How Much Does It Cost to Make an App Like Amazon?

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in the year 1994 and is the world’s largest internet-based retailer and a prominent cloud-services provider. It was originally a bookseller but gradually expanded to sell a wide range of different consumer goods, digital media, and its own electronic devices such as Kindle Fire tablet, Fire TV, and Kindle e-book. Moreover, Amazon’s Web services business includes computing resources and renting data storage.

It is fair enough to say that such market place apps like Amazon have changed online shopping and taken it to a whole new level by integrating highly emerging technologies like VR, AR, AI, and voice commands in-app. Not to mention, given that the company’s net revenue amounted to $280.5 Billion last year has not only made it a massive tech giant but also inspired various entrepreneurs and startups to invest in such e-commerce mobile apps.

If you are looking to make a similar app or are severely impressed with a brilliant ecommerce app like Amazon, it is essential for you to have thorough information about all the features and functionality of this app. Having the know-how of these will help you determine the exact cost of the app you want to develop. The overall average cost to build an app like Amazon is approximately $50,000+.

Now without further ado, let’s break the down the components of creating the app and then get into the costs.

All the must-have features to develop an app like Amazon

Features and functionality of the app are the sole factors that decide the future scope of the app. Therefore, instead of making your app look too fancy, complicated, or difficult to access, it is better to make an app that is user friendly and can automatically convert a visitor into a potential customer.

The following is a concise list of some of the key features that you should consider while making an app like Amazon.

Amazon for users:

• Simple Registration & login
• Product listing with features
• Product detail page
• Reviews & ratings
• Listing of favorites
• Questions & Answers
• User profile
• Billing & shipping addresses
• Payment options
• Delivery status
• Add to cart
• Easy Checkout page
• Order history
• Tracking

Amazon for sellers:

• Social and Sign-up Login
• Orders, product, returns and inventory management
• Reports
• Analysis
• Offers & discounts
• Settlement module
• Feedback
• Seller support
• Notifications
• Reviews & ratings

Amazon for Admin:

• Admin & user management
• Product & seller management
• Logistics & banner management
• Offers & discount management
• Payment & refunds management
• Category management
• Feedback & rapid support
• Reports & analysis

Cost breakdown of the app

Based on the main functions, we can calculate the cost according to three main factors, namely: wireframing, designing, and development.

Wireframe:

This process involves the development of a rough template or prototype model of the mobile app to give a basic idea about the functioning to both the developers and the clients. The average cost of this process is around $700-$1,100.

Design:

The design of an app is crucial since it is responsible for attracting maximum customers to your application. The flexibility and GUI that you present to your visitors make a huge platform for its acceptance and popularity in the market. The price of designing an app is dependent upon the complexity, features, and size of the app. On average, it takes about $2000- $3000+, varying based on the hourly of the UX/UI designer. In addition, if you are looking to create an aesthetically pleasing, instantly eye-catching and intricately designed app, it would cost you around $6,500-$9,500.

Development:

This is the final stage of implementing all the ideas and design in developing an app with coding. Here, the developers add features similar to those of the Amazon app that you require in your application. In addition to this, the development cost of a marketplace app depends on two factors. The first being the number of functional features, and the second being the resources required to be added in the development. Now, considering both of the above mentioned, the cost to develop a marketplace app like Amazon starts at $50,000 to $90,000.

The hourly charges for developers vary depending on the organizations and location/country of the development team. For example, let’s take a close look at a basic development team that consists of a project manager, at least two mobile developers,a backend developer, a UX/UI architect and a Q/A engineer.

Developers from Various Countries Have Different Hourly Rates:

• Eastern-Europe Based Company: $50-$150/hour
• S. Based Company: $80-$250/hour
• India-based Company: $20-$80/hour

Backend & Frontend Development:

Both of these refer to the structure of your app, and its development takes about 450 hours. As for the cost, it can cost you approximately $9,000 to $12,000 if you decide to hire a mobile app developer from a renowned IT company.

Q/A Testing:

Quality Assurance needs to be provided right from the beginning of developing your app because this testing process is a way to prevent any issues or bugs in the app’s development, avoid problems while delivering them to users, and ensure that quality requirements are being fulfilled. The cost of Q/A testing ranges from $4,000 to $5,000.

The Final Word:

If you have a billion-dollar e-commerce app idea at the back of your mind, then hopefully, with the help of this blog post, you have understood all the essential features that need to be incorporated in the development of the app, along with the estimated cost of each phase. However, if you are thinking to seriously follow the Amazon app clone, then you cannot expect to run it on one particular platform. The very best idea is to run this type of app on different platforms like IOS, Android, Windows, and Web. After all, running the app on multiple platforms is worth it since it will not only increase its popularity but also earn you great revenue.