Last week, we gave you 3 Things That Will Limit Your Costs When Building a New Website. Now, let’s have a look at what can affect the cost of apps.
The idea of creating an app comes with great responsibility and many decisions to be made. For instance, you need to be able to answer on the app’s functionality, on which features to be included in the app, what operating system your app should run on, and which platforms your app should be available on. You have to have a clear vision of what you are going to build. In addition, you need to keep in mind certain things, like your app brand, target audience, and most importantly price.
Usually, the cost of app development depends on various factors like the choice of platform, what features you need, and what your targeted users are. To get the best end result with your app, it is important to be aware of spending, managing your costs and try to reduce them when you can, in order for you to apply your resources where it matters for your app project.
Let’s find answers to all these questions and figure out how they affect the costs to develop your next app.
Planning is a key
One of the main reasons why apps fail within the first few months is caused by the lack of strategy and poor planning process. Knowing how to pre-plan your app is the first step to successfully finishing an app on time while meeting design specifications. Moreover, communication with your teammates will help you to find out more ideas, as two heads are always better than one. Furthermore, you will get another person’s perspective on your own ideas. Also, a great idea is to include people from different fields in order to gain valuable insights and stronger concept development.
Sketch your final project
A key step in planning is to make things tangible. Try to sketch your final app before you present it to a developer. Even better, try to show those sketches to potential clients! How will the app look like? What kind of interface would you like to provide to your customers? The client you want to buy it and the developer you want to build it will get an idea of what you are looking for. The sketches will help design your app and its workflow in a way you wish for. Moreover, it will take less time to complete the work, thereby reducing the final cost.
Platform selection
On how many platforms would you like to launch your app? Do you want to target laptop users on the web, iOS users, Android users or perhaps you want your app to run on a PC? All these decisions, of course, depend on your requirements and hence budget. Developing an app for different operating systems (OS) takes more time, and therefore the more OS’s you choose for your app, the higher the cost. For instance, creating an app for Android takes approximately 30% more time than for iOS. Furthermore, there is a wide range of devices that you have to take into consideration for an optimal user experience, which will affect your costs.
Consider outsourcing
It is very difficult for any company that doesn’t specialize in app development to build a great app in-house. That is the main reason for outsourcing app development to specialists like Wiredelta has become so popular.
When talking about outsourcing, the first thing to look at is relevant experience. Next, you should focus on the portfolio of who you outsource to and see if they offer something relevant to your project idea. Another important consideration is communication with your development partners. You have to be sure that they’re getting the job done correctly, on time, and within budget. Finally, be sure that your final decision is completed and discussed with stakeholders because remaking the app can really cut off your project budget.
MVP
A good Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a blessing for business owners who would like to develop an app. Basically, it is a prototype of your future app with all the desired functionalities, features and design. This technique evaluates the market demand and helps you to get an overview of whether the consumers are interested in your business/product or not. Once you find out that the demand is real, you can start working on implementing your app and get ready for launch.
Moreover, with an MVP you build relationships with customers that will form the base for later success. Their feedback helps to shape the future development of your app. Finally, the MVP is not only a reduction in costs but also a test of possible failure. Consider creating MVP for both iOS and Android, then improve the features as it makes sense.
Cross-platform development vs Native apps
Cross-platform apps use a single codebase that can be deployed to different operating systems. So it doesn’t require a huge amount of money nor time to develop apps for every individual platform separately. Therefore, in this case, cross-platform development is relevant to go with when aiming for lower costs.
Developing an app for multiple platforms will inevitably increase the final cost. Native apps offer higher speed and performance but are also more expensive when it comes to developing, testing, launching and maintaining the app. But the reason is simple, high quality comes with a higher price tag. So, as long as you decide that your app should work on different platforms, cross-platform development is a significant way to reduce the cost. And this doesn’t mean that it should be underestimated just because it is a cheaper option.
The app backend and API development costs
Backend development provides data exchange between an app and a database. It is normally an operating system that grants developers with APIs. Today, most of the apps are driven by APIs. And the most common developing mistake is building APIs at the same time as the app. This causes a result that the app is blocked because it needs APIs’ data for the development to go further on. It’s really efficient to have the APIs ready when the development team needs them.
Conclusion
As you can see, developing an app is not an easy and quick process. It takes time and a dose of patience, but if you have that, good things will come your way! Follow these steps described above to be aware of how the cost of an app can spiral out of control.
If you are interested, feel free to go through our article about Everything You Need to Know About Building a Mobile Application. It will definitely help you to get a brief overview of what’s important to take into consideration when building an app. Although, in the case of specific questions, you are welcome to start a chat with us!
