The growing trends of using mobile applications had lead to an increase in enterprises investing in mobile app development. When it comes to mobile app development – features, functionalities, UX/UI design, cost, platform, technology etc, all such things are ready to be discussed. As Mobile app development cost finds a prominent place in the top budget factors in any global business organization today. With over 86% of users’ mobile time being found to be spent on mobile apps, there’s little or no wonder that almost all the companies across the world are increasing their investments and concentrating on factors related to cost of developing an app. While this inclination is nearly omnipresent, the problem with efficiently executing the mobile app development process is with understanding how to plan ahead and budget for it. Regardless of whether it is developing the app for small or medium or enterprise level client, there are few factors that decide the actual cost required to develop a mobile app, there are few other factors and parameters in order to come up with a certain estimate.
So, you have a fabulous idea for a mobile app. And you want to know what the app development cost will be. First things first, check out our current blog post about why you should be thinking about how to prove the value of your app —- even before you start to stare about how much it’ll cost to build it.
The truth is until you have a detailed definition of your app’s needs, no one should begin to estimate the total development costs.
However, there are very important decisions you need to make during the course of a project that will have a big influence on cost. Whether you are building the app internally or with the help of a mobile app development company, this post will help you understand the seven most important factors that drive the cost of an app.
Mobile apps are significant drivers of traffic. Joining you with your on-the-go customers is indubitably one of the biggest benefits of mobile apps. With these apps becoming such an essential part of every person’s lives, your business needs mobility to not only survive but also succeed.
But even then, there are a plethora of business enterprise who are still contemplating the need for mobile apps. Surprising? Well, here it all consolidates to the most significant element-finance. Yes, it’s the budget where everything gyrates. Being an entrepreneur, it’s imperative that you get the real cost of developing a robust mobile app so that you get your budgeting right. And, you need to fathom how various components drive the costs of creating a mobile app.
Well, which factors need to be considered for choosing an actual value of a mobile app? Here is the answer to this frequently asked question, so let’s check out…
Factors that affect your App development costs in 2019
Features and their Complexity of mobile apps
The one important factors that have an impact on the Custom Mobile App development cost. The number of features and their complexity directly affects both specialist’ working time and your budget as well as the size of the software development team.
Problems related to this point that required to be answered while defining the scope of the project: which features are of high precedence and which will solve the operational hurdles, how many features must be implemented, how many app versions do you plan to release, would you like to have the MVP development to test your design and improve the product or to build the app with all functionality at once.
If we think about the project complexity, mobile applications can be divided into simple, middle-sized, and complex.
Some of the simple apps don’t gather analytics about user activity and don’t exchange any data with any bases. A user can sign in with their personal account(if the app provides it) through email.
Let’s have an example, an application created for some simple process such as ordering without selecting a product and adding it to the shopping cart.
Middle-sized applications are that cover different processes. This includes the categories that are mostly of e-commerce sites and booking systems. For instance, such type of apps have the personal user account, comments mode, provide integration with social media and sometimes with the payment systems as well.
Complex Apps which involves a lot of screens real-time synchronization, all kinds of interactivity, have integration with any bases, ensure app functioning offline, and provide many features.
The most critical and expensive features require special expertise or usage of up-to-date technologies. For example, voice recognition, elements of AR, real-time synchronization, different animations, and so on.
Platforms: Android, iOS & Windows Phone
The cost of mobile app development also depends on its platform i.e Android, iPhone or Windows Phone and the kind of development you choose and also the number of hours needed to complete the project. Due to this, the app is divided into simple, little bit complex and highly complex app.
To determine a platform for a future product you should analyze your target audience: if most of them are iOS users, choose iOS app development only. In case the percentage is equal, decide between cross-platform app development and native application development.
If you have thought to reach the maximum audience then you plan for a perfect rich-functional product, and you have enough money, it’s better to build two apps for iOS and Android as the two popular platforms. Native App development requires more time and investment, but the quality of the result will be also higher.
If the first goal is to get a working solution faster and for, lower rates, choose cross-platform app development this way implies writing one code for both operating systems by one-team of software engineers. One point to consider is that cross-platform tools are quickly improving.
Backend And API Integration cost
Apps are nothing without a corresponding backend to host the data and content. The more complex part is backend which requires more efforts from the development part from engineers. It directly impacts time for the working process and thus the price increases. That could mean a straightforward API created upon a cloud-based server, such as AWS or Azure. But it might also include a middleware layer that summarises enterprise legacy data into a structure and makes it accessible to an app. The number of variables involved in the back end can have a big impact on the app development costs. Even if the backend is in perfect form, you’ll still require APIs that expose the information and give the app access to different slices of data. Every data source you add will need additional engineering effort to integrate already available APIs or build your own.
Cost for Quality and Testing
Testing is a very important part of custom mobile app development which needs to be. The application is tested for bugs and errors and checked for meeting customer’s requirements. It also very important to confirm the success of all the functionalities and features, which indirectly affects the performance of an app. To run the app successfully QA is the utmost importance in order to make the enhancement in the app with respect to the analysis obtained. This activity has significant importance in the entire development.
Data Security Application
Assuring the data security is central to the docility of the entire custom mobile app development project. Security should never be treated carelessly. So if your app is ready for the ship but you haven’t resolved down the security concerns, do not proceed further.
Every possible step should be taken to assure the security of user data, passwords and other data linked with the app usage. At first, this may seem to be a time-consuming and expensive chore, but it is important to grasp the importance of securing your mobile app in order to provide a smooth and desirable user experience.
If you fail at achieving sufficient security checks into your app, you may face a major security gap, malware attack, viral infection or system attacks, rectifying which will ultimately cost you much more than installing a careful security plan in the very start. Therefore, invest wisely and adequately in robust mobile app security so that your app can successfully fight the risks involved for the value to information stored.
You can also go through our Infographics for factors that impact the cost of mobile app development
Thus, custom mobile app development needs monetary investment, but there are factors allowing to decrease it. To create a successful mobile application that will become your powerful business tool you have to determine your target audience and their problems and how a future product can resolve them. And krify is here to help! Reach us today.
