What is the app development cost?

Before we get to the actual price of the application or software, it is important to know what such software development entails, how many people participate in it, and how long it can take. The development of each application is individual and specific, therefore the given information will be generalized and simplified for the purpose of better understanding.

At the very beginning of the decision to create one’s own software is the client, with whom it is necessary to establish contact and reach the final decision that we go into development together. During decision-making, communication regarding the delivery time and the expected price for development, or discussions regarding the Work Agreement and the license agreement that we at accute provide to our clients with each order, the client comes into contact with the person responsible for sales and client relations. For the pricing of the order itself, it is necessary that we understand the assignment 100% and thus be able to estimate its labor as accurately as possible. Therefore, at the first meetings with the client, we always ask additional questions about the assignment – even those that may seem obvious to the client at first glance, but many times lead us to a discussion that will help the client himself to clarify some questions.

Within the specification of individual requirements for the functionality or design of the software, 2 to 3 hours of joint discussion or online meeting with the client are usually sufficient, during which we can fully perceive the client’s needs and thus understand the purpose that the software or application is supposed to fulfill. The scope of meetings depends mainly on the complexity of the assignment, for complicated assignments lasting several months, meetings with the client take place on a regular weekly or biweekly basis. A part of such meetings is also a project manager or business architect, who is a kind of intermediary between the client and the programmers themselves who will develop the application. After fully understanding the task, the business architect can describe the project to the programmers in “their language” – more structured, divided into individual logical parts with an explanation of individual specifics, and at the same time, for example, compare it to existing solutions for a better understanding of what awaits them. At the same time, during the entire development period, the business architect is very close to the developers and monitors how the development progresses and whether the application prototype contains all the client’s requirements in the functionality in which he ordered them.

The development of any application itself is carried out on several levels, through which we can also divide the focus of programmers. We can look at the most common division from the point of view of the application structure, namely Frontend and Backend. Frontend programmers are dedicated to the development of the user interface, the so-called GUI (graphical user interface) – that is, the type of application that forms the “top/forehead” of the application. Backend programmers are dedicated to the development of the part of the application that users do not see, i.e. the “background” that forms the main logic of the application, performs demanding tasks, communicates with the database, and so on. If the programmer controls the development of both parts, i.e. the user interface and can also develop the backend, this is the so-called Fullstack developer.

The general rule is that several programmers participate in the development of an application or software precisely because of the division described above. In the case of mobile application or web application development, one team is dedicated to the development of the interface that the user will see, the other team is dedicated to the development of the backend structure in the form of APIs, through which the application will communicate with the database. Another team is dedicated to the design of the database and how all the necessary data will be stored and at the same time queried by the application or changed by it during certain operations. We cannot forget the testers who test the application during the entire development period and subsequently also before deployment to the client, or before publication on the AppStore or Google Play.

As in all companies and organizations, this living organism, composed of people, must work together and complement each other in such a way that they can bring the desired result for the client in the required quality and in the specified time. The price of any software must therefore take into account the cost of the labor of all involved, along with normal operating and administrative costs, software warranty costs and, last but not least, the profit of the company itself.

So how much does app development cost?

Each application that we develop or have developed at accute was priced individually depending on the client’s requirements. However, there are estimated price ranges within which the development of applications or software generally moves.

The listed price ranges are maximally generalized for a simple overview and an idea of ​​where the price for application development starts. By adding specific functionalities such as connecting to bank accounts, communicating with a telephone gateway, generating a large number of specific documents, implementing AI models or any other requirements, the development price naturally increases. Continuous or agile development is also a good practice, when the final price for the application is not agreed upon with the client, but a monthly flat rate is agreed upon in the form of an SLA and the application is developed continuously over time. It is also an advantage for the client, because after a certain time he can decide to change the supplier or stop the development completely. On the other hand, it can also be an advantage for the contractor, as it is more likely that he will not suffer a loss during development due to incorrect pricing of the order and a bad estimate of its complexity.

The prices of well-known applications such as Spotify, Duolingo or Strava range from tens to hundreds of millions of USD for several years of development, together with their design and constant improvement and addition of functionalities (of course, without taking into account the actual content that these applications provide). Therefore, the idea of ​​your own social network for up to EUR 15,000 or an alternative to banks or payment companies for EUR 20,000 is not realistic and requires repeated rethinking of the business idea and the available budget for it.

It is natural that after the development of the application or customized software, additional requests for new functionalities or modification of the existing ones will arise from the client over time. Specification during development is one thing, but using the application itself in practice already brings with it ideas for improving or simplifying functionalities, which we as a supplier also count on. Therefore, it is a rule that we conclude a service contract with our clients, the so-called SLA (Service Level Agreement), in which clients subscribe to a certain number of service hours per month, which they can also use for the development of new functionalities or general support in the operation of their own system.

The advantage of SLA is the availability of our programming capacities within the agreed scope and deadline, and thanks to this, a lower hourly rate for programmers. We are able to provide our clients with a more favorable price for development within the SLA, mainly due to the fact that the utilization of our capacities is predictable.