Surprisingly, how much it costs to develop a business mobile app is one of the most common questions we field, and it’s one of the most difficult to answer. There’s just no way to quantify how much mobile app development costs in any kind of general way. The price of developing an app changes widely from one app to the next.
Suppose you asked a contractor how much it costs to build a house. There’s no way to answer that question without considering the variables. Every contractor will have to ask more questions, because there are so many factors that impact the price.
However, if you can answer a few questions on the most important factors, he could probably give you a close ballpark figure. In construction, important factors would be materials used in the construction, how many square feet, and so on. It’s the same with app development.
While we can’t give you a ballpark figure in this article, we can show you the major factors that will impact the total cost of developing your app.
Pricing Factors of Mobile App Development
We’ve found three major factors that have a major impact on how much it costs to build mobile apps. This is outside of the cost of the tools you decide to use, which will have pricing of their own. Tools also, outside of their cost, will indirectly impact the cost of your app as well. Just because one tool is cheaper, doesn’t mean it’ll lower the cost of building the app.
You’ll need to take everything into consideration to come to a close figure of what your app will cost in the end. However, these three variables will impact the cost more than all the others.
1. Development Costs
As we’ve written before, there are many different ways to develop a mobile app. Which way you choose will impact how long it takes to develop and how long it’ll be hung up in QA and troubleshooting stages as well. Let’s quickly look at each development method. You can read more in our Learning Center about the different methods of developing apps.
Using Native SDKs
The most expensive way to build an app would be to code it in the native SDK of each mobile platform. This is obviously a slow and expensive way to build an app. It requires duplicating, customizing, and then coding for each mobile platform you deploy the app to; like iOS or Android. Just paying developers to code the apps increases the cost of the app over the following alternatives.
Using Cross-Platform Tools
Using cross-platform tools saves on the cost of developing the app for every mobile OS. Using a cross-platform tool allows you to write the code once, and the tool customizes it for each device. While this saves money from the native SDK method, there’s still a hefty resources requirement for writing the code and testing/iterating for each platform.
However, one thing that will impact the cost of either of these methods is integration. If your app needs to integrate with backend systems, it will require more developers, customization of the backend application, and much more.
Using BaaS
One way to solve the integration problems if you’re using these first two methods, is to use a Backend-as-a-Service. We’ve written extensively on this subject in the BaaS for Citizen Developers blog post, as well as in the article about the easiest way to develop mobile apps.
Using Mobile App Development Platforms
A mobile app development platform will solve the issues of developing code for each device OS, and will also make integration a little easier. So out of these three options, an independent platform will be the cheapest. However, it’s still not the most cost effective because, like the previous methods, it still requires developers to make everything work, and to actually build the app. Moreover, most MADP’s use proprietary technologies, which makes it expensive to implement and maintain the platform.
There’s a fourth method for developing apps, which is cheaper and faster, and doesn’t require custom coding. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. First, let’s look at the next factor that will impact the price of developing your app.
2. Deployment and Management
In the enterprise world, building a single app and being done with it never happens. When you’re figuring out the price of building an enterprise app, the cost of management should be considered.
One mistake we see people make when figuring the cost of app development, is to only consider the cost of building the app. Many companies fail to take into account the costs involved in maintaining and managing the app. When you consider the actual cost of an app, 30-40% of what you will spend will be in app lifecycle management, or ALM.
Why does ALM matter?
There are a few reasons, but not the least of which is scalability. What happens when you need to add new features or upgrade the app for future devices?
Some companies opt to use multiple tools, such as cross-platform app development tools and BaaS, which typically requires additional, 3rd party ALM tools. The ALM tool itself will carry extra costs, but that’s not the most expensive problem of using a 3rd party tool.
The reason using a 3rd party tool can be so expensive is because, if it isn’t well-integrated, it won’t be able to tell how many apps are in the process of being built, and it doesn’t know how many are deployed. The man-hours required to effectively maintain apps using BaaS or 3rd party tools is a pretty heavy load.
This is one of the reasons we built appsFreedom to feature not only the development tools, but complete ALM capability as well. Overall, using an all-encompassing platform like appsFreedom reduces deployment cost, as well as, the continuing costs of management and maintenance.
3. Opportunity Cost
The third factor in app development cost has nothing to do with building it, or maintaining it. This factor is usually outside the mind of those doing pricing research. However, it’s no less important than the other two variables. It’s the opportunity cost – which could end up costing a company more than the other 2 factors combined.
Opportunity cost is essentially determined by how fast you can build and deploy an app. A large application can take months, sometimes even years, to build and deploy. If the app your company needs doesn’t deploy in time, it provides no value – you might as well not have it. When this occurs, the money invested in building the app is completely wasted.
For example, building a bridge is only one project for a construction company who probably has multiple projects in progress at the same time. In this case, they’ll need an app for only this specific bridge project. This means, if the app is delayed, the project is delayed. Getting the app late will be of absolutely no value.
Ultimately, delays like this have two different costs attached. First, the cost of building the app is wasted because it’s of no use, and efficiency and productivity the app was meant to provide is lost as well.
We’ve taken this cost into account as well. With the appsFreedom platform, we’ve made it possible to build full-featured enterprise apps in a matter of days thanks to a model-driven approach to app development.
How Much Will App Development Cost You?
Again, figuring out the total cost for developing an app is impossible to do without knowing every requirement, and taking into account your company’s resources. Maybe considering these 3 factors will give you an idea of what will affect the final cost of your app.
When trying to figure it all out, make sure to take into account all stages of the app lifecycle and figure that into the price of building the app. You may find out building an app is less expensive than maintaining the app.
If you are interested in how the appsFreedom platform can help you build apps faster and cheaper, we recommend you scheduling a free test drive. You’ll get to take our model-driven platform for a spin and see first-hand how it can empower your company to build apps faster, and cheaper, than the traditional development methods of the past.