How much does it cost to develop an app?

How much does it cost to develop an app?

If you want to develop an App, "how much" is the most important question in many people's minds. But App developers won't give you a direct answer, because there are many factors that affect the price of developing apps.

Function type (publicity service/e-commerce/games/tools, etc.). ), fineness, and the production method of App development (self-built team/outsourcing /SaaS) all affect the price, so only detailed requirements and solutions can get the specific price. Let me explain how different needs and practices affect the price of App.

I. Functional types

Internet is a magical big network, and software customization is also a mode to provide the most detailed quotation. You can come here if you really want to do it. The starting number of this mobile phone is one, the middle number is one, one, three, and the last number is four, seven and four. You can find it by combining them in order. What I want to say is, unless you want to do or understand this, if you just join in the fun, don't come.

Among all the apps, the number of game apps may be the largest, but the price difference is also the biggest. Think about how much it costs to play a landlord game and how much it costs to play a the glory of the king. So I won't discuss the game App here. In other categories, promotional services and simple tools are cheaper, but because such apps make less money, not many people do it and they are put aside.

I want to mainly talk about the price of e-commerce App, because e-commerce App is a hot spot in the development market. E-commerce has a lot of passengers and is easy to make money, so there are many people who do app.

Second, the degree of fineness.

Take the development of e-commerce App as an example, the demand is different and the price difference is far away.

(1) Shell or native code?

The shell App is simply made on the existing mobile phone website template. The price is as low as several thousand yuan and the production speed is fast, but this is not what most customers need. Shell App itself has disadvantages that cannot be ignored. First of all, due to the increasingly strict government supervision of App, it is difficult for Shell App to be put on the shelves, and it is also difficult to promote App that cannot touch the application market. In addition, the shell App has poor visual effect, slow response and simple function, so it is impossible to make money by it. The price of the native e-commerce App is at least10,000 yuan.

(2) Traditional e-commerce or social e-commerce?

Traditional e-commerce with Tmall and Taobao as the mainstream, the commonly used functions of such apps include order management, customer management, promotion, customer service, payment and content. These are quite complicated. If you are doing Tmall's in-store mode, it will greatly increase the complexity of App functions. If you use a customized outsourcing model, the price is about several hundred thousand.

There are still some brand companies doing this kind of App, but it is difficult to do traffic, because there is no advantage compared with Taobao and JD.COM.

In this case, social e-commerce uses the fission traffic of social channels to open up new development paths. Especially after the rise of WeChat e-commerce, the social functions of e-commerce App are becoming more and more indispensable, including rich media, social sharing and so on. In order to get through the physical business, e-commerce platforms often provide functions such as logistics distribution and LBS. The stronger the functional requirements, the higher the price.

(3) Distribution and grouping

The development of social e-commerce is in full swing, and the mainstream marketing model is distribution and teamwork. The most classic is that Pinduoduo, Ji Yun Micro Store, Global Catcher and other social e-commerce companies have achieved breakthroughs and tasted the sweetness. This also stimulates many people to try to play together and distribute this kind of gameplay. But these games have their own doorways, and traditional e-commerce apps don't have these functions. Not every App developer can do these new functions well, but many people will charge for these functions separately. This requires careful identification and evaluation.

(4) How many user levels do you want to support?

The idea that "the more users my App can support, the better" may not be correct, because a system that supports a large number of users is expensive, and everyone should do what they can. However, some highly skilled companies can support large-capacity systems at relatively low cost through cloud services.

Generally speaking, the greater the number of users of an App, the greater the transaction volume, the more complicated the technical support needed in the background, and the higher the cost. If the requirements are simple, the database and system architecture can be simple as long as the functions pass simple tests, but after the transaction volume increases, the system may flash back and get stuck. Moreover, supporting a large number of customers and high concurrent data requests, or reserving flexibility for future function expansion, is very complicated and the cost naturally increases.

Third, the development model.

(1) Independent research and development by enterprises.

If you are a big boss, or a technical bull, and are willing to spend a lot of resources and time polishing a super App, self-built team is definitely the best choice. However, it takes a long time to form a team, which is risky and costly. You can't see much when you burn it for one or two million, and the cycle is long.

⑵ Outsourcing customization

Many small and medium-sized bosses choose outsourcing customization, which avoids the high risk and high cost of self-built teams. However, the cost of time and expenses is still high, and it is difficult to carry out secondary development and ensure product quality. There is also an unavoidable risk that many people ignore, that is, Party B's service is good, but the product quality is also limited by the demand level put forward by Party A. If you have no confidence in planning your own App, the risk of successful outsourcing development will be great.

⑶SaaS modularization

In recent years, the mode of breaking the traditional development form of App, building native App in the form of functional components, and providing background support in the form of SaaS cloud services has gradually emerged. However, due to the high technical threshold and high requirements of e-commerce customers, this model has only recently approached maturity.

SaaS technology modularizes commonly used functions, develops well in advance, shortens the development cycle, reduces the development cost, and can quickly customize module components. Let customers save time, money, worry and effort.

However, there are not many mature enterprises in this model.