How Much Does It Cost to Make an App in 2021?

Technology advancements seem to be endless as we enter the year 2021. With the outbreak of COVID-19 all over the world, business and economies are struggling to find the best ways to cope with the existing pandemic. Though, one thing is for certain, the fight against COVID-19 will be led through technology. With the second wave of the virus surging through different parts of the world, countries and governments continue to be overwhelmed by the scale of response efforts and the impact on their economies due to strict lockdowns.

In a unique time like this when uncertainty maligns all global activities, it is difficult to perceive what the future holds for us. However unique this pandemic maybe, it is clear to us that the recovery through such an emergency disaster will come with aid of techno-solutionism. For instance, countries like Canada and Australia have developed notification apps that give you notifications based on the development of COVID-19 in areas specific to the user and people around them. Though, the accuracy and efficiency of such applications remains under debate, it is evident that technology based emergency response systems will be the most essential tool in coping with the difficult present and the uncertain future.

The Time Is Now!

If you’re running a retail business and have taken a serious hit to your revenues during these times, you are not alone. Many businesses all over the world continue to shut down due to decreased footfall in lock downs that result in low sales. However, at the same time, there are businesses that are flourishing because they were quick in their technological response to the pandemic. So if you’re looking to develop an application for your business, this is the right time to do it.

Developing an application involves dealing with certain challenges in order to make your development process efficient and your final product to be fruitful for your customer. These challenges have exponentially grown in magnitude due the current pandemic and require reconsideration in order to successfully execute the application development process.

What Type of Application Are You Looking to Develop?

The first thing you need to decide is what kind of application fits best with your business requirements. In order to establish exactly what you need, assess your objectives for the development process and the goals you hope to achieve.

There are three basic types of applications:

Web Applications: Web Applications are intrinsically websites that are designed to improve the customer experience of mobile device users, usually delivered through a web browser. Surveys indicate that a large number of online users prefer to use web applications due to ease of access.

Native Applications: Native apps are a type of app which are developed for specific operating systems, be it Android or IOS, and are designed to give the customer a rich user experience.

Hybrid Applications: Hybrid apps are simpler in nature as they function on a single programming language and can work on both types of operating systems unlike native applications. Compared to native apps, they are easier to manage and develop but do not provide the same level of richness in terms of user-experience.

Factors Contributing to Application Development Costs

How much cost will you be incurring in the development of your application is the key concern any business has when embarking on this technological journey. Application development costs are usually the least prioritized aspect in a company when setting their annual budgets. This is usually due to lack of perceived importance or budgetary constraints. Whatever it maybe, it can really create setbacks for the consistent growth of your business.

As much as we would like to investigate the cost of application development, we can only estimate due to the mere reason that the app development process involves many factors that collectively influence the final cost of the project. However, there are certain factors you can consider to accurately estimate what your costs may be.

These factors include:

• App Purpose/Functionality: The purpose and functionality of your application directly impacts the costs you will incur in its development. For instance, are you developing a social app, a game app, notification app, an app to drive a services like Uber or is it an app being developed to be used by the business internally by its employees.
• Integration to external points: You also need to consider whether your app will need to be integrated with other external applications. For instance, if you’re developing a retail app for your store, will there be integrations to online payment systems or not. Similarly, if you’re developing an application for a delivery service, you may need to integrate with a navigation application like Google Maps. Whether or not your application will need to utilize other options such as integrating to Google, Firebase, Node etc. can escalate the costs.
• Supporting Other Devices and Mobile platforms: Whether an app will be developed for iOS only or has an Android / Windows Mobile version as well, considering the specific devices will it support, e.g. iPhone X, iPhone 9+, Samsung Galaxy S20 and so on.
• Feature layout: It is important to consider what features you will need for your application to work effectively. For instance, you need to consider whether the app will be using mobile devices and utilize its features such as GPS navigation, motion co-processor, NFC technology and other related technologies that most smartphones and tablet computers are equipped with.
• Visual Complexity: The complexity of visual objects that appear within your application significantly influence its cost. For instance, a retail shop will have a wide range of products, resulting in innumerable pictures which require large storage options while a simple application like one used for reading books, will have less complex image configurations.
• Maintenance plan: What you need to consider here is what kind of support system you will be designing for the maintenance and compliance of your application once the application hits the market. This can include things like providing technical support to your customers during or after a sale or when an interaction occurs.

Understanding Process to Determine Costs

While application development is a complex process, understanding how it works can help you determine the costs you will be incurring in the development of your project. When you have a clear understanding of the process, you can easily plan a budget based on your own requirements.

The Application development process is as follows:

1. Discovery/pre-research stage: This is an initial stage where the client communicates all his requirements, references, inspirations, and expectations from the development project. The project manager will then translate those needs into a proposal for the development and costing of the project.
2. Design stage: Once the pre-research stage is complete and all ideas have been locked down and approved, designers and visualizers take the lead to create a visual representation of what the application will look like. Things like colors, fonts, images, design elements such as vectors being used and the layout of the application are designed and locked before moving on to the actual development stage.
3. Development stage: This is where all the coding and integration of all the things decided in the previous two stages is set. The development stage is usually the longest and most time consuming stage of this development process. It is integral to understand that the number of man hours that go into this stage directly impact the cost of the project. At the end of this stage a test/beta version of the app is created which has all the features and options that the final product is intended to offer.
4. Testing and deployment stage: The test version of the application is put through a series of testing protocols to identify any bugs, integration problems, user-interface issues, and problems related to functionality. At the end of this stage, when all testing is complete, the application can be deployed and featured in online marketplaces.
5. Support & maintenance: This stage is where support plays a vital role in guiding people to use the app, resolving any issues they may have with its functionality, and reporting any problems that have not been addressed before. Regular maintenance is provided the same way it is done for websites, keeping the application up to date and functional under any circumstances.

Factor in Additional Costs

Additional app development costs can be expected after the development of the app. For instance, you will need resources and budgets to market your application, you will need budgets for backend support, and you will also need to spend additionally towards creating relevant updates. What needs to be understood here is that developing an application is not a means to an end, it is rather an ongoing process that stretches with the life of the application.

Have these mandatory requirements in sight before you sign off on your budgeting. More often than not, businesses look at the immediate expenses to build an app and ignore the planning that is required for taking the development into the crucial stages. An app can be considered as complete only after it has launched fully and when all the support functions are in place. Leaving out the crucial aspects will defeat the purpose.

Estimated Figures for Development

This estimation is only intended to give you an insight into the costs that you are likely to incur when for going for a project such as mobile app development. Depending on your actual requirements and your choice of different options, including the options mentioned above, you may actually discover that the amount may differ. You may end up paying a lot lesser or a lot more, depending on the nature of your requirements. It is the very complexity of this that makes it the million-dollar question when diving into a project of such scope and scale.

• Cost of developing an app by a premium app development company can be anywhere between $500,000 to $1 million
• Cost of developing an app a middle sized offshore center can be between $150,000 to $400,000
• Cost towards app development by a freelancer can be anywhere between $10,000 to $25,000

The Confusion

To add to the problem, different surveys conducted by organizations publish conflicting specifics and results relating to the costs of app development.

Some quote low cost figures such as $30,000 for the process of development just to show themselves a cheaper option within the marketplace. Similarly, others quote the costs towards the higher limits such as $275,000 to justify themselves as leading industry developers, implying that high costs mean top quality.

This makes it difficult for companies to come up with an exact figure or budget for their projects.

The Final Word

Don’t go out in the market looking for a vendor with a specific cost in mind or even expect to get an accurate cost down to the last penny. As mentioned here, costs are variable till the process ends but it’s always a good idea to operate with an estimated cost and move closer to an accurate or final cost of the project.