25 August, 2013

How to determine approximate costs of Mobile App development

expert mobile app developers
Within a very small time span, smartphones and tablets have become an inseparable part of modern lifestyle. Nowadays, it is hard to find a person who is not using mobile devices for both personal and professional purposes. The rapidly growing popularity of mobile computing have encouraged many enterprises to launch customized mobile applications to stay connected with both existing customers and prospects. But each company look for inexpensive ways to build customized mobile apps that are effective in meeting the immediate and future trends in consumer demand.

A survey of 300 CIOs in the USA and UK conducted by Mobile Helix, recently highlighted how the high cost of mobile business app development is having a negative impact on companies in. According to the published report, “Eighty-one percent of the CIOs in the survey reported that the cost of developing or re-engineering enterprise apps for use on mobile devices is currently too high because the mobile market is so fragmented. Sixty-five percent said they believed that mobilization of legacy applications -- enabling touch and swipe capabilities, for example -- is simply too complex. And yet 87 percent of the CIOs reported that their employees want more access to enterprise data and applications on their mobile devices.

The survey results also emphasize on the growing demand for inexpensive custom mobile business app developers. If you are planning to launch an enterprise application, it is important to decide the budget for the development project. Similar to other projects, you have to thoroughly evaluate various components of the mobile app development cost. Along with identifying the expenditures that cannot be controlled, you also need to identify the costs that can be avoided. However, you must not compromise on the features, functionalities and performance of the app while exploring options to reduce the development cost.

Factors that Have Huge Impact on Custom Mobile App Development Cost

Features and Functionality: The cost of a development project is determined based in what you want the mobile app to do. If the application helps users in doing something simple like arranging their schedules or track appointments, it can be build without investing a lot of money. On the other hand, you have to invest a substantial amount of resources to build an app that is interactive and fully featured. However, the advanced and extended feature cannot guarantee that your business application will become hugely popular. So you must evaluate the features and functionality that are essential to make the app viral. Once you decide want you want the app to do, it will be easier to determine the development cost.

Target Devices: As the choice of mobile devices vary from one user to another, most enterprise launch different versions of the same app to target different mobile operating systems. As the code needs to be customized according to the requirements of individual mobile operating system, you have to invest a huge amount of funds to develop different versions of the same app. You can always decide the target audience by keeping in mind the usage of the application. For instance, if you are planning to develop a clinical mobile app, it will be used by the users through the iPhones provided by the hospital. So you can develop the app by targeting the iOS devices. However, it is not always easy to determine the target devices and users for a generic app. You must carry out some initial research to determine the relevant target audience for your business app.

Development Timeline: With companies launching and updating mobile applications on a regular basis, the development has become competitive. Each company wants to launch the app at the earliest to capture a large market share. While deciding the timeline for the mobile business application development project, you must remember that it will have a direct impact on the project cost. Normally, the app developers allow you to choose from a variety of plans. If you want the application to be launched within a shorter timeframe, the developer will charge you more. Further, you have to invest in testing the apps thoroughly, as the rush delivery can have a negative impact on your app’s performance.

Price of Coding: Most app developers in the USA charge at an hourly rate. So the amount of time required by the programmer to write the code will also affect the overall project cost. According to an article posted on AppMuse.com, “If you consider that the average app developer in the US charges around $100 per hour, the time required to code even a “simple” app quickly pushes the cost up. Could you go offshore and get a developer for a much lower hourly rate? Sure. The problem is, like most things in life, you get what you pay for.” The report also estimated that a company has to spend $3,000 to $8,000 to develop a small mobile app, whereas the cost of building a more complex app will range from $50,000 to $150,000.

Along with the cost of developing the custom mobile business app, you also need to consider the advertisement and promotional expenses. Despite coming with a set of innovative and advanced features, the mobile app must be promoted thoroughly to grab the attention of your existing customers and prospects. In such a scenario, choosing the perfect app development company from thousands of sprouting mobile app development companies becomes critical.

We provide mobile app development services. If you would have a need for mobile app development or would like to speak to one of our expert mobile app developers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.

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