How much does it cost to make an app?

1. The cost to make an app is most often based on the number of hours that a project may take, and the more difficult the functionality, the longer it will take to implement it. So here we divide apps into three categories – simple, middling complexity, and highly complex and try to give a good answer to the question “How much does it cost to develop an app?” We will calculate the cost of a based on a $50/hour rate.
2. Simple apps generally include some basic functionality and it doesn’t require integration with any third-party APIs and don’t need backend developers as well. For example, the features of such an app can include standard UI components, simple filters, a feed list, and map markers. Developing a normal app can take up to 600 hours and starts at $ 20,000. An example of such an app is BitHorse, a Twitter for horse racing which we built for a USA-based client.
3. Middling complexity apps may include custom UI features, payment features, real-time chats, tablet and integration with APIs, handset adaptation, and a simple backend server. It takes around 600-800 hours to build such an amazing app and the price starts at $ 35,000 – $50,000.
4. The cost to make an app like High Complex is very high but it includes very advanced functionality, real-time synchronization like audio/video processing custom animations, complex backend, integrations with third-party services, several types of database relationships, and more. The timeframe for building this much complex app is 800+ hours, and the price starts at $60,000 – $80,000. For example, a dating app, a fully-fledged social network application, or a video streaming app may all fall into this category.
5. The cost to make an app doesn’t only depend on development time and its hours. The cost of app development depends upon on several factors that are needed to implement an idea and complete the work successfully. It also includes talent, type, and complexity of the product, and post-release support.

App Development Team

Depending on the requirements of any project, a development team can be basic or extended. If you are preparing your app with a basic team then it requires a project manager, a UI/UX designer, at least 2 programmers, and a quality assurance engineer. If your app needs a backend developer to develop an API, then you also have to hire a backend developer. Now, if you are dealing with an extended team then it requires a panel designer, 2-4 iOS and Android developers for both platforms and the rest of the players are already mentioned in the basic team.

Costly app elements: The complexity of the product is the major factor when it comes to the development of an app. The following three factors will describe the cost of making an app-

• Technical complexity
• The number of devices and OS
• Custom designs and animations

Technical complexity: Millions of features include technical complexity to a project. Some of the very common examples include:

1. Third-party integration: Some functionality in mobile applications needs integration with third-party libraries, services, and frameworks. For example- by implementing payment features, we can integrate with such services as Stripe or Braintree. Real-time chats are easily implemented with the help of layer, Pubnub, or actor. By adding social media sharing into an application can be accomplished with Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media network APIs.
2. Backend Development: A backend is an operating system that provides APIs to enable the exchange of data between a mobile app and a database. The backend completes the application by use of a business’s logic.
3. Admin Panel Development: An admin panel is a very useful tool that makes the tool very easy to operate apps. Manage the users and content; view the stats, and more. Finding a high-quality and flexible admin template can be difficult. On the other hand, building a unique custom solution for your business needs might be much more difficult and can maintain the cost of making an app.
4. In-App Purchases: Virtual goods to additional functionality there are many forms of in-app purchases that we can implement. There are wide ranges of tasks available that you can go into the implementation of in-app purchases, and therefore they often add some technical complexity to a project.
5. Use of hardware components: Modern Smartphone is packed with many different hardware components such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, NFC, heart rate sensors, Bluetooth, GPS, barometers, and others. But the hardware set may vary depending on the type of device and manufacturer. Finding the right approach for every device and testing how different hardware components can communicate with software, may increase the development cost to make an app and its time.

The Number of devices and OS

When it comes to an iOS app, it should be compatible with the latest and the previous version of the iPhone like iPhone 7, 8, X, and XS, and should support the latest versions and previous versions like iOS 12.1.2 and iOS 12.1.1.

For the Android application, the world looks much more diverse. When we decide the device to support, three factors influence our decision:

• A portion of the market share by each Android device manufacturer.
• Devices are specific to a given market.
• Client’s preferences

This also applies to the Android OS versions. We currently support the versions from Jelly Bean 4.1 to Marshmallow 6.0 on the majority of our projects.

More devices will need more time for spent on adapting the application for various screen sizes, resolutions, testing, and hardware specifications. However, if you choose to support only the best and most popular Android devices, this won’t affect the app creation cost as much.

Given the fragmentation of the Android market, an Android application development cost can exceed the cost of creating an iOS app.

 Custom designs and animations: Custom user interfaces are very complex to implement, so the cost to make an app can be higher than the price of building from standard components. When it comes to custom animations then it becomes quite tough to choose the best and right one. For example, one of the latest and popular animations is called Eat Fit and it’s designed for the activity of tracking apps.

Post-release expenses: An average cost to make an app development budget isn’t solely comprised of the funds that you can spend on the actual programming activities. You should also take account into all the money that goes into growing a product. Just like with any of business, an app needs updates, cloud hosting, customer support, backend server maintenance, and even legal support, not to mention app marketing and promotion that can make a huge impact on the product’s success.

An app development team and costly app elements, post-release support aren’t included its initial cost estimates, but rather it is provided as an additional service by most of the software companies.

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