The Costs of Developing An App in 2021

There are apps that cover almost every aspect of our lives from on-demand services, to fitness apps that help us track health and fitness achievements. In 2017, mobile app consumer spending in the US reached no less than 17.5 billion U.S. dollars. And in the coming 2022, American users are projected to spend over 34 billion U.S. dollars on mobile apps via app stores.

So, it’s no surprise that businesses want to join this smartphone-crazed era and directly communicate with the customer via applications.

Investing in an app may seem like a good idea, but what are the exact costs of building an application? That is the top-one question in our chart of the most frequently asked questions. In a word, prices can vary from $3,000-$300,000. Quite a big cleft, isn’t it? Let’s find out what comprises the development cost and how you can guesstimate the investment expenses.

Cost evaluation for your app: Step-by-step

When we’re talking about app creation, the old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ applies to that as well. Therefore, there isn’t a fixed price for building an application. To get at least a rough estimate, you have to define your business logic, core functionality,  location, and other important factors.

You can find out more about the numbers in our How Much Does It Cost To Make An App article.

Right now, let us tell you about the five essential steps that will help you estimate your future mobile app’s costs.

Get a free quote

To estimate an initial ballpark price, contact a development company and tell about your business objectives and specific needs.

Choose a mobile platform/mobile platforms

The market share ratios of iOS and Android are almost equal, hence a “run-once-run-everywhere” solution might seem like the most cost-effective option. But when you look into the question, you’ll see that the catch is hidden in the details.

Define the app functionality

To evolve your idea into a successful app, mobile engineers and BAs need a set of specific app features.

Select the main features within an MVP to avoid overspending

You don’t need to spend your budget dollars on all features at once to test your idea. At this stage, mobile developers choose only the essential functionality to check your hypothesis using an MVP.

Ask for an estimate of the app’s main features

After presenting the core functionality, the development team should provide you with an accurate price of your must-have features.

Cost evaluation for your app: core features

You don’t need a Mathematics degree to crack a simple formula – more features equal more resources. That is the main reason we’ve collected a set of core app features and dumped them up in a succinct table to help you navigate the terrain and spare some budget dollars.

But the expenses do not end there. Among other things, you should include other development costs such as back-end architecture, design, testing, and others. The total number of hours for these processes equals 500+ hours.

To sum it up, it will cost you around $15-40k to build a simple application with a standard set of features. But there is one trick that can help you save a pretty penny and validate your business idea. Yes, you guessed it right – prioritizing features to implement into your mobile app MVP. We’ll share more details further in the article.

But before that, let’s find out how app complexity can ramp up or truncate the app development costs.

App complexity to influence the costs

To vividly demonstrate how development costs can go up and down based on the app complexity, we grouped mobile apps into three categories and included the expected time in hours.

Also, we cannot skip such an important aspect as the hourly developer rate. Logically, it plays a huge role in cost estimation. Developer hourly remuneration varies greatly based on the location.

The average developer rates vary across the globe depending on the location, seniority level, technology stack, and other factors. Thus, the US is among the most high-paying tech hubs, whereas Eastern European mobile app developers are well known for modest charges and quality work. The price-value ratio is completely up to you.

How to plan a Minimum Viable Product For Your App

Step 1. Make a product vision statement

The Product vision refers to the product goal, the objective with which the Product is being made, and what kind of users it is going to cater to. Also, the Product vision should include long-term success metrics and a future product state. Vision statements are ambitious and articulate vividly where the product aims to go and what it aspires to score in the long term. Later on, this statement will serve as a guide to all stakeholders.

Step 2. Feature prioritization

To hand-pick your MVP features, you need to address the following questions:

• Who is my target audience?
• What are their biggest issues?
• How will my product solve these issues?
• What are the killer features to cure these issues?

There are some time-proven methodologies that can help you hand-pick the most effective features for your project.

The first approach goes under the name of the MoSCoW method. The abbreviation stands for – Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have. This popular prioritization technique allows key stakeholders to understand the significance of each feature by grouping it into four categories.

• Must have – these are the most vital things your project cannot function without.
• Should have – these are still important features, but not as essential as the first category.
• Could have – the nice to have functionality that will not be implemented into your MVP.
• Won’t have – features of little to no values.

The Kano Model is another method traditionally used to categorize customer preferences into 5 categories and demonstrate how they relate to customer satisfaction.

You can perform a qualitative analysis of your app’s features by grouping them into particular categories – basic, performance, attractive, unimportant, and undesired features.

Step 3. Post-launch activities for your MVP

At this stage, you and your dev team will compile a list of possible features to add next. Based on your KPIs and user feedback, you can fine-tune the functionality to better address the users’ needs.

Wrap Up

As you see, you won’t find a clear-cut answer or cut-and-dried formula for guestimating the development costs.. The main reason for that is simple – all applications are geared towards different business objectives and particular users. Also, different mobile apps benefit from particular third-party integration and feature unique functionality.

About the Author: Tatsiana Isakova

Author’s bio: Tatsiana Isakova is a Belarus-based content writer who authors in-depth industry insights, opinion pieces as well as reviews, and blog posts at The App Solutions. Tatsiana loves to stay au courant with tech trends which helps pack her copies with value and relevance. 

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