How to Build Cost-Effective Mobile App in 2021? Follow

Mobile App Development cost varied from $1K to $100K depending on functionalities, tech integration, & much more vulnerable prospects. Still, I will try my best to answer this question through the 6+ years of mobile, web, and software applications design and development experience.

There is a mathematical equation to calculate the entire cost of building a mobile app for any business.

Development Tenure + Hourly Rate = Cost of a mobile app.

The above formula can give you a rough idea of how much money can be spent over the period of the mobile app development cycle. A mobile app's cost also depends on factors like development approach, navigational designs & fixing errors. So how to build a mobile app in 2021 with the least spending on unnecessary features, foundational infrastructure & maintenance, which does not compromise with the experience and gives a top-notched feel to the potential customers.

There are mainly 3 types in the app development sector.

1. Basic App

2. Advance App

3. Premium App

Now Building which of these define your entire mobile app development budget, and to identify that, you need to analyze your mobile app idea, functionalities & technologies to be a part of the mobile app development process; once you have done thorough research, you will be able to calculate the entire cost of your mobile app.

In this question, you will read many answers discussing how much does it cost to build an app, cost of mobile app development, but no one addressing how a company or a business can cut down the cost to be within the budget and utilize the rest of the money in the marketing of the same mobile app.

Below are a few points to reduce the cost of app development.

1. Wireframing

2. MVP Product

3. Launch Free App

4. Users Feedback

5. Fix Errors

6. Launch Premium Version

Above are a few points to focus on while building an app from scratch which helps significantly in reducing the overall cost of the mobile app.

In today’s digital age, building a cost-effective mobile app is not an easy job. You have to follow a list of considerations to have a dynamic app onboard that not only improves customer satisfaction but also proves to be a budget-friendly asset.  

So, let’s start by understanding the mobile app development cost and the major factors that influence it. 

Scope: The number of features you want to have and the bigger the scope of your project, the greater shall be the complexities related to its functioning. It increases the development time and expense.  

Scale: Mobile app development depends on the genre of your services and the kind of app you require. It also includes the geography, size of the audience, and reach.   

Technology: The technology scope and the things you prioritize while picking up third-party, integrations, tools, on-premise/on-cloud facilities, and SDKs affect your price range. 

Vendor: The collaboration strategies and allowance offered by your vendor also impact the project development price. 

Platform: You need to be clear about your expectations - are you looking for a cross-platform application or a native app for Android, iOS, or both - what can satisfy your project requirements to its best. 

Now as you know the factors that affect your mobile application development cost, here’s a compilation of mistakes to avoid beforehand. 

• Not doing a proper research

• Choosing a cross-platform approach without knowing its pros and cons

• Not building effective communication strategies 

• Not setting a particular project completion timeline

• Recruiting developers without knowing their prior experience and expertise

• Completely relying on your in-house development team

Considering all the above points, you must be thinking about, are there any proven ways to build a cost-effective mobile app in 2021. The below tips shall satisfy all your queries and provide you the needed information to develop your app. 

Picking-up the Right Platform

Android native applications require a good amount of maintenance as compared to iOS native apps that are cheaper. On the other hand, a cross-platform app is a more competitive option to native development as it works well on Android, iOS, and Windows.    

Leveraging Frameworks, Third-party services, and Libraries

You can use plenty of open source libraries, tools, frameworks, and third-party services to augment your mobile app development process. You can integrate existing solutions into your app to reduce costs.   

Reusing Existing Digital Systems

You can save a lot of money and time by reusing existing system components, third-party libraries, and web system integrations. For example, you can also avoid additional expenses by pulling data from APIs.  

Outsourcing

Depending on your project specifics, you can outsource your development requirements or also go for team augmentation services. Keeping such an approach shall help you meet global talent and optimize development costs.

Prioritizing Customization, Features, and Add-on

For the successful implementation of your project, it’s necessary to prioritize all the features you want to include, customization, or any other UI/UX addition. It helps in keeping expenses under control and ensuring the utmost time-to-market.

Starting with an MVP

A Minimum Viable Product shall help you analyze the take of early investors and adopters. Besides, it can be built with minimum investment as compared to the costs related to building a market-ready product.        

Building a Long-standing Strategy

Even if you opt for an MVP or want to move forward with a PoC, you need to practice strategies that have the potential to withstand complexities in the longer run. This can help to avoid monetary loss.   

Over a billion people use Instagram every month.

Video and photo-sharing applications are gaining traction today. And Instagram leads this group of social media platforms.

You’ve probably wondered what it owed its success to and how to make an app like Instagram.

At the start of Instagram’s history, it was named Burbn, a solution that combined features of a check-in app and an online social game. But its founders didn’t stop there. They went further and decided to create a photo sharing app and combine it with photo editing features. Before then, such solutions existed, but only separately.

The combination of photo sharing and photo editing features was explosive. It became Instagram’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Instagram is a successful social media marketing tool because of its larger and growing user base. There are a few factors that ensure its never-stopping popularity:

1.    First of all, the app’s creators came up with a really unique app idea at the time that wowed users.

2.    At first, they didn’t invest all the money into the creation of a new platform. They created a photo-sharing app for iOS only and tested it for two years. Only after they witnessed huge success did they move to the development of Android and web versions.

3.    They stayed flexible enough and quickly understood when to change the first app ideas and which direction to move.

4.    The company knows both how to get new users and how to retain existing ones. It’s one of the platforms whose popularity hasn’t wavered for over 10 years now.

5.    Instagram is an app with a pretty simple app idea. The company has stuck to it throughout the years, however, it successfully added new features that the audience loved.

HOW TO MAKE AN APP LIKE INSTAGRAM: 10-STEP GUIDE

The process of app development doesn’t start with coding. It starts much earlier with market exploration and competitors’ analysis.

Here is how to make an app like Instagram in 10 steps:

1. CONDUCT MARKET RESEARCH

It’s impossible to decide how to make an app like Instagram without understanding the current situation on the market of photo-sharing and social media applications. The first and most logical step is to conduct market research.

2. MAKE COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Competitive analysis of apps like Instagram will help you define the vision of your own project. You need to learn from your competition, check their functionality, key strengths and weaknesses, and monetization methods.

3. VALIDATE INSTAGRAM-LIKE APP IDEA

One of the ways to ensure its success is to ask your potential users how to make an app like Instagram that they will love to use. The choice of the tool is up to you: you can create polls, get in touch with the target audience and ask them questions directly. After you get answers, it will be easier to finalize the USP of your photo-sharing app and create a business model canvas.

4· CREATE PHOTO SHARING APP DESIGN

In the era where users ‘buy’ with their eyes, you can’t make the mistake of underestimating the importance of app design.

There are two parts of app design that you should take care of: User experience (UX) and User interface (UI).

5. CHOOSE THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY STACK

You can’t create a photo-sharing app without knowing the tools that make Instagram running. 

Based on your business needs, we can offer native app development or Flutter app development.

6. DECIDE ON FEATURES

Instagram was introduced as a photo-sharing application and had a basic set of features. After successfully testing the app idea and seeing positive feedback from the audience, its creators added more advanced functionality.

Let’s review how to make an app like Instagram by analyzing which features you can add to your application – both basic features needed for MVP and advanced functionality required for further product implementations.

7. CHOOSE INSTAGRAM MONETIZATION STRATEGY

The first monetization capabilities were added after Facebook bought the company. What started as a sponsored posts feature later turned into a full-fledged advertisement system. Today, users can create a feed, carousel, story, and video ads.

8. START INSTAGRAM DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

After you’ve successfully identified features for the first version of your solution and chosen the technology stack, you can start the development process.

At first, you might want to start building an app like Instagram for iOS or Android only. During the research, identify what type of device is most popular among your target audience.

9. DEPLOYMENT, LAUNCH, & ONGOING DEVELOPMENT

When your app like Instagram is ready, it’s time to launch it to the market. Remember that the development process stops with this step. The key secret of successful applications is content improvements.

Just take a look at Instagram. If its creators stuck to the first version of the app, we wouldn’t have had such an app today.

10. MARKETING & PROMOTION

The marketing strategy for the app’s promotion isn’t created in a single day. You should start working on it long before you launch the version of the app to the market – while your app is still in the development phase.

Now that you know how to make an app like Instagram, for detailed information read How to make an app like Instagram.