How Much Does It Cost to Make A Live Streaming App?
In times like these, when there is a restriction on gatherings, live streaming apps can come in handy. People all over the world live-stream all kinds of events such as sports competitions, concerts, and award shows. However, these are not the only uses of live streaming applications. They are widely used to watch live footage of almost anything that occurs in the life of the person who is broadcasting.
What does a live streaming app do?
With a live-streaming app, you can show the world what’s happening at a particular moment, i.e., broadcast anything live to your friends and other contacts. It also allows people to like and comment on other peoples’ streams. The biggest name for such an app in the market today is Periscope.
Why should you make a live streaming app?
99firms.com claims that 80% of consumers would rather watch a live video than read a blog. If you observe the people around you, nearly everyone prefers video content over written content. Moreover, if we look at statistics for Periscope, SimilarWeb.com tells us that the site receives an average of more than 2 million visitors each month. This shows that there is excellent potential in live-streaming websites and applications. You can earn revenue through advertisements, just like the owners of YouTube. Now the question is, how much will a live streaming app cost you? Before we give you an estimate, let’s look at some features that any live streaming app should have and their associated costs.
Six essential features for any live streaming app
- Video Streaming
This feature is quite an obvious one to have in live streaming apps. Nevertheless, we mention it here to explain how it works. A web video streaming protocol is needed to facilitate the transmission of videos. The most commonly used ones are the Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). Broadcasting using these protocols works like this:
- The media player on your device connects with a web server.
- The web server sends the video that is to be broadcasted, to the media player.
A typical video streaming protocol will cost you around $110 per month per Terabyte (TB) of data. That means, if 1 TB of data is streamed every month, the annual cost will be around $1300. The video size can be reduced by using a Video compressor, making them more manageable and easier to share.
- Geo-Location
This is a feature that provides a thrilling user experience. Almost all live-streaming apps have a world map from which users can choose the location they want to visit virtually. The app then shows all the videos that are being broadcasted from that particular location. Users can also add geo-filters, which limit the locations from which content is played. A perfect example of this is Snapchat’s Snap Map. People who are broadcasting have the option to switch off geo-location. Otherwise, the videos they broadcast are automatically added to the map.
An application programming interface (API) for geo-location is not very expensive. It will cost around $200 per month if 1000 requests are made on the app each day.
- A user-friendly interface
Along with catchy features such as geo-location, the key to enhancing the whole user experience is providing a user-friendly interface. Your customers would love to see high definition graphics and colors on the app—a typical user interface costs around $10,000. You can make unlimited customizations to it, and the price will then increase or decrease accordingly. Netflix, an online video streaming platform, employs a unique and elegant user interface. This, along with many other factors, contributes to its success. Read more about how much it costs to make an app like Netflix here.
- Cloud Storage
We recommend that you do not use device storage for live streaming data as this will use up a lot of space in the devices and will be annoying for the users. The aim should be to provide them with ease and convenience. Hence, cloud storage must be integrated into the app. Some popular cloud storage platforms are Google Cloud, Apple’s iCloud, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Adding this feature will cost you around $2000.
On the other hand, there may be internet connectivity or bandwidth issues with particular users. So, it is crucial that they are given the option of downloading videos from the app and save them in their local storage.
- User Profiles
Another must-have feature is user profiles. Users can create their accounts on the app, and then all their past broadcasts (or broadcasts in the last 30 days) will be visible to everyone if the account is public. Users can also view their streaming history. People who do not want to create a profile can sign in as a guest. In this case, streaming and broadcasting history will not be saved.
- Integrate with social media
Integration with social media allows videos shared on different platforms to be shared in a common place. Once you link your application with social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, users will also be able to share content on their respective profiles on these sites. Each site is linked individually using its own Application Programming Interface (API), and doing so, costs around $1,000.
The general development cost is $20,000 for an Android app and around $15,000 for an iOS app. These costs will also be counted when calculating the total cost of development.
The Bottom Line
Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to quote an exact figure for the cost of developing a live streaming app. Besides the six essential features we mentioned, there can be numerous others that will make your app better for users. A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with the basic features will cost around $25,000 to $35,000. But these features will not be enough to keep your users happy. Discover what they want by asking for reviews on the MVP and then add more features accordingly. Fully customized live streaming apps with enhanced features may cost up to $100,000. Let us know here what features you require, and we will make sure to guide you accordingly and give you an accurate figure for the expenses you will incur.
