In the past few years, the mobile app development market has seen unprecedented growth. It is due to more and more businesses wanting to develop their feature-rich applications to have better business promotion and give their users a platform to connect with. With the increasing demand for mobile apps, people often wonder how much would it cost to develop a mobile app. And generally, people want their product to be of superior quality and available at an affordable price. So, in the mobile app development industry too, the cost of developing an app isn’t a complete package. But rather, it depends on different factors such as the features and functionality of the app. Therefore, in this blog, we bring to you the different factors that affect the cost of the development of a mobile application.
- The type of project or app you are developing
In general, there are a lot of mobile app genres that we can list out. And it depends on the target audience of every company that wants a mobile application of their own. A company might be wanting to develop an informative app for its users that only shows static information to its users such as a diet planner, calendar application, or daily workout routine app. Another company may want a database app for their business that gathers data from a website and allows its users to find, analyze, and manipulate that data according to their needs. Or it may be a game, a utility app, a productivity app, etc. All of these different types of apps cost different to develop based on the skills and expertise required to develop them. Therefore, the type of project plays a major role in its cost.
- The requirements of the application
The importance of an application for any business is based on its core functionality and its purpose. And in proportion to a business, the requirements of any application are based on its complexity and the adequacy of the existing resources. If an organization has enough in-house developers to handle the complete project, they need not spend a dime on external hiring. But this becomes a matter of major thinking when a company has to hire an external agency to get their mobile application developed. And when hiring an external agency for such purposes, you do have to focus on costs a lot more because very high costs could bring budget disruption and very low costs could result in low-quality development. Thus, to have a good app developer, you would need to look at the requirements of your application as well as your budget.
- Technicality, Functionality, and Design of the application
Another major factor that plays a crucial role in defining the cost of mobile app development is its functionality and design constraints. It is due to increasing features and elements, that the application becomes more intricate and with more advanced functions being added into the app, developers have to look for its seamless operation and great user experience. Therefore, with the increasing complexity of the application, a more user-centric design is needed to provide an exceptional experience and with this, comes the additional functionality that results in further expenses and hence, affecting the cost of the development process.
- Presence of In-app purchases
One of the most important factors to consider when developing a mobile app is its monetization. As the goal of every business is to generate revenue out of their app, not just invest in it and cover its costs. And this makes In-app purchases one of the primary revenue drivers for most of the organizations having a mobile app. But choosing the In-app purchase strategy for your application isn’t only a way of generating profit, you would need to cover the initial expenses required for the maintenance of the In-app purchases model. First off, you would need to understand your target audience and work on market research. Next up, you need to run your app promotions to ensure that your IAP strategy doesn’t fail and you have an engaging user base. And finally, you need to put up measures for securing transactions made inside your app to prevent any fraud from happening. All these measures increase the complexity of your app directly affecting its development cost.
- Different supported devices and software
Choosing the platform or the devices for your app is another main factor that controls the cost of mobile app development. Because if you're developing an app for any platform, be it android or iOS, desktop, or even web apps, you need to make sure it is compatible with the latest versions of the software as well as also supports its earlier versions. And further moving into its compatibility, the number of screens in an app also affects its cost as having more screens would require the app to have more work to be put into it to make it more user-friendly.
- Choosing the platform
The next common point that affects the development cost of an app is the selection of the platform it would operate on. The major mobile platforms of today are Android & iOS, and when developing an app, companies have to decide whether their app would be native to a single platform or would have cross-platform functionality. So, each one of these choices affects the development cost of the mobile app.
- The publishing process
After the completion of mobile app development, comes the time when the company decides that their app should hit the market. And this is when a certain cost is added to the development, the publishing process. On either of the platforms, be it android or iOS, you have to pay a certain amount for your app to get listed on its official app store. Even though Google charges you less to publish your app on the Play Store when compared to Apple’s App Store, you still have to pay for it. So, yeah it adds up to the overall app development cost.
Conclusion
With these essential factors that a business has to consider while developing a mobile app, they can now decide to choose what’s best for them and be well-equipped to create a robust and high-quality app that fits their budget.