How Much Does It Cost To Make a Mobile Application?
It’s not a secret that for the majority of customers, the key question associated with mobile app development lies in its cost. Also, it’s common for all of us to be interested in getting a high-quality product at a reasonable price. Mobile application development cost may vary significantly depending on different factors. Most of them are listed below.
Factors Influencing The Cost
The main factors that need to be taken into account when creating a mobile app include:
- Product type
- Product complexity
- After-release support
- Hourly Rates
- Mobile app development company
- App development team
Let’s take a deeper view on each.
Product Type
The cost of a mobile application highly depends on its type. Basically you have two options: native or hybrid mobile app. While native apps are developed to work with one particular platform (iOS, Android, Windows phone, etc.), hybrid and cross-platform are created for all platforms altogether.
Usually, the price depends on the number of platforms and devices that needs to be supported. As a rule, the development for iOS is less expensive than for Android.
It’s because the number of iOS devices is much less than a vast variety of Android devices.
Although the main factor to consider is the client’s preferences, it is also important to determine devices/OS versions present on a particular market and define the market share for each Android device manufacturer and OS version. Still, quite often customers decide on supporting only the most popular Android devices and in such case, they can limit Android app development cost. But if a customer chooses to support some more devices, the price exceeds exponentially. Choosing additional models means more time spent on adapting the application for various screen sizes, resolutions, hardware specifications, and testing.
Product Complexity
The technical complexity of an application should be taken into account while estimating it’s development cost.
The more difficult is the functionality, the more time required to implement it and the more professionals are to be involved in the development process.
If we subdivide mobile apps by complexity, we’ll get the following types: simple, middle complexity and complex apps. The picture below illustrates the difference between these three:
Let’s take some average hourly rate on the development $50.
According to the picture above, a simple mobile application might cost from $20,000 to $30,000; a middle complexity app will vary from $30,000 to $40,000; prices on complex mobile applications will start from $50,000.
When it comes to the average time needed to develop an app, it starts from 400 hours. Still, note that development time also depends on the technical complexity of the desired app, number of talents working on it, number of devices and OS, custom designs and animations, and so on. Also, quite often, but not exclusively, Android app development takes 10-20% more time than application development for iOS, meaning that the cost of Android app often exceeds the cost of iOS one.
After-Release Support
One of the most important things to remember while planning app development budget is the application’s after-release support. Usually, it is not included into the initial estimate but makes a huge impact on the product’s success.
After-release support may include the following:
- Updates to the app;
- New features creation;
- Internalization;
- Extend to the next platform;
- Backend servers maintenance;
- Cloud hosting;
- Legal support;
- Marketing and promotion;
- etc.
Hourly Rates
The price of an app might vary depending on the place where it is developed.
In some countries the prices on the development are sky-high (US, Canada) whereas some others provide quite reasonable prices.
So, depending on the region, hourly rates vary from $10 to $250, as shown in the picture:
Considering such difference in hourly rates, there is no wonder many US and Canadian customers are looking for outsourcing software development providers. Nevertheless, there are also those who wrongly believe that the higher the price — the better is the quality. In fact, middle and lower-priced mobile app developers are often known for providing excellent results. So let’s move on and look at the mobile app development companies.
Choosing a vendor
Meanwhile, the size of the vendor company might depend on the price of the development.
As a rule, the larger is the company — the higher is the price.
As seen, the price of mobile application development offered by the freelancers is much lower than the price offered by mid-sized providers.
App Development Team
The size of the development team also affects the price of the app. The larger the project and the higher the requirements — the more programmers should be involved in the development process, and, as a result, the higher is the overall price. Conditionally, we can subdivide teams into basic and extended.
A basic team is generally made up of the following professionals:
- Project Manager;
- UI/UX Designer;
- Android/iOS App Developers (two or more);
- QA Engineer;
- Back-End Developer (if needed).
An extended team generally includes all the players of a basic team plus:
- Admin Panel Designer;
- Front-End Developer;
- DevOps;
- Both iOS and Android Developers;
- Marketing Specialists.
Need a mobile app estimation?
At SCAND we implement an individual approach to each customer. Mainly because the project requirements differ from customer to customer.
Some might have just an idea or a brief project description, while others – comprehensive information on the project (documentation, design, mockups, wireframes).
In the first case, you might get only a rough project estimate, in the second – a detailed cost breakdown. The more information we get – the more detailed will be the estimate.
Keep in mind that although price estimation is the domain of the contractor, your involvement in the process — provision of relevant information, clear requirements and mission statement — have a strong impact on both its accurateness and the overall productiveness of your