HOW TO REDUCE APP DEVELOPMENT COSTS WITHOUT LOSING QUALITY?

     

Today, the availability of mobile apps is increasing because it produces a noticeable change in the way humans feel and experience computing. Presently, the use of mobile apps can be seen in communication, education, cooking, social media, shopping, business, matrimony, banking and other sectors. Due to this, there has been a recent increase in the growth of new app developers.’ Popular apps such as Whatsapp, Facebook and many more apps began with an idea and now the apps are unavoidable in our day to day life. When you plan to develop an app you better consider all the pros and cons first. We need a team of developers that can transform our idea into an app. Ideas fail to bloom if you have a shoelace budget. We are here to help you with a few handy and useful tips. 

Are you going to create a native app, a web app, or a cross-platform product?

This Blog will help you to meet your developing budget to meet your financial capabilities.

Mobile App development is not an expensive process. Following the right approach strategically can reduce cost. If you want to make your app development cost lower and more appealing, we recommend you develop your app as simple as possible. You need to have a clear picture of your project details.

For creating a new mobile application there will be 2 participants

        Client-side: Owner of a start-up or the person who comes up with the idea

        Contractor Side: Project Manager, UI/UX designers, developers and QA team

The clearer you describe the idea the easier you will reach the desired goal faster and cheaper.

Follow our simple guidelines

• Find out your targeted and potential customers with their habits routines and need
• Perform your own research instead of hiring a professional with extra cost. All you need is perseverance and mindfulness.
• Exchange ideas. It’s a great way to find the right answer
• Ideas need to be polished
• Discard ideas that are hard to implement

Now we have the app idea, you must learn how to reduce cost on its implementation

Every Project needs an organized development process. Here are some solutions for you to reduce the cost of development without losing its quality.

1.          Efficient Planning
2.         Outsource or In-house
3.         Prototypes Creation
4.         Cross-platform mobile apps
5.         Corporate Model
6.         Build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
7.         Use existing platforms & Avoid Custom Graphics or Processes
8.         Constant Supervision

              Efficient Planning

Efficient planning is the first rule that should be applied by both large corporations and small start-ups. So we need to structure everything carefully and wisely. Developers need detailed project specifications because it makes the process easier. So before you start the app development describe your functional requirements clearly.

PRD (Product requirement data) is essential to keep everything on the page. It is a highly structured list of app features and tech stack.

Important PRD Components are

• ·        Idea behind the project and Project Objectives
• ·        Company background
• ·        Timeline
• ·        Features of App
• ·        Platforms
• ·        UX and UI design
• ·        Budget Estimates
• ·        Project Control points. and execution milestones

You can present these details to your in-house or remote team as an official document. PRD helps to align the marketing and app development departments. Through this process, you can confirm whether you need more time to analyse the niche market and target audience or you are ready for the app development. Make it specific and understandable to all your team. Efficient planning can reduce unwanted costs by giving clarity to Company and the expert team. This avoids unwanted rebuilding of the app. Uncertain requirements always create quality issues.

   Outsource or In-house

Choosing the type of staffing is another crucial job. If you already have an in-house team, all you need is to present PRD then get estimates and start your product journey. But if you are a start-up company and don’t have a single in house worker for development then you need to outsource an expert team for it.  This can reduce up to 50% of project spending.

Outsourcing has many advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

• ·        Reduce development costs
• ·        Scale resources on demand
• ·        Hire employees from the Global talent pool
• ·        You can hire mobile app developers from another region if their costs are lower.
• ·       You can either go on the fixed budget basis or can also go on an hourly basis

Disadvantages

• Communication issues
• Hidden costs
•  Security risks
• Quality Constrains

It is difficult to choose the right partner and find out how to outsource app development until you don’t have a clear vision for your product.

  Prototypes Creation

Creating a prototype of your mobile app is a great way to reduce costs. Your design team can develop a clickable prototype that will show the flow of your app. Through this, we can identify the user experience level to make sure the prototype is ready for development. At the testing, stage prototypes remain faithful to the original. The created prototype application can also be tested by the targeted user to identify the missing features. Prototypes also help to estimate development cost, time scale and potential resource requirements.

  Corporate Model

The corporate model is another budget consuming thing while planning the cost of app development. Here you can choose the best that suits your type of project.

How does Corporate Model consume your budget to build an app?

Firstly let me clarify that the corporate model term is applicable only in the case of outsourcing.

There are two main options

•                 The Fixed Price Model:-This will work for companies who prefer detailed PRD, Small projects, MVP. It is an agreement between a client and an outsourcing team. They will pay a fixed price for the final result.

•                 The Time & Material Model:-This will work for long term projects and start-ups with dynamic requirements. If your project requirements are not confirmed then your app development cost should also be flexible.

The model establishes a better project timing, change the projected vector in a critical situation, and can monitor the programmer’s efficiency better.

  Cross-platform mobile apps

Developing an app for Android, iOS and Windows can increase the app development cost. This may affect your overall budget. So which one you will choose the answer lies in Market research. Android is significantly more popular than iOS.As per 2020-21 market share statistics shows that Android made up 74.45%, while iOS got only 22.85% of the market. Android market is huge compared to iOS. So it’s all depends upon the target audience you have. If you have an audience in the US, Australia then iOS is the clear leader. Instead, if you hire a professional developer or an outsourcing team, Cross platforms can access seamlessly through the internet. The app update also can do very easily if there is a bug fix because the user doesn’t need to update it manually every time. This can save support costs and efforts. Currently, it is 40% cheaper than native software. Cross Platforms can solve this issue when it comes to cost reduction but this won’t provide a high-quality user experience.

  Build an MVP

Creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) can test the features before creating a final product. MVP’s are a scale down version of your product with minimum features and you can test your app on real users to see the response. Customers can provide you with feedback for future product development. This is one of the best practices that can ensure that you create a lean and high-quality product. This saves a lot of development costs. Under MVP bugs can be easily rectified since coding is less when compared to the final product.

Advantages from this Lean startup methodology

•                 You will not lose money by making a product that no one really needs.

•                 You can identify the features in demand and can improve your app structure.

•                 You can change the start-up direction at any time if you are not getting the projected profits.

Popular Tools are  Unity 3D, Flutter SDK

Constant Supervision

Constantly communicate with the development team. You need to communicate with them regularly and check the results of iteration all by yourself. This is good to rectify a bug at the early stage itself and even after launch. Then your overall cost can be reduced if you are constantly invigilating or communicating with the Project Manager.

  Use existing platforms & Avoid Custom Graphics or Processes

Try to use your existing stable platforms or technology instead of creating a new one.

Another important thing to reduce cost is to give a simple and appealing design to your app. If you use intricate designs or graphics, users tend to get confused. You can use some proven and popular technologies, as well as readymade tech stalks, which are the best way. UI and UX designs are important parts of marketing strategy at the same time. Always an outstanding interface can be popular among users easily. This works like a magnet to attract many new customers.

So let’s see the factors which can increase the cost of app development.

• Complexity in designs (3D effects and graphics)
• Contact forms and other elements as a part of UI
• Custom app infrastructure (corporate servers)
• Custom integrations and functional services (GPS, Push notification)

 Summing up in order to reduce development cost

Discuss the project details at the initial stage of development itself. Conduct your own research and find out the targeted audience. Find out a clear outline of your promotional strategy and what is not necessary. Try to use ready-made code fragments, designs using UI tools and remote teams that are experienced in your project. Assemble your team and exchange ideas. Constantly test the application (it is cheaper than solving it in the final version of the product). Correct the ideas many times to achieve desired results.

Thanks for Reading

Preethi Sukumaran