How much does an App cost to develop?

Let’s agree on something here every app is unique in its features, functionality, and content. As such, there is no pricing guide to an app. To give you a perspective on the cost of developing an app, let's take this simple example of constructing a house.

If you were to ask a builder, I want a house with 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a swimming pool. How much would that cost? Not a single builder will be able to answer that questions without asking you questions such as house size, pool size, rooms size, and etc…

Let’s find out now what is the required information to be able to estimate the price of a mobile application.

1- Which platform are you choosing?

First of all, it's important to decide on which platforms your app will target, compatibility of the app past, present, and future devices with their different screen size and specification. Currently in the market iOS and Android hold 96% of mobile usage, while Android holds globally 80-90% market share, in the USA, on the other hand, the ratio is relatively even between both platforms Apple & Android.

Depending on your demography, initial cost, and the targeted audience you need to think if you will start your app on both platforms or just choose one platform. To clear it up a little more if your targeted audience are US based, able to subscribe to a premium service, and you are on a budget, then we suggest you choose Apple as your initial platform to launch your app on since Apple’s devices are normally very expensive and as such, are owned by a wealthier demographic while holding 50% of the targeted users. If you still haven’t decided on the platform you want to use, contact us at EuoposIT and you will

2- What kind of data storage and integration?

Depending on the functionality of the app you require data storage plays a great factor when it comes to estimating the cost of an app. Let’s take an example if your app requires the user to send an image from his phone to your server this requires a level of compression. If your app has a built-in compression, this will add to the cost but it will save you money in the long run.

Data integration includes discovering, monitoring, transforming and delivering data from various sources to create valuable information to utilize in your app. For example, consider Uber app, they collect data from users their location and final destination, then traffic information from the map and load this data into their database to search for a driver to take this passenger to his destination while it had already calculated the total fare from the information they collected earlier.

Third-party data integration as well should be factored into consideration nowadays there are several third-party sources to integrate data from like social media (Facebook, Twitter, and etc..), perhaps from another app, else it can be open source data which can be found on the web.

In conclusion, there is no set way to integrate data, every data source is treated differently which can take time to successfully integrate into your app especially if you don’t have an API ( Application Programming Interface) setup for you from the source.

3- User management

User management reflects on the development process based on the type of user database you want to build. For example, if you want to capture from the users their details like email, address, and password this will have an effect on the cost, on the other hand, you can simply let your users login to your app through Facebook which requires fewer development hours translating to less money spent. Actually, a recent research shows that enabling users to login to your app through social media increases the chances of your app becoming successful by 70%.

The drawback from allowing users to login using social media is when you start to monetize on your app, such database which you could have collected would become very useful at the time. If you have your idea set, consult with one of our business development representatives and they would be happy to give you an advice on the type of database to use.  

4- Security

Security now is very important for the users of your app, so if your app intakes from the users data definitely you will need encryption into the app. The level of encryption here will be the playing factor for the cost of development.

5- Customer analysis

Analysis is very important as it will give you a fundamental knowledge of how users are interacting with your app. Knowing the number of users who downloaded or purchased your app is good but not enough, You need more data so on the long run you have a clear idea on how your users are behaving in the app.

Let’s say you want to create an app that allows users to search a database of real estate listings, in such app you would need to analysis which tools your users are using to search the listings? what they click on when they see a post they like? Do they prefer image search or location based search? Ect..

The cost factor here will depend on the level of events you want to record.

6- Scalability

Depending on the app function and your budget this topic should be discussed with our team to assess what will happen when your app gains popularity. Since the backend of the app can be such a basic one or more complex to include multiple databases and such.

Such can be adjusted with our team to see what best fits your requirements, budget, and timeline.

7- App/User management portal

Depending on your app this section can be irrelevant, in short, the portal would allow you to manage your app users. So if you think a user management system is required for your app this topic then should be discussed with one of our representatives.