With the prevalence of mobile apps, there are several challenges that startups come across that include functionality and technology. But the most prominent one is to have to deal with high mobile app development costs. Because the most frequently asked question by startups is how do I reduce app development costs? When you are preparing your business plan, sooner or later you will get to a stage of developing your mobile app. After all, it’s the future of smartphones & portable devices and a great way to promote your business products and services as well as gain new and retain old customers. However, being in high demand, customized mobile app development for startups isn’t cheap and can actually end up being an expensive project. The majority of the time these situations occur because businesses don’t plan ahead and don’t know exactly what steps to follow.
Usually, the average cost of a mobile app development varies a lot, according to the number of features incorporated, the type of the app, or the mobile platform it is intended for. An important piece of information is to remember not to compromise on the quality of the project. Cutting down on the design part of the quality of the product does not mean reducing costs, but technically hurting the project.
Fortunately, there are a lot of ways and steps that would help you in mobile app development at affordable rates without compromising the quality of the app. In this article, we’ll explain why you need mobile app personalization and provide step-by-step guidance on how to reduce your app development costs. This way you will get an estimate of mobile app development costs in India.
How To Reduce Mobile App Development Cost?
1. Create the Product Requirements Once
Efficient planning is a number one rule that should be applied by both large corporations and startups. The notion behind this approach is to calculate mobile app development costs by including all possible options in your budget and avoid unforeseen spending wherever possible.
A product requirement document is also called a PRD, is a well-structured list of your app features as well as the projected tech stack. Below are some key PRD components:
- Project objective and project Idea
- Company background
- Features in the app
- Timelines
- The platform it is going to run on
- Budget estimates ( Development team can make it)
- UX and UI design (or requirements for it)
- Project execution milestones and control points
Although the project requirements are shown to your remote or in-house team in any form of communication ( emails, presentations, official meetings, etc. ), we recommend you do it with an official document.
Make it as precise and understandable to all individuals as possible. It will reduce app development costs associated with a lack of understanding between the executive team and the owner. It will reduce the risk of the product having to be rebuilt over and over. On top of that, A clear PRD helps you align the marketing and development division as well as confirming whether or not you are ready for the development. Additionally, a clear PRD helps to align the marketing and development departments, as well as confirming if you are ready for the app development stage. Otherwise, you need to spend more time examining your market niche, target audience, and commercial opportunities.
2. Share the costs
For cutting down on the mobile app development expenses, both the business and the developers must find a way to share the expenses. It means that the developer can ask the investor for funds where they can discuss the possible profits, and this strategy works both ways. But for a company that runs on a set budget, can choose to fund a developer and then gain full rights to the app, thus making sure that the development project is complete.
3. Outsource or In-House
Choosing the type of mobile app development staffing structure is a critical stage of your project planning. Your final decision will influence budget costs, workflow structure, and even the product maintenance structure. According to Deloitte's outsourcing result, in 2018, more than 31% of app development is being outsourced globally, since it’s proven that when you outsource, app development costs less. However, you will hardly find a company that doesn’t have a single in-house worker. The issue is to optimize the cost of developing an app by keeping the balance between in-house and outsourced task execution.
Software development outsourcing is a form of cooperation with developers that lets you save on office rental and equipment costs, minimize internal workflow and select employees from the global pool of talent. You can hire a dedicated team of contractors, with excellent expertise and work with them on the project base. This strategy works well in the following cases:
- When you don’t have a constant need for programmers and other specialists like designers, QAs, and project managers.
- When you work in a specific field and you need an expert that is unavailable in your region.
- When you don’t want to hire tech expertise and just get a ready-to-use product according to your PRD at the end.
- When you want to reduce mobile app development costs by hiring specialists from an offshore location where the hourly rates are lower.
4. Release your MVP
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an efficient method to launch a product without spending too much on development and examine if the app will be popular among the target audience. MVP is the version of the product with only a basic function to provide early customers and receive feedback for full-version development.
Another thing you can cut down on is the User Interface (UI) design. Although you want your app to have a good design, what makes it unique is its utility. Don’t flood the app with all the possible UI features; instead, concentrate on its useful characteristics. UI design can be expensive and there are many examples of apps that have a minimalist design and better functionality.
After releasing an MVP, A project team collects customer feedback and decides on further investment in the development. MVP allows you to:
- Examine your customers’ demands and behavior.
- Collect and examine your competitors’ strategies.
- Create a more successful app with a quicker time-to-market strategy.
- Invest only in the necessary features.
- Alter further app development direction according to your customers’ needs.
5. Participate in the iterative development process
After the MVP release, your team will start adding features to the app, based on collector user feedback. Then they will add an improved app to the app store and examine the feedback once again. It is called iterative development. You as a product owner must take part in those iterations and discuss the features with your teams to include in your app. It will help you adjust your business requirements with your customer’s demands, making your app interesting to your consumers and efficient for your business.
6. Cross-platform development
Developing a mobile app for an individual platform is never a good idea for your business. In case you have already done it, you will have to reinvest in some other platforms as well. This is because your target audience is platform-independent and diverse. Cross-platform development acts as a rescuer in this situation. Doing this will save costs and time by using a single code base across multiple platforms.
The different types of languages are HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. Few key benefits of cross-platform development are:
- Budget-friendly and economical
- Single code base across multiple platforms
- Broader chance to explore
Finally
A custom mobile app release is a vital part of any business development strategy. If you want your business to expand, you’ll need a mobile app solution. Unfortunately, it is a costly service but some effective strategies help minimize your expense. To cut down on mobile app development costs without making your app less appealing, we recommend you keep your app as simple as possible, forming a clear line between what elements and processes are critical to your business development strategy and what is a workflow and what is not. You also need to conduct thorough research, accurately define your app requirements, carefully choose your team, and keep track of the progress.
Evon Technologies is an offshore software consulting company that provides custom app development solutions. We have a dedicated team who design, code, and create your application to include all of the crucial areas of mobile app accessibility required. We have been developing high-performance, requirement-specific apps for businesses since 2006. We have been consistently ranked among the top app development companies by multiple sites, such as Topdevelopers, Selectedfirms, Topfirms, Softwareworld, etc. Check out Evon's case studies to make an informed decision about outsourcing your mobile app development to Evon. If you want to contact us directly, click here or drop an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.