How to Create a Budget for Your Mobile App Development Project

Last updated on December 9th, 2020 at 02:29 pm

Reading Time: 22 minutes

Everyone looks for comparatively high quality and low prices when hiring an app agency for developing a mobile application. At App Search, we know this very well when we are developing mobile applications for companies worldwide and therefore our applications are highly proficient and affordable.

Of course, the costs of the development of software vary greatly. However, let us see how much you could expect to pay for your fancy new iOS app or Android app and what the money really pays for when you work with an outsourcing company.

Factors that affect the cost of application development:

The costs of app development are not just about time and hourly rates for development. It depends on a number of factors, including the difficulties in finding talent, product complexity, and support costs after release.

App development team

An offshore or local development team may be basic or expanded, depending on the project requirements. Included in the development team are usually a software architect and market consultant, a design director (depending on the platform), a quality control expert, a project manager, and a UI / UX engineer.

Technical complexity

Millions of features can add to a project’s technical complexity. For example, we’ve built a platform with an advanced search filter-algorithm connected to real-time discounts for reservations at the last minute. When we built it, no filter integration was available and we could use it, so it was only possible to develop the algorithm ourselves. This resulted in additional development time and higher app costs.

Backend development

You could build a massive, complex framework for millions of users who share a vast amount of data, who would definitely want to sync and store data in the cloud across platforms. You will certainly need the background to handle enormous loads and work smoothly under any circumstances, which will take longer to design and create a complex app architecture. In addition, to create the backend of your app, you will need more programming languages, meaning a more diverse team of professionals will be required. 

Niche third-party integrations

There are many integrations from third parties, including niche-specific integrations that can speed up your development. However, integrations with third parties, especially niches, can provide documentation that is sometimes inconsistent and complicated. This can lead to a puzzle of how to integrate it into your app. Moreover, a fee for these services will probably be paid.

In-app purchases

Business owners tend to integrate as many payment options as possible to meet the needs of the audience as they can. And this is a nice way to go. You must be willing to pay extra for each payment option you use: purchases on-site, Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, Braintree, Apple Pay, etc. 

Hardware components

Tell us that you are developing an app to track vehicle drive hours accurately with the help of an electronic logging device (ELD). Or say that you want to construct a clever home system based on Things devices Internet. To do that, for software tests, you need to purchase or rent ELDs or IoT devices, and you also need to take this hardware’s cost into account. 

Supported browsers, devices, and operating systems

Ideally, an iOS app should be supported with both previous and new iPhone versions (e.g. iPhone X and XS) as well as the latest and previous iOS versions (e.g. iOS 10 and iOS 11).

The number of devices for Android apps is significantly higher. There are three factors that affect our decision to support Android devices:

• Market share size for every manufacturer of Android devices

• The app is developed for devices popular in the market

• The preferences of our customer

This also applies to Android versions of the operating system. We currently support Lollipop (Android 5) versions up to the latest for most of our projects. The exact versions to be supported are however specified by a customer.

More devices will obviously mean more time to adapt the app for different screen sizes, resolutions, and hardware requirements. It also means that you have spent more time testing. However, the costs for Android will essentially remain the same when you choose to support only the most popular Android devices.

Because the Android market is fragmented, building an Android app takes longer than building an iOS app, so it can cost more.

Custom designs and animations

Custom user interfaces are quite complicated to implement, so the cost of an interface built on standard components or without a design is higher than the costs of an interface.

You can use one of our animations when it comes to custom animations. Seriously. We have a variety of open-source projects that fit various applications. One of our animations, for instance, is intended to track activity apps. For a complete list of our open source projects, please consult our repository.

Post-release expenses

The average budget for app development is not only the programming costs. The money that goes into producing the product should also be taken into account. Like every company, an app requires updates, customer support, backend servicing, cloud hosting, and also legal assistance, not to mention marketing and promotion of applications that have a huge impact on the product’s success. We advise you to review our App Analytics and AARRR Guide.

You will have to pay for using any third-party tools in your app. For example, for all credit or debit card payments, you accept in the app, Stripe charges 2.9 percent + 30 cents. Take these costs into account when assessing your application support costs.

Unlike the app development team and the expensive app components, following release assistance, the original cost estimate does not contain but is provided by most tech providers as an additional service.

App Marketing 

It is important that the app is marketed well once it has been built. The app should however be marketed with a tasty budget because a lot depends on it. Although there is a lot to do and you need not recall, if you’ve got the right impact on technological blogs, social media, and of course, the press, a good app will scale well. Even if all this sounds awful, this Smashing Magazine article was classified for you.

If you read this article well, you could analyze the costs of PR and other forms of commercialization, which definitely vary from country to country.

It is time to monetize the app after you have checked these parameters. Get the app, complete your process of budgeting and give you an outstanding rundown of your ROI.

There are different ways of doing this and the following is listed :

1. Paid Premium Features– This method has been used to monetize many gaming apps and utility apps. This procedure requires the free offer of a product but a fee must be charged if premium features are to be unlocked. A paid app with paid features, which is not very popular, is another variant of this procedure.

2. One Time Payment– Like credit cards, the aim is to collect one-time payments for a fixed fee from users. Once a customer has set up the app, the only drawback is that the revenue stops completely. It also means that developers need to look for more users constantly.

3. In-app purchases– This was the most common way and, according to Statista, represents over $14 trillion in revenue.

4. Mobile Ads– This way of making it very popular for developers and marketers alike, can be said so much. You can select the one that best suits your need, and Hongkiat list 20 ad networks to monetize your app.

Budget creation depends on numerous factors, the most important of which are the above. While these factors help you to understand the different avenues in which these pennies must be shelled, it does not indicate the amount you should prepare. That’s why we have two wonderful tools for you to give you a better picture of what is on the stock.

What cost are you going to pay for creating an app worldwide?

On this planet, there are millions of great app developers, and you might wonder how they vary. Try to choose the industry experts who are aiming at your application because they probably have the experience and resources necessary to finish your project in the shortest possible period of time, if you are looking for app developers (or possibly freelancers). You can search for the company’s portfolio and review customer reviews to see if a development firm has the right background.

There are no guarantees that you get an app that can make a return on your investment with a costly company. Low-priced programmers can actually deliver excellent results. High prices are not always as per the high quality.

Let’s look at the Expense map

The average hourly rates of service providers are as follows:

• US and Canadian businesses charge between $50 and $250 / hour.

• Australian agencies offer $50 to $150 per hour in services.

• Developers in Western Europe and the United Kingdom charge $35 to $170 per hour.

• The companies from Eastern Europe settle for between $20 and $150 an hour.

• Indian rates are quite attractive between $10 and $80 per hour.

What is the expense of a mobile app?

The cost of developing a mobile app (or web app) most often depends on how long it will take for the project and the longer it takes to implement it, the more challenging the functionality. Let us, therefore, divide applications into three groups – simple, middle, and highly complex – and try to answer in a rough way how much an application costs. The costs are calculated on the basis of an average of $50 per hour.

• Basic frameworks do not need third-party API authentication and do not need the backend framework for any key functionality. The features of this type of apps include quick filters, standard UI modules, map makers, and a feed list. The creation of a basic framework takes roughly 1000 hours and starts at $30,000. 

• Customized user experience, real-time chat, payment feature, tablet and handset adaptation, API integration and a simple backend server may include applications that are intermediately complex. Building such an app takes about 1,800 hours, and the price begins at $50,000. An example is an event planner for this type of app.

• • Advanced features such as audio and video processing, real-time sync, custom animations, and third-party integration, and the complex back ends are very complicated, with multiple kinds of database interactions and more. The building of complex apps takes 2400 + hours and prices begin at 80,000 dollars. A complete social network application, a dating app, and a video streaming app could be part of this category.

How can we estimate app development cost?

We make a free rough estimate of your project before we send you a bill. Let’s clarify that a bit. We will use our three-stage framework to deliver real value to your business prior to telling you how many dollars or euros you need to develop your application. This is what it is like:

• Fill out our contact form first. Then you will make an appointment with our engagement manager. This call confirms the details in the form and asks about your company goals and processes, possible user roles and journeys, scalability plans for applications, and so on.

• Then we process and carry out basic business analysis, taking into account your product specifics, to deliver the solution that meets your objectives and expectations. We then value it.

• Afterward, our software planner will be presented with the findings of a market review and will provide comprehensive recommendations and advice on system architectures, workable use cases, and technological implementation concepts for the app.

• We have another meeting following that to provide our feedback, clarify, and make further demands. We also try to specify the scale of the project during this meeting so that we can prepare an optimum project proposal.

• At the last pre-plan meeting, we present a project package that typically includes work hours, a technical stack, an application approach to architecture, and a set of product characteristics for initial and subsequent releases.

• In conclusion, we negotiate an offer for your business to find the best possible solution.

Once the rough estimate is approved, we shall conduct a detailed estimate for each work area, make wireframes that will show you exactly what your iOS or Android application will look like, and produce project-related documentation.

We provide mobile and web applications with complete development services. That means, every product development service, including project management, is covered by an app price:

Requirements analysis + Design + Development + Testing & Verification

 
If iterated, the cycle repeats until your product really succeeds. The app does not end the mission when you start. It’s only the start. At App Search, our team of qualified developers is here to assist you right from estimating the cost of mobile app to development to maintenance and support.