How much does it cost to develop a web app? Businesses have this question more often than not when they are looking to get an app developed to offer their services more intimately to their customers. When it comes to developing a web app, there is no fixed price point that developers can provide because they are never sure what your exact requirements will be. If you ask them to develop a web app that’s an exact replica of Facebook, they might give you an estimate of how much it will cost, but as long as things aren't clear for them, they will never commit something they can't deliver. Web app development cost can vary based on many different factors. The sheer complexity of an application can make it quite expensive, e.g., the more basic an app's functionality is, the less expensive it is.

Factors that Affect the Cost of Your Web Application

• The Depth of Work
   

The determine web app development pricing app developers will first have to look at your requirements, i.e., the features you want in your application. It is not necessarily the number of features but the coding and testing that will be required for each feature to be finalized. With experience, developers understand how much work a particular feature will take and how much hassling a certain feature will be to integrate into the app.  

Here, you as a customer have control of how much you are going to pay for the app because you can decide if you want all the features you have thought of to be in the app or just the most valuable ones. Of course, it is always best to go with the most valuable features first so that you can test the market and reception for your application. If the major part of your audience is on Apple’s mobile devices, you might as well consider only iPad app development cost at first.

• Third Party Integrations
   

When your web app requires third-party integrations, this is where things become tough for the app developers. The cost of web app development can go quite high for such features because the app developers now have to play around with third-party platforms and spend a lot of time with application programming interfaces. Keep in mind that the third party might be using completely different programming languages for their applications making compatibility issues a nightmare for the web app developers—hence the skyrocketing web application development cost.

You also have to keep in mind that third party integration is inevitable for some businesses. Sometimes, businesses are entering duplicate information into two or more platforms to keep them synced. Not only does it cost them more in terms of bandwidth resources but it affects their productivity in a negative way. A common example of third party integration in apps is the use of CRM and ERP simultaneously. You want customer information entered by a salesperson to be available in your database for all departments not just the salesperson through sales CRM.

• The Niche of Business
   

There are certain types of applications with certain common features that get developed a lot. They are large domains, so there are a lot of developers available for them. This gives rise to competition and thus moderately priced applications. However, when you are in a niche market, you can expect developers to price their services quite high. The reason behind such price hike is that they have to work with features that they don’t have reference points available for.

• User Experience and User Interface
  

You cannot take any of these points lightly as they play a huge role in not only making an app a success but turning your business into a brand. If you want you can have the developers work on a template, i.e., you can tell ask them to follow a certain application regarding design. However, if you want a completely customized solution, you will have to prepare to pay a lot. While you might have to pay little for iOS platform compared to what you have to pay for Android, the costs will still be pretty high. IPad app development cost might be small but do you want your application to be available only on iPad?

• Timeline
  

Companies that develop web apps can also charge you by how much time you are giving them to develop your application. You might be looking for an app urgently maybe because your competitor is getting all the attention for their app. In this scenario, your project will be handled on an urgent basis, and you will have to pay more for your application. However, if you have ample time to have your application developed, you can always use this to your advantage to negotiate the price down with the app developers.

It is, in fact, always going to be in your best interest to plan out your applications well in advance. You have to realize that developers don’t just start developing your application as soon as you tell them that you need an application. First, they spend a week or more in gathering information about your needs and then marking a starting point for your application.

Users see only the face of the application but that’s not how the developers work. They have to develop the frontend and backend of the application separately. Here is what the backend and frontend development processes of an application look like.

Front-end vs Back-end Web Development

• The Developing Company
   

Last but not least, web app development pricing also depends on the developer you choose. When you choose anonymous people with no track record and portfolio, you pay much less. However, you can end up with a completely non-functional application or one that your users hate. That’s why you are required to let only the most professional and experienced web app developers work on your project. Those who understand this industry can be recognized at first glance.

So How Much Are You Going to Spend on Your Web App?

First, take a look at the web app development process to understand where the costs are the highest.

• ●      Analyses and information gathering

• ●      Design

• ●      Development

• ●      Testing

• ●      Launch and deployment

• A simple application that has basic features and requires more or less 100 hours to develop will cost you around $10,000.

The average cost to develop a web app with a little more than basic features requiring more than 200 hours of work will be easily above $10,000 and around $25,000.

An app with advanced features with a requirement of more than 350 hours of work will be above $20,000.

But these numbers are for different types of applications. Large enterprises can spend up to $1 million to have their applications developed. This is why you have to keep in mind that these are not solid numbers. Even the applications that look similar on the surface might require completely different budgets to develop them.

In a similar way, different web app developers can give different timeframes for different types of applications. The most basic applications, as stated earlier, can be completed in close to 100 hours. However, some applications that are classified as simple applications can still account for more than 250 hours of work time for app developers. The important thing to understand here is that the concept of “simple” can change when you are creating applications for different industries.

Final Words

In the end, the most important thing is to have an app developed that works for you and makes your users happy. Do not get in the hands of anonymous and unknown developers just to save money. Saving on your upfront cost might look attractive at first but the long-term disadvantages of having a poor quality app will be huge. Here, you should consider Modelate for professionally designed web applications. We are one of the best web app development companies with a portfolio and a deep understanding of what applications are about.

With Modelate, your narratives are brought in the form of easy-to-use, simple-to-understand and convincing visual functions resulting in optimum customer experience and boosted conversions. The value we offer for you will be much higher than the cost of building web app.