A quick Google search will turn up dozens of pages going through mobile app prices, at least in English. So why write one more report on the same topic among others? Virtually all the pages that can be found are reports from large foreign companies on what their pricing is for developing an app. What makes this hilarious is that they repeatedly refer in their pricing and marketing to applications such as Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or Instagram. These biggest apps in the world just don’t happen to have much to do with even a very successful app. They are the biggest and most used products in the app world, with years of programming and design work. Also worth noting for English-language sources is that the apps blogged about are usually aimed at the US and UK markets, where competition in the app market is much fiercer and where software development is generally relatively inexpensive. Of course, when designing an application, it is good to remember that development is not necessarily the only cost item or even the largest cost item when planning an application release.
We offer a clear analogy to understand the mvp app development cost in the modern market. What will the cost depend on, and what can you expect?
It is difficult to give a direct price
Putting a fixed price tag on an application is more or less questionable. We ask the reader: what do you think a car costs? An impressive new Mercedes-Benz with optional extras. Price: tens of thousands. A little used and reliable car: ten thousand. A rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out, rusted out. The price ranges from the very top to the very bottom, and the most important thing is what you expect and demand from your car.
What does it cost?
While it’s difficult to give a direct price for the apps, we can give you an estimate of what the apps we develop will roughly cost. In practice, products can be made at three levels, and each level of development has its own goals. They always aim from the presentation of a vision to the production of a finished, polished product.
Prototype
The cheapest is the creation of a prototype of the application, which costs around €5,000. Prototyping means developing an application that performs the desired functions. This is done without any grinding or tweaking, but the software works. In practice, it is an extremely rough version that proves the software’s functionality and idea, but it is not ready for publication. So why would anyone want a prototype? It’s perfect for companies that want to try something new and showcase the product to investors, for example. An existing, working product is easier to get backers behind or to showcase a more advanced idea more effectively than rhetoric and ideas.
MVP
Next in the price range is MVP, a professional term that stands for a minimum viable product, which in practice is the lowest possible release-ready software. An application developed to this level costs around €8,000 to €15,000. It is a new product, just trying to enter the market, aimed at satisfying the needs of early customers. At the same time, the product is intended to collect feedback for product development. It is often cheaper for a company to collect feedback on a product than to fully develop a more feature-rich product in-house. Developing a more feature-rich product increases costs and risks, as assumptions about user needs can sometimes prove to be incorrect. At the same time, product development is a more effective way of meeting users’ wishes and needs.
The finished application
A fully developed application costs between €15 000 and €30 000. It includes full product development and testing. The end result is a finished and impressive application that is sure to meet your expectations. At the same time, you ensure that the application is user-friendly and avoid any additional costs that might be incurred by making changes. But what is involved in making a finished app?
What does the customer pay for?
Next, Gearheart.io consultants proposed to go through what goes into app development and where the money you pay actually goes.
- It’s important to remember that companies of different sizes and located in different countries charge different rates. However, the prices always add up to the same building blocks in every company.
- Contrary to what you might expect, smaller companies often offer their products at a lower price because they are able to operate more flexibly. The truth is also that small firms have to compete with large firms that already have a large customer base. Small businesses, on the other hand, have the advantage of being able to offer more personalized service and development.
- While many mobile apps can be downloaded for free, it is not a mistake to think that you can get an app for the same price. The old adage still holds true—you get what you expect for cheap. For the less knowledgeable, creating an app is just writing code, and the job is done. While coding is a big part of the job, it is not straightforward writing of lines of code. In addition, development also requires designing things like visual appearance and user-friendliness.
Platforms
- Today, there are only two major operating systems available: iOS and Android. In 2016, 81.7% of all phones sold were on Android and 17.9% on iOS. A few years ago, Windows was considered an up-and-comer, but it and other phones accounted for only 0.4% of the market.
- In practice, an app coded for these two platforms will reach almost all people, and there will be no other competitors in sight for the foreseeable future. However, iOS and Android use different coding languages, meaning that coding for both platforms is not quite as straightforward as would be desirable. Less surprisingly, writing code for the other requires a bit of wallet digging but is often worth it.
Native
- The most straightforward solution to coding is native. It means a native language for the platform that manages to provide all possible functionality.
- Unfortunately, this doesn’t translate directly to other platforms, and even if the code is similar to one, it takes almost as long to convert it to another platform as it does to start from scratch.
- In the past, there has been a need to consider which platform the application is being designed for. Many companies started by building an application for one platform and later, as it became more popular, compiled the application for other platforms.
