How to Calculate the Price of a Mobile App?

A person planning to invest time and money in building a mobile app often asks about the cost of developing an app. But is it possible to evaluate the future price of a mobile application? 

Well, the truth is- it is really difficult to calculate the development price of a mobile app. It is all because of the insufficient knowledge of the number of features to be added, the budget and the software that will help in the development process. 

Although, you have to research and pick out some points to consider for developing a mobile app for your business. The comprehensive research you will conduct will eventually help you calculate a mobile app’s price. The blog will provide a few ways to calculate the cost quickly or efficiently. 

Factors that define the development price of a mobile app

As said, projecting the final price of the application given for development is a complex task.  But if you keep some important factors in your price calculation list, you can determine the cost according to some crucial factors. It includes the research, set of features, human resources, time, testing, the platform you use etc. Now let’s discuss them one by one, in brief: 

1. Research

It is one of the first and foremost important ideas to create an app. The functionality and success of your application rely on the amount of research you have performed before executing a plan. 

Therefore, it is the first sector where you will need to invest cautiously. Good research doesn’t imply spending heavy costs. It depends upon the data collection methods and type of research you conduct. 

The secondary source of data collection is cheaper than the primary sources. However, the primary source is more reliable than the secondary. The choice of sources will completely depend upon your preferences. 

You can also directly communicate with the users, which provides you with a good estimation of the application’s needs. This helps you in improving the product quality. But to collect the information, you will have to determine the consumer segment to get a reasonable cost for the secondary data. 

2. Human resource 

Human resources are one of the significant factors that help you calculate the price of a mobile app. Skilled labours create a huge impact on app development. Although the cost more price than inexperienced ones, they provide guarantee and quality for your app. 

Next, you need to decide whether you want to outsource your project to a mobile app development company or go for in-house developers. The cost for both these components is different. As per data, the services cost of the app development company is expensive, i.e., $3,000-$3,00,000 per project. At the same time, the cost to hire in-house developers is reasonable, i.e., $59 per hour. 

It will help if you opt for a mixed team of all these resources individually. A team of a few fresh developers to suggest innovative ideas and make extra efforts, and a team of experienced developers to gain their attention and skills for the details. It will help you calculate and maintain the price of the mobile application before working with the team. 

3. Features

Remember that the overall price of the mobile app depends upon the set of features you add to it. It includes push notifications, user login, offline mode, media content, geo-location, instant messaging, and in-app purchasing. 

Every new feature you will include in the application will reflect its price on the bill of the app development. Therefore, one should ensure that the feature they are choosing to add is per the target audience’s expectations and the type of application. 

4. Regular maintenance and update 

Whenever you observe that the latest version of an existing application is available in the market, you should also update the application the quicker as you can. Often these modifications are so small that one wonders what’s been changed in the application. 

Often the updates which seem to be small may be significant for others. The developer’s team constantly works to deliver the best technology to the users they can ever have. It is an important aspect that allows an application to maintain its value in the industry. The estimated maintenance cost of such projects maybe $3000/month. 

It is the lowest estimated amount. The maintenance cost and the project size go hand in hand. It depends on the organization and how they update their applications. Out of 1000 existing applications, 22% of apps update once a week on the Google play store, delivering better results to the users. 

5. Testing

Testing is one of the main elements in calculating the app development costTherefore, it is essential to perform extensive testing before releasing the application. Although, the initial testing is not the last. 

Multiple testing can be performed when one fails to achieve the desired success rate. Furthermore, it would help if you also made more changes based on feedback from the users. 

This will add more cost to your overall budget. However, it is difficult to ignore these expenses as it directly affects the success ratio of the application. 

6. Platforms

Mobile platforms and devices determining the platforms for which you will develop the application are essential to calculating the app development cost. The primary platforms that are present in the industry include Android, iOS, Windows and Blackberry. In addition, each of these platforms comprises varied integration sets. 

Although different platforms have different price ranges for creating mobile applications, the Android platform consists of 3billion+ different screens and devices. Therefore, it creates difficulty to make sure whether the application is functioning well or not on all the devices. Also, it requires various additional efforts to avail the app on all devices. 

On the other hand, the iOS platform only requires assisting a handful of devices. Therefore, Android applications are believed to be more expensive applications for development. 

7. Time

Time is another important factor that affects the cost of app development. The larger and complex an application will be, the more time it will consume in the development process. As additional time spent in the process requires additional resources, it directly adds to the cost and expenses of the app. This helps you to estimate the price of the mobile app. 

8. Native apps or hybrid apps

Native apps are those applications that build for any specific platform and can be downloaded through Google Play Store or App Store. At the same time, hybrid apps are those applications that are not built for a specific platform. 

It is believed that Native applications are costlier but faster than hybrid applications. Therefore, both applications can have a significant impact on the overall price of the app development process. 

Conclusion

Henceforth, these are the factors that will help you calculate the overall price of a mobile application. However, these are not definite factors but support you in estimating the cost of developing an application. There can be many different factors that can influence the price of an application. However, the time and the people associated with your project are the primary factors on which the overall cost depends. 

Author Bio

Saurabh Sharma is a Digital Marketing Executive at Arka Softwares, a leading mobile app & web development company. He has 2 years of experience in the Information Technology industry. He spends his time reading about new trends in Digital Marketing and the latest app development technologies.

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