The Cost of Custom App Development for Businesses

The demand for custom mobile apps rises with each day. This tendency resulted from global digitalization, especially during the quarantine. Businesses all over the world need software that would fit their particular requirements, be it a marketplace, CRM, or any other type of program.

But how much does it cost to make an app? Experienced custom mobile application development services, Develux in particular, say that it’s hard to give a simple answer to this question. There are just too many factors that affect the price. But there are still some guidelines that can give you at least a rough estimate of what it will cost.

Size

Obviously, the first and the most important point in this calculation is the size of an application. It depends on how many things you want to include in it, how large your database is, how many workers you have, and so on. It has a big impact on the complexity and on the time needed for development.

For example, a simple small-sized application can cost from 45000$ to 95000$. A bigger and harder-to-program, that includes some additional features will require from 70000$ to 15000)$. The price of the most complex and the largest application with all the innovative technologies ranges from 170000$ to 240000$.

Complexity

Now, to the hardships of the development process itself. Here is where it gets even more complicated, as the business needs to decide which features and technologies to use for their app. Also, don’t forget there are such things as stability and room for future updates and improvements.

Back-end

The back-end includes all the coding processes. It’s basically a foundation for the program that’s built depending on your answers to these questions:

• Which programming language to use?
• What’s the main platform? 
• Does it need multi-platform support?
• Should it use cloud services?
• What’s the main purpose of the app?

As you could already guess, the more you want to include in the software, the higher the price is.

Front-end

As the name suggests, the front-end is the client-side of an app. It’s what the users will see, how smoothly it will work, and the interface in general. A premade layout with a simple design will always be cheaper than a custom-made one that was designed by specialists directly for your program.

And don’t forget about the animations. “What animations?”, you may ask? Well, the ones that nobody pays attention to – swiping the page, tapping on a button, scrolling, and so on. And again, the premade ones are always the cheapest, while complex animations will cost you a penny.

Integrations

A company that’s ordering software needs to determine whether there need to be third-party integrations. “Why would they need to be present if the application is custom-built for me?” Well, if it’s the marketplace, you’d need the payment system, PayPal, for example. That means it needs to be integrated into the structure of a program.

If your app is just a basic CRM, you would prefer to have a cloud service. And trust me, it’s always cheaper and easier to integrate an already existing cloud synchronization software than developing a custom one. All in all, integrations always make development simpler. Or in case a business needs everything to be made exclusively for them, the price can be raised very dramatically.

Support

This point includes not only cross-platform support but also the support of some modern features, interactions with other software and hardware.

First things first, it’s needed to choose a main operating system. For example, making a decent iPhone application requires the support of the current and the 2 previous versions of iOS. If you’re aiming to support even older versions, it will obviously increase the price.

And things are even worse for Android. Because as we all know, there are lots of different phone manufacturers that use this OS. And the more of them an app needs to support… Well, you know what it means.

source: https://unsplash.com/photos/q8U1YgBaRQk

Location

Now, consider what country you want to hire developers from. Because there’s a pretty big difference between services from the US, India, and Ukraine, for example.

• Devs from the US charge 100$-$150/hour
• Devs from India charge 20$-35$/hour
• Devs from Ukraine charge 30$-50$/hour

That means you can save a few times more if choosing a region correctly. And don’t get the wrong impression that Indian or Ukrainian programmers don’t know how to develop an app of top quality. These average payments usually are still much higher than the average payment in their countries. That ensures the devs are motivated to provide you with only the best product.

However, when choosing the region it’s also important to keep in mind the potential complications. Differences in time zones, languages, and such basic things can sometimes affect the performance. But they’re usually minor issues and don’t impact the final quality.

Future of the app

Don’t forget that custom-built software (just like any other) will always require “servicing”. A company may find out that they need more features, or maybe the present ones are excessive. Some issues will need to be solved, and some will need to have a more precise “tuning”.

So, it’s best to think about future changes and improvements from the beginning. Because it’s much easier to solve issues and add new things to a software that was built with this thought in mind, than adding anything to an application that has no room for improvements. If the developers suggest leaving a lot of “open ends” that can connect with future updates, then it’s better to do so. 

Final Words

Custom apps development is by no means simple. That’s why it depends on so many factors to give customers even a very rough estimate of the price. Just try to make all the demands as clear and precise as possible. It will always improve the interaction with development service and provide you with a better product as a result. And don’t forget to plan everything ahead.