This week, I did some more research focused on the costs of a mobile app development.
The first article that I found, was on Forbes. Rather than specifically explaining every single cost, it guides through the process and essential stages/elements of the app building. https://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2014/11/11/the-true-cost-of-building-a-mobile-app/#30ad9bae5876
„Serious mobile apps require a strong conceptual foundation, good planning, an excellent ecosystem and top-notch talent in both the design and engineering phases„
1. Do research to make sure that there isn’t an app identical to yours. „It also helps to develop a few core use cases, taking into account the target audience and how your app will play out in both the short- and long-term.”
2. Choose which platforms you want to focus on (iOS, Android, Windows), they all for the most part have different SDKs and programming languages. „By clearly defining your go-to-market strategy and your target market segment for your mobile app, it’s possible to determine which platform you should launch with.”
3. Select the creative team. The best teams consist of members who are specialised in certain ares (interaction design, visual design…)
4. Sketching out the key functional flows, followed by detailed wireframes and the visual design. (2-3 months time worth work, depending on complexity) It’s better not to rush this stage, as the revisions can be costly.
5. Get external feedback
6. „You need a cloud services provider who will not only host it, but also power and maintain the back end systems. There’s a lot of competition in the cloud services space from Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace and hundreds of smaller providers. Make sure that your provider can scale quickly as needed. Maintenance is another key consideration, both for your service provider and your development staff. Apps stores are competitive places and bad news travels fast—so make sure your team is available for bug fixes, updates, downstream version testing and so on.”
7. „Despite what many think, it is a major investment of time, money and vision. You should expect to involve a team of six to ten people for about six months or more. Moreover, a high-quality, enterprise-class mobile app will involve not tens, but hundreds of thousands of dollars. Again, it’s essential to be guided by the idea that you get what you pay for.”
The next source of my research was an article on biznessapps.com (https://www.biznessapps.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-create-an-app/)
The costs depend on how we plan to make an app. “The answers can range anywhere from a few thousand dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars.”
There are two main forms of costs.
A) “The main differences between these two common app development strategies are planning and speed. Waterfall developments make a detailed plan of each process, how long every step will take, the costs, etc.”
B) “Apps created with the agile strategy, on the other hand, use a lot less planning. Developers gets right to work and move quickly. To someone who desires control and organization, the lack of structure in this approach may be alarming, but it has its perks.”
Advantages of the waterfall developments:
– neat records of each process
– easy to improve the design and development process of future apps
– better idea of the timeline
Disadvantages of waterfall:
– it extends the timeline
Advantages of agile strategy:
– less planning, moving on quickly
– more adaptable
– according to data, three times more successful than waterfall
Disadvantages of agile strategy:
– lack of structure
– costs can pile up
More facts about the costs:
“How much does it cost to make an app after launch? This price tag can range between $70-$100/hour after you launch.”
“Depending on what class of developer you hire, your hourly rate can range anywhere between $75/hour up through $800/hour.”
“A good development firm will have tracking software in place that will allow you to see the progress made and how much time is being put into each stage. While choosing to go with an hourly or labor rate is generally more expensive, a lot of people find the quality is higher because it encourages developers to continue working diligently, whereas a fixed price can sometimes cause them to make shortcuts to hasten the deadline, as they are being paid a set amount, no matter how much work they end up putting in.”
“How much does it cost to make an app with updates? On average, you will spend about 20% more than you expected.”
“From a price standpoint, a pre-built app creation platform blows the costs of a ground-up, custom app out of the water. Custom apps can cost as much as $500,000 or higher with a median price between $37,913 and $171,450 as the median price. When considering how much it cost to create an app, that is a substantial amount.”
Cost tables source: http://www.comentum.com/mobile-app-development-cost.html
