So, how much does it really cost to make
an app? I think that question has been asked like five gazillion times, right? And I think anybody who's gonna ask me that question again I'm just gonna refer
to this video. So, in this video, I'm gonna break down the exact strategy to calculate the cost of your app And launch it in the most cost-effective way. So stick around till the end of this video. and hey if you're just meeting my
name is Arsh Singh. I'm a growth strategist for entrepreneurs And I help you launch
and scale your business using mobile apps. If you're watching this on youtube
and not yet subscribed consider subscribing it and hit the bell icon. So that you get notified whenever a new video comes out. And if you're watching this elsewhere
consider following or liking my page. Alright so, let's actually go to a
whiteboard and break it down for you so that you get the maximum value out of
this video. Okay, so let's dive into this right now. And I get this question all the time that is Arsh, how much does it cost to create an app? And I'll tell you right off the bat. There is no magic number instead
there are multiple factors at play to determine the cost of an app. Entrepreneurs have spent anywhere from five thousand to five hundred thousand in order to
build an app that they want. But don't worry not all apps are created equal. Some are simple costing less and others are more complex. So how do companies
calculate the cost of an app? Here is the typical way used by app dev companies to calculate how much your app is going to cost. And let's take a look at that right
now. So the way they do it is by calculating and please do not mind the...
It's been a while since I've actually written something anyway so They look at the cost and they look at the hourly effort and multiply that with the hourly
cost so this is the formula that is typically used by most app dev agencies. One is that how many hours are they going to be spending on that specific
feature in order to complete it And then multiply that with their hourly cost. Let's take an example to break this down even further. Let's think that you have
an app which has five core features in it all right so let's say feature one
two three four and five. You know this is what the app dev companies would think of is that, how much time, how many hours would they be spending on each feature So let's say that it's gonna take 50
hours to do the first feature and it's gonna take 40 hours for the second one
70 hours for this hundred hours to do the fourth feature. Let's
consider this is a complex one and let's say 80 hours to do the fifth feature. So that's roughly around let's say 340 Yeah. Let me write that a little
better so that's roughly around oh..that's not even better anyway so you get an idea right so it's 340. Now if we take two different companies and two kinds of hourly rates into account then this is
how much your app would cost to make Let's take a look. So the company one is
gonna be charging let's say $50 an hour And the company two is gonna be
charging 120 dollars an hour. Now considering that it's gonna take 340
hours for your app to be built Let's take a quick look at that.
So, 340 into 50 it would cost you $17000 if you go
with the company number one considering that their hourly rate is 50 but not
saying that cheaper is always the best option but we're just taking that as an
example. Let's take a look at the company number two $40800 so that's the company number one is gonna charge you seventeen
thousand dollars to build your app The company number two is gonna charge you
fourty thousand eight hundred dollars and the reason for that is because their
hourly rate, the hourly cost is substantially different. They're
charging at $50 per hour and they're charging at $120 per hour. This is behind the scenes how they typically calculate the cost of your app Right, so this is for a simple app which has five features a complex app might take
roughly around let's say 1500 hours for the development and the cost for that
would be Let's take a quick look at that as well. So 1500 with 50 that's $75k Wow that's a really bad writing but anyways gets the message across right So if we look at it for the second company 1500 into 120
that's gonna be $180K right so that's the difference for two kinds of apps, two
kinds of companies, these are the numbers that you come up with So with a complex app it's gonna cost you $75,000 with company A And with Company B it's gonna cost you $180k. but now the question is that how do these companies define their hourly rates. So why is the company A charging $50 while Company B is charging $120. All right so let's talk about some of the factors that impact the hourly rates The clearest distinction between the hourly rates difference is going to be based on
location. The cost will vary greatly if you go out to a company which is based
out of USA versus a company which is based out of Ukraine or India. You know the average cost of a company which is based out of USA is roughly around $150 an hour if you go to Europe that's gonna cost roughly around $100 an hour if you go to Australia another $120 to $150 an hour range And in India it is starting anywhere from $20 to $80 depending on the quality. So a basic app
in India might start at let's say $10k and a similar app in
the US might be roughly at around you $50K or $70K The second factor which will impact the cost of your app is going to be the platform. The number
of platforms that you're considering for your product. If you're going with just
Android or just iOS the cost would be different but if you're going for both
the platforms the cost will differentiate. It also differentiates from going with a native app versus a hybrid application. The third the most important factor would be the number of features like we took a look at this the
example is that one two three four and five features all of them had a
different hourly effort based on which we calculate the total hourly effort right So the features like... Do you want people to sign up using a social platform or just an email or phone number or all of those factors? And then do you want to add any location-based services? Do you want to integrate a payment gateway? Would your app involve streaming,
multiple languages, ads, chatting or offline mode, so all of those factors
will play a huge role in defining what's going to be the cost of your app. You know the number of features, the complexity, the number of integrations
they all play a major role in defining how much effort would be spent in
building your app and then in turn will actually, impact the cost of your
application. The fourth factor which plays a huge role is the design aspect of your application do you want a bare-bones design or do you want amazing
beautiful modern premium designs? The user interface and user experience
driven apps they definitely stand out but they come at a price tag. The visual complexity leads to more effort both from back and and front and hence leads
to your app being more expensive. The fifth factor is team and experience. The app dev agencies usually have different hourly rates based on different skill
sets. Each member like a developer, a tester a designer, or a solution architect will
have different hourly rates. In a decent sized company you'll typically have
anywhere around four five up to eight people working on a single project. These are the five major factors that impact the cost of your app but you should also consider other factors like maintenance cost, infrastructure cost, you know it's important to make sure that you have a maintenance contract post release so
that your app is future proof against any new updates by the operating systems
which might just leave your app useless if not handled properly. In terms of infrastructure your consideration towards the server selections and
database selection or any major integrations with ERP or CRM all of
these will actually add up to the cost of your app Alright now let's talk about
the two cost-effective ways to build and launch your app. The number one is MVP Minimum Viable Product. Start with a limited set of
features. Your core competency what is that one feature that provides the
maximum value to your users. Start with that and then build slowly. Apps like Amazon, Uber, Facebook, Instagram they all started as an MVP with a limited set of features and look at those brands today and the number of features that they
have. So start with an MVP. The second approach is the SAAS approach. Now you may not find a SAAS option for all kinds of apps out there but there are plenty of
subscription-based platforms out there today. In a SAAS environment the service
provider will basically host the app for you they will run it host it maintain it
and update it and all you have to do is pay a small fee to set up your account
or a small monthly fee whatever their monetization strategy is. So explore a few options see what works best for you based on your research and then take
action. Do not get stuck in the research loop. Alright now so if you found this
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