Having a mobile app can be considered as mandatory in today’s world of mobile devices, especially if anyone wishes to succeed in business today. While some firms can get by with social media page and a website, there are others who wish to expand their reach, growth and effectiveness beyond the conventional cyberspace.
For this reason it is well worth understanding the fact that investment proceeding in development of a robust mobile presence towards creating a larger audience is worth it. This here is a guide, which will help people understand the decisions helping determine the cost of your app.
Key factors affecting the cost of mobile app development
Here are some key factors which are known to affect the cost of mobile app development, of which we will discuss the needed ones:
- Design Concept.
- Platform Choice.
- Growth and Scale.
- External APIs.
- Post-launch support.
Design Concept
The first step in estimating an app’s cost is deciding what your app will do. This helps form the foundation on which the project is based. Professionals from an app development company in Ottawa explain that companies can choose the technologies needed to power the app along with the best suited platforms and the social networks it will easily be integrated with.
With a detailed design for your app and proper planning, the app can thrive in the app store and beyond.
Speaking in wider terms, apps can be easy and affordable, or complex and costlier. Of course, there are numerous app ideas and concepts that wander the lines present between these two. But most apps fit into either of the two.
Here are the features of simple apps:
- A handful of functions.
- APIs are few and specialized.
- Backend structure is either small or does not exist.
- Basic social integration.
- Custom security not present.
Here are the features of complicated apps
- A wide array of functions.
- They use specialized APIs.
- Their backend infrastructure is strong.
- It integrates well with larger services.
- Encryption or user authentication is easy.
Choice of Platform
Once companies and their marketing plus development teams have identified the purpose of the app, and the needed functions; then comes the time to see which platform it should be built on. This decision boils down to either developing native apps for Android or iOS, or making hybrid cross-platform apps for both.
Apps that are natively developed might use all aspects of the device’s capabilities and functions of the operating system. For iOS, this indicates the app is written in Swift. For Android devices native apps are written in either Java or Kotlin. Since these two platforms use different programming languages, it will cost more to release native apps on both.
A way to distribute an app to both platforms by curtailing development costs is using the hybrid model. Through hybrid app development, the app is written in a cross-platform language, such as React native, HTML 5, Xamarin or JavaScript. The trade-off with a hybrid app is that certain device or operating system features won’t be easy to implement, as seen in native app development.
If the app’s design requires native functionality, but the budget is set as per release on a single platform, then app development companies and their clientele should analyze the options and find the most suitable one, especially as per the needs of the target audience.
If companies understand the platform the target market uses, they can hence decide which native platform they should develop the app on.
Growth and Scale
Identifying the app’s growth potential or the project’s scale in the beginning is key to producing a high-quality product. Apps that perform just a single function are thus small-scale projects. Apps that perform only a single function are small scale projects. It can be easily stored on a user’s device. This project has a benefit, it keeps development costs low in comparison to a large application.
Yet, the core working of most apps is connecting users with one other, through dynamic data. As a company’s project tries to connect to more data or users, it grows in scale.
An app allowing people to post and share videos with each other will require remote server storage for each user and also a way to encode and decode the videos posted. Large-scale projects often use more designers, developers, and programmers to work to make them, thus raising the costs.
