It is expensive to build mobile applications, but the market is very promising. There is a great demand for mobile apps. Hence the great competition. Not all start-up companies can invest huge sums in development since the amount of money may not always pay off in the future. And many customers want to make the application as cheap as possible. Even with a seemingly insufficient budget, it is quite possible to have a good application in the end of the development cycle. The fact is that you can significantly reduce product development costs if you know the features of each stage of development. Therefore, a question for any business arises: how to reduce product cost without a significant loss for quality?
Where Does the Money Go?
The biggest part of the professional development budget is spent on technical expertise. It requires a team of highly skilled specialists and top-notch equipment, and it accounts for about 45% of the total budget. Other expenses include project management and negotiations that take around 25% of a budget. The testing takes about 30% of the budget. In each case, the cost of new product development will be individual. This is an approximate numbers, since each project is operated in its own manner. But understanding the general pricing will help you to check your budget twice.
Write a Detailed Description of the Project
Step-by-step descriptions make wonders. They make sure that both you and our team got everything correct. The developers don’t tend to think twice about your ideas and they don’t play by ear. They have to have a clear vision that will describe the big idea and functions that will help to achieve it.
Write down your goals, main tasks, desired platforms and devices, necessary functionality, perfect design examples, and write down the ideal result of our work. This information will help our team of superb designers, developers, and managers to dive deeper into your project and do our best.
We will also provide you with a simple brief that will have all the necessary questions about your funuture app that will help us to know your idea.
Start with MVP
Minimum viable product or MVP is a working prototype that allows developers to test their product at a minimum cost. It helps to test functions and abilities of the app in real life. Have you ever heard of Uber or Snapchat? Sure you did. They’ve started as MVPs.
The first version should only have the functions that are most needed by the target audience. After that, add the rest of the features as needed.
This approach will allow you to spend less money and assess the demand for a specific function of the application. This is better than spending a huge amount of money and then realizing that the idea is not in demand.
Think About the Cross-Platform Solution
Developing cross-platform apps is cheaper than creating standalone apps for each platform. However, it requires some trade-offs if you want to save budget for app development. These trade-offs vary based on the desired functions and design, but it is always negotiable so be sure to get a nice product in the end.
Optimize User Story
You can use from one to five screens for the same mobile application function. Naturally, implementation and testing times will differ in these cases, and the same goes for the budget.
A well-designed UI allows designers to focus on the user experience instead of the number of screens they have to design. This will reduce the development costs.
Check Developers’ Recommendations
Good mobile apps are built according to the developers' recommendations. These components make the apps easier to use and less complex to develop. Developers of Android and iOS want to create a unified app ecosystem so they can easily integrate predefined UI elements into their apps.
While working wich such guidelines, designers and developers have a chance just to take a ready-made desgign and add it to the project.
Its use reduces time and saves the cost.
Research the Ready Solutions
Such elements can ease out your life greatly. Not that such solutions will cost less, but also they help to create an app faster and with less bugs.
Why create something new from scratch if many people have done it before and are ready to share their experience? There’s nothing criminal to it – just pieces of code that fit our app and its goals.
Never Spare on Testing
Testing allows you to see the weakest spots in your app and fix them before lots of people start using it. Even though sometimes it might seem like a rather pricy step, the outcome is totally worth it.
Imagine releasing an app withouth prior testing and than find comments that the app doesn’t work as it should be. And whent it comes to the app business, the more peopel use it – the more money you get. So when someone deletes the app, tells friends that this app doesn’t work, etc – each time you lose your money.
Set Realistic Deadlines
Do not rush the developers and demand the fastest possible release of a working version of the product. Haste can lead to a poorly performing application, a large number of bugs, or incomplete functionality.
Deadline pressure can cause developers to make mistakes that take longer to fix than you can save. In addition, you will not have time to delve deeply enough into all the nuances of the work.
Spare on the Back-End
The lion's share of mobile applications works with data in one way or another: it sends data to the server, receives data from users, etc. For such projects, server development is required, which costs a lot. But there are ways to save money on it.
For example, you can store data on a user's device. In this case, the application can work autonomously. However, it loses interactivity. There is also a use case for a serverless architecture. SaaS services will also help reduce costs.
Use Online Builders
Is it possible to make a full-fledged mobile application using the app builder? Thus, it is impossible to create a good project that solves the real problems of users. There are different app builders, some of which are designed for developing applications for a specific niche. You can test your idea using such an app builder. It will allow you to test the idea, but it will be impossible to promote it later on. There's no way to make a profit from such a development solution.
Final Thoughts
There are various ways to save money on mobile apps development. Before you make a decision, make sure that you analyze all the various factors since in some cases saving on some step may cost you a fortune in the future. In any case, planning the development of your app is always a good idea when you want to save money. Doing so will help you avoid costly mistakes.
FAQ
10 Ways to Save Money on Software Development
As mentioned before, you should look closely at these professional development tips:
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Write a detailed description of the project
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Start with MVP
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Think about the cross-platform solution
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Optimize user story
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Check developers’ recommendations
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Research the Ready Solutions
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Never spare on testing
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Set realistic deadlines
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Spare on the back-end
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Use online builders
What Is the Most Profitable Way to Save Money?
How much money does it take to make an app? It’s a balancing act between app customization and cost, and once it’s done successfully, it can generate better cost savings and a more robust app experience in the future.
