The Cost of Developing a Mobile App

Whenever there is a plan to start an app development project, one of the first things to surface is the cost of developing one.

Often, a business owner would try to come up with answers to two of these questions:

1. How much will it cost to make an app by hiring a professional? and
2. How much will it cost to make an app by himself?

However, as much as we would like to give you the exact amount you might be spending on app development, we could only come up with a good estimate. This is because the process for app development involves a lot of factors that would influence the total cost.

Thankfully, there are various app development budget forming elements to help you figure out the cost of an app, and these come down to:

• Median app development can cost around $150/hour or a little more than $170,000, representing 1,140 development hours in total. However, this cost may increase to a little more than $172,000 if the app requires complex functionality, this is according to a survey from Clutch in 2015.

• For an enterprise mobile app development, it can cost an average of $140,000 which is according to VDC Research in 2017.

• The minimum average app development cost is around $5,000 to $10,000, more or less. However, you can expect the typical cost of creating an app to be way higher, this is from a survey conducted by Clutch in 2017.

• For app cost calculators, the average cost ranges between $260,000 to $360,000 for creating a more complex mobile app.

• For the timeline of developing an app, about 80% of mobile apps take more than three months to complete and around 40% of apps are built a little above six months, this is according to the Outsystems Survey from 2018 to 2019.

Factors that Determine the Final Cost to Build an App:

• The type of vendor and location
• The complexity and the required number of app features
• The connected APIs and the backend infrastructure
• The complexity of the required UI/UX design
• The approach to be used in developing the app
• The number of branded visual elements to be added
• The number of platforms needed for development

Understanding the Basics of Developing an App

The approach used in developing an app highly influences the total cost of building an app.

Native vs. Hybrid App

Native is an application that matches the guidelines of an operating system. Therefore, developers can only build a native app separately for each system. In addition, the cost of the development increases in proportion to the required number of platforms or systems you need.

A hybrid, on the other hand, is a cross-platform app that works in different operating systems, this means that you can save money by opting for this kind of approach because you’ll only need a single application for multiple platforms.

However, a huge number of businesses still choose a native app because of its technical superiority and full-on performance that come with it.

What are the Misconceptions About the Process of Mobile App Development?

There are common misconceptions such as:

1. Expecting that your app business would be the next Instagram

Often, business start-ups expect their next app to become the next Instagram in an instant. However, keep in mind that these app-based businesses and companies have innovated and evolved over a long period of time.

Another factor to keep in mind is that Instagram invested around $57.5 million for application development for it to reach where it is right now.

Therefore, if you’re expecting an Instagram-like success, you must also expect to pay a huge amount of money.

2. Success is within your reach even without a solid market research

Conducting market research is crucial and necessary to complete your pre-planning stage in creating the concept for your app. Studying the market and finding its pain points for your app to solve is essential.

You have to think about the reason why developing an app can be expensive because of the software. However, people tend to devalue it and this is because of three factors such as:

• Apps are intangible – software-related products are seen on users’ screens and to make this happen, all hard work is done behind the scenes. Because software is intangible, it is often not appreciated.

• Non-obvious benefits – users are different and there are some who prefer simple, intuitive, and seamless products, while there are some who prefer power and speed when it comes to using their apps.

• The difficulty of measuring intellectual capital value – the thoughtfulness and creativity used in developing an app is difficult to measure and clients don’t see both since deliverables are none tangible.

The Formula of Calculating the Cost for App Development

Total development time x Hourly rate = Cost

Reliable app development companies provide their inquirers and potential clients with app development cost estimates, and this is based on your project’s description, technical, and business requirements.

The estimated development costing use:

• Concepts present the totality of features required
• Stories that list down all the features needed to create the concept, and
• Story points that show the complexity and pace of the app development

What are the Processes of App Development?

• Discovery or research
• UX/UI designing
• App development
• Testing and deployment of the app
• Post support and maintenance

Conclusion

Now that you have an idea of the estimated cost it would require to develop an app, you must always take into account the location of the development team and the complexity requirements of your app.

In addition, you should also keep in mind that app development depends on numerous factors like the complexity, application size, newness of technology needed, and charges.

Since the market of developing applications is expected to dynamically increase and innovate, you can expect more demands in development. Analyzing the factors in estimating the cost of app development is also essential to help you gauge and weigh your options.