“App Maintenance & Support Cost” is an integral factor in the success of an app owner. Simply developing and launching an app isn’t enough; true success is achieved when the app consistently performs exceptionally well in the store. This success hinges on how adeptly the app owner confronts real-time challenges and meticulously plans to resolve them, all while managing the associated App Maintenance & Support Cost.
From a developer’s perspective, publishing an app to a live store isn’t the end of the job. Maintenance and support are crucial thereafter, albeit at a cost. Neglecting this aspect in the competitive app ecosystem can be detrimental. Even on a tight budget, app maintenance shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s essential for business growth and ensures smooth operation amidst technological changes. Before outsourcing maintenance, it’s vital to understand the costs and inquire about any included support periods from the development company during the pre-development stage.
Maintaining mobile and web apps involves updating app versions, OS compatibility, third-party libraries, bug fixes, security enhancements, and more. It’s vital for app longevity and user satisfaction, ensuring functionality even during periods of inactivity. For businesses reliant on apps, regular maintenance and backend support are essential. The cost of maintenance typically ranges from 15 to 20% of total development costs annually, payable monthly.
There are more chances that you wouldn’t be doing the app maintenance yourself if you’re not a developer and even if you might not be knowing all the technologies that you needed to support and maintain the app regularly and therefore you’d end up hiring either an in-house team or a competent app development company doing the same. Most of such App development companies including Krify would provide some free support and maintenance period for the development of the app. A simple way to calculate the app maintenance cost is to estimate the number of hours needed per month for maintaining a task, and then multiply those by the hourly rate. Now to estimate the real cost of app maintenance and knowing how much does it cost to maintain an app, let’s discuss quickly some major tasks that are usually covered in app maintenance deal as follows:
Type of Tasks or Bugs
- Version Upgrades as mobile OS upgrades:
Both Android and iOS usually get the regular updates, it is always recommended you to check the app compatibility with the latest version while securing the backward compatibility. Every new update will come with some backward version compatibility. The upgrading not only make the app compatible with the latest version, but it also allows you to offer the latest OS features in your app for the end users.
- Code Optimization:
It is not that always need to consider, but should be a part of the maintenance and support of app. As there is always a space to improve and optimize the code of your app and the backend. Ask developers to identify code optimization areas, propose fixes, and execute them.
- Troubleshooting and Bug Fixing:
No live app can allow having broken functionality, not at all your live users are reporting that and therefore you need a competent technical team on standby to handle all such user or tester stated issues on top priority and with quick turn around. Despite thorough pre-launch testing, issues may arise in real-world usage, especially with a large user base. This could involve the malfunctioning of third-party services utilized by the application. This is the most major factor in determining how much does it cost to maintain the app.
- Data Backup:
Data Backup is another important thing to consider. No matter how you do the data backup it is actually costlier, you should be doing a regular data backup and restore your app, augmenting the security at AWS and app side so that such hackings never happens again. This data backup allows us a lot of advantages at the most crucial time.
- Analytics:
Many app publishers lack awareness of essential performance metrics and suitable analytical tools. In such instances, app development companies can conduct manual analytics and provide easily understandable reports.
- Research on new technology alternatives:
Encouraging app developers to adopt new technology is crucial. They can replace outdated tools with the latest ones, enhancing performance. Consider integrating research and consulting into the app maintenance agreement with the development company.
- Promotional Features:
Sometimes, quick code changes can boost sales and promote your product without app store updates. For instance, pausing sales on an e-commerce app prior to a sale or displaying a sales banner upon app entry. The key goal is to captivate user attention swiftly.
All these are the major tasks that come under the app maintenance.
How much does it cost to maintain an app?
We at Krify, App Maintenance & Support Cost: Offer a month free support and maintenance service along with any new app development project, and after that, we charge as per the dependence of the project or the maintenance requirement. Krify will provide maintenance and support in three different models.
- Dedicated model – In which the developer completely works on the project to maintain. App maintenance costs vary hourly based on developer seniority, ranging from $5 to $50 USD.
- Shared model – In the shared model, the developer will work for a fixed time in a month. Whereas the rest of the month they will be working on other projects. However, the cost is given for the time proposed with a turn around time of 12-24 hours to attend the job. For instance, it will cost around $3 to $25 based on the seniority level of the developer.
- Type of bugs to fix – In this scenario, estimating time and cost upfront isn’t feasible, as it varies based on the type and complexity of bugs in the app.
You can contact us to do the estimation of hours needed to maintain your app on monthly basis. We would be doing it free for you even before you offer us any hiring confinement, we shall also calculate and let you know how much does it cost to maintain your app, so drop us a note at vc-sales@krify.co.in whenever you need to.
