If you’re a small business owner, chances are at some point you’ve asked yourself how much it actually costs to make an app.
The only problem with this question is that the range is so very wide.
It’s similar to asking how much it costs to buy a house. Well, it completely depends on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Not to mention, the square footage and location has something to do with the pricing as well.
The same goes for apps. Sometimes all you need is a simple presence for your law firm to collect quote requests from clients. On the other hand, you may want to build a powerful gaming app that sells tokens and collects user information.
The point is, costs range drastically.
Small Business App Development is Still Expensive
According to Entrepreneur.com, small business app development costs can range from anywhere between $38,000 and $171,000. Yes, you can absolutely find a developer to complete an app for cheaper, but in general, development teams are interested in making money from an app that is built from scratch.
The good news is that as technology improves, the cost of building an app will always drop. However, most companies don’t have a few thousands dollars to just throw at a developer.
Outsourcing and the Types of Costs With Different Stages to Create a Mobile App
Although a small business would most likely end up with a better app if they had a person in the organization for an in-house development session, working with in-house talent is often far more expensive than outsourcing.
Therefore, it’s more common for a business to look towards a mobile app development firm. Yes, you lose a bit of control over your design, but you’ll most likely still end up with a quality app.
Unfortunately, the costs are still pretty terrifying, since several app development stages are walked through to get the finished product.
Let’s take a look at the costs for some of these stages:
- Planning – Up to $10,000
- Designs – Up to $25,000
- Features – Up to $30,000
- Infrastructure – Up to $60,000
- App administration – Up to $20,000
- Testing – Up to $20,000
- Deployment – A few hundred dollars
Like I said, most small business owners will look at these numbers and immediately decide that they don’t really need an app in the first place.
However, throwing away that valuable resource hurts. Imagine the possibilities for connecting with customers. You could send out push notifications for coupons, and use location tracking to see if people are near your shop. Not only that, but you get apps with quick call and email buttons, guiding people with call to action buttons on their most personal of devices.
What’s the Alternative?
As we stated earlier, technology continues to make development cheaper. So, it’s generally a much better option for small businesses if they go with a company that offers a mobile app builder. Similar to a website builder, you pay a monthly fee to gain access to development tools and templates.
What’s the main difference compared to hiring a developer?
Well, to start, you don’t have to pay more than maybe around $25 to $50 per month.
How do companies like iBuildApp keep costs so low if the developers charge so much?
It all has to do with building off of the premade infrastructure. You get a template library that’s not completely customized for your brand. You also get to utilize a standardized building platform, which is supported with the monthly payments from users.
However, you can go in there and customize, brand and adjust any of the settings you want. In short, companies like iBuildApp see no reason to reinvent the wheel. Most small business apps are going to have similar functionalities, so why not make a platform that supports that?
Over to You…
Now that you’ve had a chance to understand whether or not you can afford to create a mobile app it’s pretty easy to make a decision. Yes, some businesses are going to spend thousands of dollars, but those costs are best left to businesses that are built around the app.
Small businesses have the option for a builder, with low monthly pricing and beautiful app templates. This way, you can still interact with your customers, without the need to bankrupt your business.
