The Reasons Why The Costs Of App Development Are Insane

Knowing the exact amount of money it would require to build an app is a little more complicated than it seems, It’s like asking what the price of a house would be; well, it depends on what type of house you are aiming to buy. A Mansion in Palm Beach or a house in Fort Lauderdale, the final cost is in the details.

Let’s walk you through the multiple factors that must be considered when planning your budget — but first, make sure you know the following:

• Your idea would actually solve a problem for a specific audience.
• Even when there are some apps similar to your idea, you know how to make yours unique.
• And you are SURE your buyer’s personas can make your app profitable.

Perfect, now let’s go one step forward! It’s time to put your feet on the ground and think about the MONEY you’ll need to carry on your project:

So let’s see some numbers, the simplest app for just one platform and with very basic features will start its cost around US$25,000 and more complex apps going up over US$1,000,000.

But don’t be scared, even when there’s a lot of money you have to invest, mobile apps are not only for big name brands. Now that cities have evolved into city tech, apps are the best way to keep your customers engaged with your product or service and build customer loyalty. Also as the market increases in competition, you’ll see the costs come down.

Budgeting an app’s development is very complex, price difference can be huge because it depends on many different things. First of all, you’ve got to know that costs of apps are largely based on features, complexity, and platforms.

Also, you have to be clear on what you want your app to do. Is it going to be for Android, Apple or both? But remember that costs will also vary depending on who is going to develop the app, is it going to be made by a freelancer, offshore development team, or a inland agency?

As you can see It’s not an easy task to figure out how much it will cost you to turn your app idea into reality, but just because we’re so cool, here is a guide to help you out with this:

Who is going to develop it?

• Freelancers: A senior IOS / Android developer charges about 35 US$ per hour on average. Keep in mind that when you hire a freelancer as your app developer there may be a lack of communication, setbacks and a lack of reliability regarding delivery deadlines.
• Offshore app development team: These prices also vary, for example, a Mobile App Development Company with 60 employees located in South India hourly rate 18 US$, another with 200 employees in Bangalore cost 35 US$ per hour.
• American App Development Agency: The service’s cost is estimated by project, for example Applico’s prices range between 100,000 US$ and 300,000 US$, Savvy Apps’ between 150,000 to 450,000 US$ and Fueled’s between 150,000 and 500,000 US$.

Which type of app

After deciding which app developer best suits your planned budget and needs, it’s time to get together up with your app builder to talk about the type of app you’ll develop.

• Native Apps: As each mobile platform offers their own development tools and interface elements, Native ones are designed and coded for a specific kind of device. They offer the fastest, most consistent and most responsive experience to users. For a custom native app prices are between US$25,000 to US$50,000. Multiply that for every platform you need to cover, considering that nowadays you need to build it for both iOS and Android.
• Web Apps: This is just the ‘mobile version’ of a website, an app like this (if we can call it that way) loads within a mobile browser, like Safari or Chrome. This may be the cheapest, but Web apps are very limited in terms of features and they always require an Internet connection to work. Basic Web Apps cost between US$5.000 to US$15.000. Take into account that Google is giving ranking priority to websites designed for mobile so it’s super convenient to have a responsive website.
• Hybrid Apps: this kind is placed between native and web apps, this are generally faster to build than native apps but not as fast as web apps, keep in mind that Hybrid apps have several key limitations that leave native as the sole option in many cases. Hybrid Apps cost between US$6.000 to US$ 20.000

Features

Just like when you go to a restaurant and order a custom pineapple/olive/bacon pizza, every ingredient will be added to the price.

• Access to App Data Management: It will depend on whether the application needs to connect to servers to perform searches, update their information in real time and display the results. Figure it out how much this would be is imprecise but you can estimate it by time, remember time is money, so develop the simplest app data management would last one month and the most complex about a year.
• Geolocation: Another issue to consider is if users need information depending on their location. For example, you could display information of the nearest store or just determine where did you take a picture. To develop this feature your app developer will need a little less than 6 months.
• Users Registration: If the app requires a user login, it will be more expensive. This will depend on the database that is used in terms of size and type of data that would be stored. As well as the geolocalization developing this feature will last about 6 months.
• Push notifications: In order to send customized messages to users, you will have to consider the type of notifications, whether it is necessary to create a notification management interface or should it be integrated with an existing system. in simultaneous work with geolocation and user registration, for this feature you’ll need the same 6 months.
• Design: Of course, apps that include advanced and complex interactive options require more time to design than a simple one with basics menus and tabs. Doing the simplest design would last less than a month other more complex 3 months or so.

As you can see, there are a lot of factors that will determine how much will it cost to develop your app, but at least now you have a idea on how to structure your budget.