How much does a mobile app cost?

With Apps becoming a growing demand and requirement of every household, the development of applications, which are compatible for various platform are also flourishing in the digital market. How much does a mobile app cost? This can be a penetrating question. We talk about mobile application and how it satisfies our needs but, least do we know about costing factors behind the development of applications.

To understand the factors involved related to costing of the applications at the initial stage of mobile app development, will enable anybody to have an idea about the decent cost estimation of the process of application development. It is important for us to understand that through mobile devices it will always help us to stay connected with customers and always give a chance to interact with them.

The best way to increase the brand recognition of an application, is to increase use of the service, nothing else works better than an application.

When we want to increase the brand sales and service, we want more and more use application so that it will make an impact on the customers to come and purchase the product and avail the services. It is a prime focus to first hit the target audiences so that the products reach to them and they will immediately decide on their requirements.

Once it is already decided ways to retain the customer one should constantly search for offers to hold back their interest to use the products and services.

By continues use of applications, the users can meet their requirements online.

There are few parameters that determine the cost of a mobile application. These parameters are as explained below:-

Business Module - When you decide to first develop an application, you need to emphasize first on the pattern and the style of business for which the application will be developed. Hence, business plan should be fixed before starting the application development process, so that revenue can be generated to multiply profit of the company. 

• Who are your target audiences and where exactly they spend the maximum time?
• What is the exact requirement?
• At which platform it will run?
• Will it have a flexible selling price and have a specific revenue generation or will it have a fixed selling price?
• Will some add on like visual effect can be an added advantage for selling of the app?
• Will the application that you provide have added information?

A business module can be prepared based on these points to have an idea about the cost estimation.

           

Platform – After the business module is prepared, the next point of determination is for which platform, an application is develop to run. After deciding on the requirement and the targeted audiences, one needs to decide the platform for development. From the number of platforms like Windows, iOS, Android and website, one has to choose for which platform the app needs to be developed.

When it is mobile application, the developer would have expertise in building application for iOS, Windows and Android. It is considered as cost effective and less time consuming to build applications for iOS as it has better user base. Android however occupies a major section in the market. A developer if not sure about a user’s response will attempt to launch first in iOS and then on Android. Developing applications for Windows mobile is a critical one as it lacks fundamental features supports. Based on the above, the costing will fairly vary.

Basic features and functionality – The features and functionality will always depend on your target audiences and the platform you choose to develop your application. If your target audience are drawn towards the application that has attractive icon and user interface design, the customer will get drawn towards it. It is after all what they buy is what they see. Nevertheless, there are customers, who would prefer to go for application that provides feature and information and will demonstrate the world coming digitally alive in front of them. Platforms like Windows lacks fundamental feature support hence it will not stretch to feed multiple features in a Windows phone. The developers keep coming back to Android and iOS, as these platforms offers greater opportunities and a chance expand features filled with digital experience. Here, the user experience is more important than user interface designs. The budget will change and fluctuate likewise.

Man hour – Man Hours can be segregated into

Design team – A design team can actually innovate something of an impressive icon and UI/UX designs that probably was never released in the market. This is one of the important ways of holding back customer’s attention and they would not mind spending something that has an appeal, after all whatever they purchase are always visually appealing.

In a way you need to decide on the target audiences, if they are driven by user experience and info and find a design appealing. Strangely, people do not mind spending for designs and if it is packed with design and experience with right information, hey check the expenses is going to mount up.

Development team – A development team will closely work with the design team, but if the development team will be a freelancer or the agency will largely depend on the company to decide. The costing will be reasonable and logical if you appoint freelancers. With agencies it will be charged more. In agencies also there is a further segregation, small agencies and large agencies, where the costing and the budget will again vary.

Duration of development – An application development takes a specific time, but it will be mainly based on the platforms for which an application is prepared. iOS has a better user base and normally it takes very less time to prepare an application for iOS. Whereas for Android it generally takes 1 – 2 days to develop an applications. Developers cannot be 100% sure about the user response. They usually intended to prepare an application first for iOS, then leaving it on to Android, based on user’s response on the iOS platform. With Windows it will be critical as it has a restriction of fundamental features support; hence, it might turn out to be time-consuming. The budget and costing will highly vary based on duration of the development of an application for a specific platform.

Add-on features – A specific application is designed and developed with certain features, but there can be more into it. Consumers might just have requirements of merging the features of 2 or more applications, which increases overall expenses of the app development. Then they would be purchasing one application with multiple features from one or more application of similar category. A developer needs to customize the already built in app. This is time and an expensive affair as well.

After sales support – Even if the application is sold, there must be a continues requirement for after sales support in general and more specifically for customized app. This support is not just providing the error-free application, but at the end, resolving any specific issues arising from use of the application. The cost estimation will generally be much higher considering this parameter.