How much does it cost to build an Android app?

“How much does it cost to build an app?” It has become a trend. It’s good to talk about app development costs and suggest ways to optimize your app development budget. The mobile app economy is booming. We’ve already seen both the App Store and Google Play hit their 10th anniversary, and their growth shows no signs of stopping. Both app stores are growing with over a thousand apps per day, and their future looks much brighter.

MageSpider : App Development Cost 2022

Around cost ios & Android App Development : $3000 To $16500

Email : info@magespider.com

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“Sensor Tower is the largest global consumer spend $270 billion by 2025"

The company continues to report increased spending on regular apps, not games. All this data shouts. Now is the time to invest in mobile apps. Before you can take advantage of this lucrative app marketplace, all you need to do is get your mobile app budget right.

App Development Budget

The app development process consists of several distinct phases. Each phase will take a piece of your app development budget. So, knowing the best practices for budget allocation per each app development stage will help you answer: “How much does it cost to create an app?”

Cost of Business Analysis in App Development Budget

Your brilliant app idea needs verification, market analysis, and requirements documentation. An experienced mobile development team will ask you a myriad of questions to prepare an accurate app development quote.

A good rule of thumb is to allocate at least 10% of the whole app development budget to the business analysis phase.

Business analysts will participate in all phases of the app development project. Their job is to make sure that what you request:

Is achievable and clear to coders

Follows Apple’s and Google’s best practices

Relies on the most effective technology stack

Business analysis budget share in mobile app development cost: $1,200 to $11,000.

Advice on how to trim the business analysis budget:

Find other apps with the exact features that you want to replicate in your app. Clarify how this functionality will differ in your app.

Provide UML diagrams for the development team.

Discover best practices for business analysis on mobile apps projects.

2. Cost of Design and Clickable Prototype in App Development Budget

As soon as the requirements document is ready, it is high time to start on the user interface. Flawless UI and UX are a must in today’s apps. So, you should be ready to cash out for the design.

A lot will depend on whether you already have a brand book, but usually, design makes up 10–15% of the total app cost. Make sure you get a clickable prototype as a part of the deal.

A click-thru prototype lets you check out the UX before the most expensive phase – app coding – starts. Some of the most popular tools for creating click-thru prototypes are:

InVision

Adobe XD

Marvel

Proto io

Design budget in app development cost: $2,500 to $10,000.

Advice on how to trim the app design budget:

Grab some screenshots from the apps you like and explain why you selected them;

Use stock UI elements provided by Apple and Google;

Search for ready UI kits on the websites like ui8 and freebiesbug. Check out this collection of free UI kits for iOS and Android.

3. Cost of App Coding per se

The app coding costs more than all other app development phases. Imagine thoughtful developers sitting in front of shiny iMacs writing strings of code. This image is only a part of the big picture.

To make the image more real add daily stand-ups with the development team members. App development is a collaborative process: even a small app will need two or three team members.

App architecture & functionality development cost: $2,000 to $60,000.

Advice to trim the app coding budget:

Cross-platform development frameworks like Xamarin or Ionic can save up to thirty percent of the budget. The app must be simple for you to take advantage of these app development frameworks.

Select your team or developer with care. For example, if you switch to an agency after working with a freelancer, remember that this will be a fresh start.

Choose a development team that offers an agile app development approach with weekly deliveries.

Use off-the-shelf mobile SDKs for some standard functionality, for instance:

Chat SDK for integrating a chat module

Twilio for voice & video chatting or SMS verification

Pushwoosh for push notifications

Research what technologies your competitors use with App Explorer, SensorTower, or MightySignal.

Never buy off-the-shelf app code templates if their developer doesn’t offer customization.

Build an MVP version of the app with an online app building tool – there’s plenty of those – to test the idea.

Don’t support older mobile OS versions, unless you are 100% sure you need to cover them.

Make sure the requirements fully describe your app’s functionality. After coding begins, any new feature requests can make a dent in your app development budget.

4. Cost of Project Management in App Development Budget

Project management is an essential part of the mobile app development process. Usually, a project manager controls the development process from start to finish. These efforts take up to 10–15% of the total app budget.

Project management budget in app development cost: $1,200 to $12,000.

Advice to trim the project management budget:

You should never trim the project management budget, period. A project manager can make or break your project, but there must be a project manager on your project.

Get rid of a project manager that does not respond within 10–24 hours. In most cases, this PM is not worth the money.

5. App Cost thru Lens of Development Phases

Let’s calculate the software development cost of an abstract app based on the development phases that I’ve just described.

$12,250 will be the minimal cost of our abstract mobile app.

Yet, your mileage will vary depending on the features that your iPhone or Android app will have. The app cost can go as high as $93,000 on the high end.

Cost of Making an App Based on Feature Set : Mobile apps have come quite a way from being accessories or marketing stunts in their early days. Remember I’m Rich app at $999,99 from the App Store when it opened? Now we have such feature-rich apps as Slack, Gmail, Uber, YouTube, you name it. These apps come with lots of features. The more functionality you plan for an app, the steeper becomes the cost of building the app. Let’s go through a list of features that will affect your app development budget to help you clear up “How much does it cost to develop an app?”