“How much” must be one of the first questions a business asks itself when considering application (app) development.
Estimating an app development cost is the foundation of any app development budget.
Initially, a business will attempt to answer these two questions next:
- How much does it cost to create an app for my business by outsourcing?
- How much is this compared to the cost of developing in-house?
Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. Let’s look at both app development costs to clarify each type of app development cost.
Application development companies accumulate experience while developing applications. They learn from errors in application projects, so working with such a team would help protect a business from repeating the same mistakes.
Developing the application in-house could reduce the development cost, at least for a minimal viable product (MVP). However, debugging, caused by a lack of experience, can increase the price more than a development company over time.
As much as we would like the exact app cost, there can only be an estimate.
Why?
Each development process involves many factors and features that influence the final cost.
Below are typical benchmark costs for an app development project:
- Simple app development – £30,000 to £45,000
- Medium complexity app development – £45,000 to £90,000
- Highly complex app development – £90,000+
Hiring a full-stack experienced application developer costs from £50,000 /year.
Please note these numbers are just approximations.
They provided a general feeling of the size of the app development budget based on the application’s complexity.
These numbers don’t include ongoing hosting costs, maintenance, and future application updates (part of any application life cycle).
They all vary based on the application MVP, usage, and significance of any update.
Application Development Cost Stages
Having an order-of-magnitude cost for each stage allows businesses to allocate capital properly for the whole app development project cycle.
The plan, team, and roadmap stages will be the least expensive. However, once the application is deployed, it will significantly impact the project’s outfall and operational costs.
- Plan
- Team
- Roadmap
- Design
- Develop
- Test
- Deploy
- Maintenance
- Iterate
See Management of Software Development for information on each stage.
Application Development Cost Calculator
The application sector is highly competitive, with millions of applications on the web.
It is essential to consider how to reach your users and meet your business objectives. Cada Global understands businesses are keen to calculate the app development cost upfront. Multiple online calculators have been developed, and we’ll highlight our own.
The calculator guides you through various questions to estimate the app development cost. As you make choices, you’ll receive development estimates in GBP.
The calculator estimates the cost of a web application, giving a cost estimate for each step of the price calculation process.
The calculator walks you through the questions, asking if a Functional Design Specification (FDS) can provide an application development cost.
Cost of Hiring Developer(s)
If a business hires an application developer(s), How much will it cost?
According to Talent data, to employ qualified and experienced full-stack application developer(s), businesses need to pay a salary starting from £50,000 / year per developer.
Maintenance
As with all software, the application has a hosting, monitoring, engagement, marketing, updates, and license maintenance component.
The industry average accepted cost to maintain software is roughly 15-20% / year of its MVP development cost.
Hosting
The decisive factor in the application backend data hosting cost calculation is the kind of data the app deals with – text or media, such as photo, video, or audio. A media-rich application would require a higher CPU webserver with more RAM and disk space.
Based on these factors, application hosting may start at between £30 to £300 / month. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are leading hosting solutions.
Monitoring
Application monitoring is essential for success. As each application has a unique audience and a vastly variable number of users, developing a monitoring estimate for an application is not feasible.
Once you contact the hosting companies above, ensure you get an acceptable range of application monitoring prices.
Marketing
Application marketing costs include activities to engage the application user base and consist of multiple cost components:
- Pre-launch
- Market research
- Beta testing
- PR outreach
- Influencer marketing
- Viral marketing
- App promotion assets
- App launch
- Post-launch
- User actions from feedback
Updates
Every single application ever released subsequent updates!
Developing the perfect application with the first version of the other is not feasible – subsequent versions are an excellent tool for continuous user engagement. The time and cost of developing an update will vary depending on an app’s complexity.
Licenses
An application may incorporate one or more technologies or integrations for which the business needs to pay a license(s).
In that case, it may significantly increase overall application development and maintenance costs.
Conclusion
When businesses estimate the development cost of an application, they need to factor in the development team and the application’s complexity. Both factors significantly impact the overall cost.
As the infrastructure used is the most significant contributor to an application’s maintenance cost, businesses must reduce their data storage, scalability, and third-party API integration costs.