Food, computer device, clothes, grocery product; everything has its price tag, the same way mobile apps also have a price tag. Off course, a mobile app has the ability to engage more and more people towards business within less time period. So, whenever anyone thinking of taking his business to the next level, then only one thing comes into his mind that is a mobile app. So, when we come to build an app, then there must be any cost of this, therefore here, we will discuss the estimating cost to build a mobile app.
But, before, disclosing the Estimate Cost of Mobile App Development, we need to solve one query, which is “What does the mobile app development price depend on?” To know all these factors, just go through to this blog.
Now, let us have a deep dive into the factors that affect the costing of app development …
Business Model
App development journey starts with the revenue generation plan of the business. The ultimate goal of any organization is to increase the cash flow and app development is an integral part to achieve this objective. Actually, the iOS and Android Related Application Development Cost depends on which businesses model you are choosing to boost the ROI.
Free App
The app is available to users for free to download. Users can access the basic functionality of the application. In order to use premium features, users need to pay. It is the best model to expand your existing customer base.
Paid Apps
Users need to pay a certain amount to download and use your paid Android app.
In-app Purchase
It is the best business model to generate revenue for the long term. Businesses can sell their products and services from inside an application on a mobile device.
In-app Advertising
It runs the advertisements for your products or services in your Android app. You can monetize your app by allowing other businesses to post their ads in the paid space.
Read Also: Mobile App Development Cost Evolution
App Development Approach
Native
Native apps are those apps which are built for a particular platform. For example, the Google Play Store app on your Android device is explicitly developed for Android platforms, and it is native to Android. It influences an outstanding app in terms of user experience, personalization, performance, speed, security, and reliability. It allows building a next-generation Android app by leveraging the full access to hardware and software of the OS. Native app development is costlier and more time consuming than Hybrid apps due to its capabilities.
Hybrid
Hybrid apps are most of the apps that you use in your daily life. Hybrid is the best choice if you want to target multiple mobile OS such as android, iOS, Windows, etc. Yes, this approach allows writing the code once and using it anywhere. It is a very cost effective approach and also helps you to reach out larger target audience by covering a wide range of devices. But when it comes to performance and efficiency, Hybrid apps are a bit slower than Native apps. Also, you cannot take full advantages of the default OS features.
Now, which of these are you going to develop, will definitely impact on Cost of App Development. Before going to the next factor, have look at this below table…
Platform
When you are out to develop the app, you must be having some platform in your mind. Do you want to develop it for iOS or Android? Or do you have some other mobile operating system in your mind?
Every platform has its own development intricacies, which demands a different amount and type of work for different platforms. Well, iOS platforms, are cheaper than Android when it comes to development comparisons. The apps developed from iOS reach out to users who are financially sound. Thus, this platform can help you generate greater revenues compared to others.
You must be aware that Android has a higher market share. Therefore, your choice of platform will depend on the purpose of your app and it will be a significant deciding factor in the development cost of your app.
Features and Functionalities
The functionalities and features that you are going to shape your app will also design the cost structure of the app. As you can perhaps think, the more the number and complexity of features and functionalities, the more will be the cost. Knowing this, you must distinguish between the primary and the secondary features of your app.
For instance, a photo or video editing app, or an app for reading PDFs does not require Geo-location services, social media integration, or customization as essentials. But if you are out to develop a food ordering app, complexities such as payment gateways, databases, backend development will be an integral part of the process. These will, in such a case, comprise the primary features of your app.
If your app is going to be a gaming app, your primary features will be quite complex. The cost will rise higher with the graphics and the intricacies of the game.
These are the critical aspects in deciding the Development Cost of the App.
Designing
Once developed, the app will be used by the common people. Does not matter how good the backend of the app is, if the UX and the UI are not up to the mark, your app will not garner enough eyeballs.
Hence, you must ensure an impressive design. It can be anything that can make a user prefers your app a bit more; even it could be the icon. Perhaps the cute cartoon character that appears while another screen is loading. It could be the solid visual quality or the subtlest of animations. Well, you can never guess enough what might work in your favor or what might go against you. So, the development needs to be done keeping the user in mind. Ensure high quality in all your features, because it all boils down to user experience in the end.
As you can guess, the costs can differ here even if the UX and UI are the best and it is because a complex large-scale app will have different UX/UI to offer which you cannot compare with the ones provided by the smaller, simpler ones.
Backend and Testing
Honestly speaking, handling the backend is not an easy task. If data drive your app, then your data must be stored somewhere. Where will it be saved?
For this, you need to have something called databases. Where do you get these databases for storage? Here you will need database servers. Which ones? Well, that depends on the scale of your data. You could either use cloud database servers or have in-house database servers. Getting the latter ones is undoubtedly more expensive.
Again, you will need to integrate various third-party apps within your app. You can include specific functionalities in your app by using some particular APIs. These are nothing but an interface provided to you by the third party to use their functions. Now, different APIs will have different costs, based on usefulness and popularity of those APIs.
All this should be well blended with your app. It’s the backbone after all. The backend integration is entirely deterministic of the app development cost.
At every stage of development, the app must be tested for bugs and system errors. One testing is never enough. It has to be done continuously to keep the app running. It must also be tested based on user feedback regularly.
Compromising here will directly translate to compromising with the success of your app.
Also Read: Top 10 Hybrid App Development Company In UAE
App Security
Apps are so easily available to all of us. All we need to do is to go to the Play Store and click Download. When things come this easy, there always a second cost that we are paying most of the time. Here, it is the app security.
You must ensure that your app is immune to hackers. Data is very crucial, especially if you are going for an enterprise app. Company’s data, the user information, the transaction details, etc all must be locked up safely.
For this, you first need to identify the loopholes in your app, so that you can tackle them. You must use the appropriate tools to find these vulnerabilities within your app. Once found, now you would need to handle them. Again, you would require a different set of tools. Then you must have experts for this.
As you already know, none of this comes for free. Better security would demand better expenses.
Prototyping
Suppose you set out on the venture of developing your own app and in the middle of the process, you realize that your idea is not feasible. What then? All the money and efforts put till that point; all will be rendered wasted.
If you do not want this fate for your app, you might first want to develop a prototype for it. When you do this, you develop the app in its most basic version, with only the essential features and without much attention to the aesthetic parts. You just want to test the working and identify the problems of the app.
By using the app prototype, you can give your users the feel of the product before the release. This way you can have some consumers already at the time of actual release. Building a prototype can also fuel the efficiency of the development process. You can also draw useful insights into the process while prototyping. As with other processes, prototyping also needs some tools for itself, and they would inevitably incur some additional cost.
App Publishing
This is your last stop. Your app is finally ready to be installed and used by the users.
But where will they install it from? This is where publishing comes into the picture. You have to put your app out there on shelves so that people can have a look at it and make their own decisions.
Different app stores have separates charges. The iOS app store can charge as high as around $99 for one app. For the Google Play Store, you will have to pay as much as approx. $25 at a time. It is how these stores generate money. The more the sale of the app, the more will be the share taken by the stores.
So, do not stay in the illusion that it is only the development part that will empty your pockets. Publishing is not far behind.
Maintenance
Do you think your task is over once you have deployed your app on the store? Think again.
The competition in the market is fierce. The platforms are competing with each other. On the platforms, various apps are racing with each other. In such a scenario you should certainly not leave your app alone out there.
What should you do then? Should you schedule regular maintenance for your app? It needs to be up to date for the competition. Schedule the maintenance at least once a year. It needs to stay relevant and must embrace new technology to remain on the users’ phones. It should be regularly tested and modified according to the users’ feedback. Otherwise, the users will uninstall it, if it becomes an app that just consumes space in their phones.
Now that you have taken a look at the various factors that will affect the cost that goes into the development of the app, go and develop the next app that takes on the world.
Conclusion
Honestly speaking, it is very difficult to estimate an exact cost, whether you want to develop an iOS app or Android app, as the pricing can vary according to the tailored project requirements. It’s a very common scenario in the Mobile App Development Industry that the project starts with an estimated budget, but it ends with a different amount, it could be more or less.
We, hope now you can easily figure out the app development cost, but if anyhow you still have confusion, then you can contact Fluper freely. Our management team will definitely assist you best.
