatDoes](/compare/catdoes), if you need Android and iPhone from one project; it builds React Native apps.
• [FlutterFlow](/compare/flutterflow), if you or a developer want to drag building blocks and edit Flutter code by hand.
• [Lovable](/compare/lovable), if a web app in the browser is enough and no one needs it on the home screen.
• An agency, if you have the budget and need custom servers for video or real-time chat from the start.

Social media app builders compared

Prices are each company's own lowest App Store plan, as their pricing pages showed them in October 2026.

The Bottom Line

A social media app is a feed, a follow graph and the safety tools Apple asks for. With Borel, those are a description away: the access rules, the photo uploads, report and block and account deletion are part of what it builds. Spend your own time on the part no builder can do, which is finding the hundred people who care most. Start for free on Borel, or read how Companion puts the app on your own iPhone.

I started Borel because I wanted to make iPhone apps without a Mac or a team behind me. If this helped you build something, I would love to see it.

– Sigsten

Make your iPhone app in Borel

Describe the app you want and see its first screens before you pay anything.