Developing a Mobile App: How Much Does it Cost
One of the most useful tools for interacting with the customers, for marketing campaigns, sales, analytics, and statistics is a mobile app. So how much does it cost to make an app in 2022?
Types of the Mobile Apps
For all types of mobile devices, mobile apps are classified according to the same scheme. All kinds can be divided into 4 categories according to the main purpose:
● Promo apps are created for businesses to promote their brand. Services for food delivery, buying tickets to concerts, and calling a taxi have become the most popular.
● Content services. These are the apps created to quickly access certain content such as news publications, motivational quotes, current exchange rates, weight loss or training systems, and teaching language courses.
● Entertaining. This group includes mobile games of all genres.
● Social networks. Such apps allow you to communicate on social networks through a smartphone or tablet. Every popular social network has a mobile app.
There are other types of programs. For example, business apps are created to manage companies. But other species are less in demand than the listed groups. According to statistics, 70% of the smartphone owners have installed at least one program from the listed categories.
How to Calculate the Cost of App Development?
If we reduce the price of developing an application to a general formula, we get n1*x1 + n2*x2 + ... = y. Here n is the number of working hours, x is the cost of specialist work, and y is the total amount. The number of terms depends on the required number of workers. This is affected by the level of application complexity and urgency.
The simple app development cost starts from 20 000 USD. The price of complex applications, stores/catalogs, including a personal account, search, discount mechanics, acquiring, social networks, and corporate applications (they involve integration with services, increased requirements for data protection, and security) – is from 200-300 000 USD.
We are talking about an app only for iOS or Android. The app for 2 OS will cost 30-40% more because every platform has different requirements.
Each studio has its own division into price categories by complexity. Some experts, for example, may define the complexity of mobile applications as follows:
● simple (made according to templates, without databases, 70-140 hours for Apple devices);
● supporting integration with databases (made using backend platforms such as Scorocode, 140-210 hours for iOS);
● for enterprises (integrate with business processes, use both databases and device memory, from 210 hours for iOS);
● gaming (single players and multiplayer, from 420 hours for iOS).
Process of the Mobile App Development
There are several main steps:
● The idea. Every successful mobile app starts with a thoughtful idea. The app should solve some user problems to be popular. Therefore, in the first stage, you need to carefully work out the idea so that further work does not become in vain.
● The strategy. It’s better to start with an analysis of competitors' strong and weak sides. You have to think about the strategy for advertising and monetizing the developed product. Once you have a clear plan of action, you can move on to the next step.
● Development of the design. At this stage, what the future application will look like is being worked out. The designer must think about all the details and where the button, block, and menu items will be located. He also needs to determine what should be shown on each screen of the app and how the screens are interconnected. The result of this stage will be a well-thought-out application architecture that will effectively respond to various user scenarios.
● Direct programming. This is the main stage, at the end of which the finished product comes out. Now you choose the right tool for development and follow your own plan that you prepared in the previous stages.
● App release. When the application being developed is completely ready after programming and testing, then it's time to present it to the public. At this stage, the application is published in the Play Market, App Store, etc.
● Application support. After running an app, it is important to monitor its performance and find errors. Before launching the application, various types of testing are carried out. But they do not reveal all the errors, so some of them appear during the operation of the app. Support is an ongoing process that includes periodic updates and functionality upgrades.
Why is App Development so Expensive?
As we said above, if you want to know how much does it cost to create an app, you should think about its complexity. Difficulty and, accordingly, the number of hours spent can be determined by the following criteria:
● The number of application screens: up to 10 screens – simple applications, up to 20-25 – medium complexity, and 25+ screens – complex apps.
● Data security level.
● Detailing the interface design, using individual solutions.
● Availability of integration with databases.
● User authorization methods.
● The ability to create custom content in the application.
● Integration with payment systems.
The development period also depends on which platforms you will run the project. Today, the share of iOS and Android devices is over 99%. At the same time, Android overtakes iOS by more than 2.5 times in terms of the number of users: 72.44% of people around the world use Android against 26.75% of iOS users.
Creating an iOS app takes about 10% less time than for Android. This is because Android devices are released much more often and they have various screen sizes – they all need to be taken into account when developing. And the cost to build an app and adapt it for each of them will also be offset. Obviously, creating an app only for Apple or Android means losing a big market share.
Every mobile app has its unique features that influence the average cost of its development. Consult with MAVINX experts to find out how expensive the prices of the apps are according to your budget and get answers to all your questions.
