The success stories of the various apps had been highly inspiring for numerous young entrepreneurs and the app development industry is now very vibrant. After hearing about the great success of various apps the entrepreneurs are eagerly searching for new advanced methods for their business. The mobile apps are now their most preferred options. Those who want to develop a mobile application have to consider the various aspects of app development.
However, estimation of the cost for developing the app will be their first and foremost task. So, how the young entrepreneur will determine the cost for developing the app?
A clear idea of the app development cost is very essential for the businessman to finalize his budget for the project. The interesting fact in this context is that today app development is not as expensive as it had been in the past. According to the recent survey reports more than 65% of the small businessmen had been successful in developing their mobile apps before the end of 2017.
The businessman who wants to develop the new mobile app will require the service of an app developer and he will make a thorough search on Google to find out the suitable app developer. At the end of his search he will prepare two separate lists – a list of professional app development companies and another list of freelance app developers.
He will entrust the task of developing the mobile app either with a professional app development firm or with a freelance app developer after going through various aspects of both options.
While he is free to take his own decision the general opinion is favorable to hiring the services of the professional app development firm since the app development companies are providing a lot of additional benefits to their clients when compared to the freelance app developers.
As the first step, the app development team will go through the project details and will identify the actual project requirements. They will also conduct a detailed study of the app developed by competitors. They will also conduct a market research to collect all relevant data and based on that the development team will plan the proper strategy to execute the project.
Operating System and Platform
The two important decisions regarding the app development are to be taken by the client only – which is the operating system, Android or Apple iOS and on which platform the mobile app should be released, Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
As soon as the final decision is conveyed the app building process will commence. The second stage of planning will be assigning the app development project to the appropriate team. The team will be finalized after knowing the Platform as well as the Operating System.
Selecting the right operating system for the mobile app is indeed a challenging task. When compared to the Android apps, Apple iOS is less expensive and the iOS apps will make more income also. However, in the market Android is more popular and the market share of Android is double the market share of iOS. Number of devices will be more in the case of Android apps and comparatively more time is required to develop the Android app. Both these factors make the Android app costlier than iOS app.
While selecting the Platform for the mobile app one has to compare among Hybrid and Native. Both Hybrid and Native Platforms are suitable for building Android as well as iOS. However, the Hybrid apps are less expensive when compared to the Native apps. Moreover, with Hybrid platform we can create cross-platform apps.
Size of the team and Cost of the App
The cost of the new mobile app to be developed also depends on the size of the app development team as well as the country in which the app will be developed. When compared to the development charges levied by the app development companies in USA and Europe, the charges levied by the app development companies in India are considerably less.
Normally, the cost of development of the app is on per hour basis. The size of the app development team also will impact the cost of the app. Each member of the team is to be paid for the work done by him. Usually, an app development team will have a project developer, app developers and designers for UI and UX, developer for backend and frontend and a quality assurance manager.
The technical specifications of an app will also directly influence the cost of the app. When the app has more features and functions, naturally it will be more expensive. However, it is all the more important to integrate all the general as well as vital features. The other features and functions will be provided as additional features. The general and the additional features are to be included in the technical specifications of the app.
For a mobile app, some of the features are vital and the remaining are not so necessary. The client and the app development team should identify the necessary features and the not so necessary features. The features such as third-party integrations, libraries and frameworks are necessary to make the app more functional and also to ensure faster navigation. Hence these features are to be considered as necessary features.
Some of the features like social media sharing, payment gateway and geo-location services are not so necessary and hence they can be added later when required. However for the cab booking apps and the restaurant apps, the above features are vital. Hence, proper identification of the vital features for a particular app is very important. In case the new app is not expected to contain large amount of data the backend feature can be avoided. Backend feature is required when there will be exchange of data among the mobile app and the database.
UI and UX designing is unavoidable since these two features are vital for all mobile apps irrespective of whether they are simple apps or apps with a lot of features. The UI and UX designing is crucial to ensure the functionality of the app and the fact is that the app with an attractive UI and UX design can drive in more traffic. These two features are vital for the success of the app. The type of the design for UX and UI and getting the same customized will have direct impact on the cost of app development.
We have seen how the inclusion of various features will affect the cost of development of the mobile app. The above factors will have considerable impact on the cost of app development. Now, let us consider a few other aspects also which are also to be taken into account while determining the cost of app development. These aspects include prototyping and design, app testing for quality assurance and app publishing. Let us discuss these three aspects separately
Preparing a basic model of the app is known as prototyping. The client can test the prototype or the basic model app and see whether his plan to develop this kind of a mobile app is really feasible. In some cases, it may not be practical for the client to develop an app of that type.
In such cases, the client can give up the plan to develop the app instead of wasting time and resources. However, one has to spend certain amount of money for prototyping since the process consists of preparation of the sketch, developing the wire-frames, creation of the app skins and making a clickable model of the app.
Testing or quality assurance check of the app is mandatory and without conducting the quality assurance check one cannot get the app released or published on the App Store. In the app development process, app testing is the penultimate step and this is as important as the initial stage of development of the app.
During the Quality Assurance Check, the key inputs of the app testing include testing of the various features and functions of the app, the interfaces, compatibility, security and other aspects. The Quality Assurance Manager will provide a report after completing the app testing.
App Publishing
Publishing the app is the last part of the app development project. The cost of publishing an iOS app in the Apple Store is considerably higher when compared to the cost of publishing an Android App in the Google Play Store. Apple charges around $99 per year for publishing the app and Google charges the one-time fee of around $25 for publishing the app.
Conclusion
It may not be possible to provide the exact and the complete details pertaining to the cost of developing a mobile app without the complete details of the app. The client is required to provide all the details as well as information pertaining to the app to the Mobile app development team prior to working out the cost of developing the app.
This is very important because a number of factors will influence the cost of app development and when it is about the various features of the app, the features that are not necessary for the particular app can be omitted after consulting the app development team so as to reduce the cost of app development.
The businessman who wants to develop the mobile app may ensure that each and every aspect of the project is discussed in detail with his app development team so as to execute the project in the proper way within the budget.
