Startup cost for emoticon apps?

[socalfusions]

I've been reading articles on what it takes to create your own app and had an idea for a emoticon app, however I can't find a reliable estimate on what the industry standard start up cost would be for this type of app. I've seen wildly varying start up costs on app developer hiring sites ranging from $300-$3000 which I'm sure are based on the complexity of the desired product, but what do emoticon apps that simply provide a list of faces and implement a in app purchasing setup run for? I would assume that emoticon apps would run on the lower side of start up costs simply for the fact that they don't appear to require a lot of work.

Can anyone confirm if emoticon apps are still going to be marketed on the app store in the future? I ask this because of the announcement released around November, 2012 that emoticon apps were being taken off the app store because the unicon based emoji became available to all iphone users for free. This seemed to become very controversial since anyone that created a emoticon app was going to lose income, however it seemed it was only affecting those apps which were offering the unicon based emojis with their own product. A quick glance at the app store still shows some emoticon apps, I can't determine if any emoticon apps were actually taken off. Some users have said that unique emoticon apps will still possibly be profitable since they offer a different product.