How Much Does An App Cost: The True Cost of Mobile Application Development

With so many mobile apps available, and many of them free, it’s easy to take their value for granted—that is, if there is any perceived value at all. Do the apps make my life easier?  Are we smarter because of the information apps provide?  Can we make better decisions based on app information?  Can I take a better selfie?  These are the questions that drive app creation and dictate the cost to build and maintain.  The fabled stories of the teenager who made millions by creating an app over a weekend are rare and sensational.  The truth is app development requires planning, time, effort, and experience—not to mention money.  These establish a foundation for a successful mobile app.

An App for What?

Conduct your research on what you want your app to be. Does it augment a current business function or service?  Does it sell a product?  Who is the target audience?  How does it benefit the user?  How does the app drive business for the app owner or target vendor?  Has someone already created an identical app and crushed my dreams?  Answering these types of questions will help identify the initial requirements for the app.  Create scenarios involving how a user would interact with your app and what the desired results would be.  Prioritize the must-have features for the initial app release and think of a roadmap for future features.  This research and planning will help you understand the size and complexity of your app and the scope of the development effort.

Good Art Inspires; Good Design Motivates

Once you understand what your app will do and what it will be, your next task is decide on the developer or development team.  Modern mobile apps are a mix of creativity and technical complexity.  The app must be usable, accurate and responsive, but most of all, it must be engaging.  Technical development will ensure information is submitted, validated and processed as required.  Creative development will provide a simplistic and attractive interface.  The size and depth of your development team will depend on your budget, your available resources, your timetable, and your required app features.

Understand the mobile platforms your app should target based on your audience.  If for instance, your app requires iOS and Android, determine which is of higher priority.  As a general strategy, design your app for iOS first, then adapt the iOS design to other platforms as needed.  This stage of design will greatly impact how much your app development will cost and more importantly, the success of your app.

Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions

Understand what others think of your app.  Your development costs and overall efforts will be lost if you haven’t tested your concept, design and features before you release your first version.  Ask for feedback at all stages of the app development process including the initial inception and design.  Include resources that are outside your team that could fit your target audience.  Ask Mom and Dad.  Chances are, if they can’t figure out your app, others may have the same experience.  Make revisions to your design based on objections or suggestions.  This step can drastically shorten your development time and cost.

Cooking with Code

Now that you have all the ingredients for your app, the development process is next.  Development should be done using an iterative methodology such as AGILE.  This will allow your development team to demonstrate features created on a periodic basis and will allow you to make changes.  By design, the process will also allow you to track and plan your budget as features are completed.

Along with development, effective testing should be incorporated to verify app features.  This way, any bug fixes or enhancements can be easily incorporated with the iterative development cycle.

Living in The Cloud

Through the development process and once your app is ready for deployment, considerations must be made for where your app will reside.  Back-end systems that support app data or services can be powered by a cloud services provider such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Rackspace.  The finished and tested app would have to be submitted for review with the hosted app repository through Apple, Google or Microsoft.

The Bottom Line

As evidenced by the summarized process above, creating a mobile app can be an involved effort.  The vision and scope of the app will dictate the investment in thought, time, people and money.  The size and cost of resources and time can vary drastically based on app features and priorities.  A well designed, professional-grade, expertly developed app can range in cost from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars with added maintenance and support costs.

These costs, however, could be quickly overshadowed by the returns from the benefits of the app.  Realized and quantified improvements in sales and efficiency as a result of the app could sizably surpass all costs while helping build a must-have tool for present and future users.