How much does it cost to develop a mobile app?

Yihang has contacted many entrepreneurs who want to start a business through APP as a product. After finding the software team, they simply explained After the demand, the next step is to ask the price, "How much does this APP I want to develop cost?" What's more, they don't even mention the demand, "How much does it cost to make an APP similar to XXX?"

The following is a very typical inquiry process:

Customer: "Hello, how much does it cost to make a software similar to "Meituan"?"

Software company: "Hello, can you please elaborate on the content of the software to be developed? We will quote based on the developed content."

Customer: "It is similar to Meituan, requiring group purchasing and local The merchant shows that the user can just place an order and buy it. It’s very simple. “

Software company: “Okay, the cost is about 80,000 yuan.”

Customer: “Ah, that’s it. Expensive. The function I want is very simple.”

Software company:”#$…#…..@….amp;#￥amp;￥…#amp;”

The Internet is a magical network, and software customization is also a model that provides the most detailed quotation. If you really want to do it, you can come here. The starting number of this mobile phone is one, five, the middle is one, one, three, and the last one. It's Si Qi Si Si. You can find it by combining it in order. What I want to say is, unless you want to do it or understand the content, if you are just joining in the fun, don't come.

The quotation of 80,000 yuan in the above conversation may include a demand uncertainty of 30,000 yuan. The business manager or product manager can only make a rough assessment based on his or her own industry experience. Of course, it is absolutely impossible to have a workload of 100,000 yuan. Even so, it will be added when the contract is officially signed. It is impossible to do business at a loss. If the customer does not agree to the additional fee, then he would rather not accept the order. There is no reason to deal with a strange customer and still lose money to do business.

As an entrepreneur, it is understandable that you are strapped for funds or want to save costs. But you can’t blindly look for software teams that quote low prices. The project quotation is related to many factors. If a friend asked me now, I might say it ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, before giving clear requirements. , all quotations are approximate or a range. Accurate quotations from software companies are based on detailed requirements sorting.

A smarter software company will quote you a very low price to facilitate the next step of negotiation, and then slowly spread knowledge in this area to you during the negotiation process, so that you can Realize that making an APP is not as simple as you think, and it cannot be done for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

Then Yihang will help you analyze the factors that affect the quotation:

First: Development model

The development model includes template development and customization Development in two directions.

(1) Template development. Template development basically means that the development team has already prepared an application for a certain industry (for example: localized group buying), and then directly deploys the source code or opens an account for you, and then modifies some styles based on this basis, etc.

If it is an application that opens an account, the cost is relatively low, and it can be done in about a few thousand dollars, because the cost of the software company is also low, and the software has been developed and the customer only needs to open an account. That’s it. The only increase is the cost of the server. If you sign one, you will earn one. For such an application, you can only modify some styles, text, etc. of the program, but it is impossible to adjust and modify the business process.

If you are deploying source code applications, most of them support secondary development. At the same time, we need to purchase the server by ourselves, and then let the company modify the program according to its own requirements. This method is still recommended. We Can save a lot of costs. However, secondary development is based on the original business or the development of business related to it, such as adding certain fields to the page, adding statistical export of certain data, adding sharing functions, improving a certain business process, etc.

If you want to make large-scale adjustments to the original program, it is still recommended to go for customization, because in software development, it is much faster to develop new functions than to modify them, and everyone in the industry will definitely understand this.

(2) Customized development. Custom development is tailor-made according to customer requirements, and an APP is developed from scratch according to your needs. The cost of this method is relatively high. Depending on the development method, the corresponding quotation will be different. APP development is also divided into native development and hybrid development. The cost of hybrid development is lower than that of native development because fewer people invest in hybrid development. Simply put, hybrid development is APP development by combining native and H5 development technologies. One person can develop both Android and iOS clients. If it is native development, one Android developer and one iOS developer are required, and testers also need to test on two terminals. High costs naturally lead to high quotations. I won’t go into details about the differences between hybrid development and native development here. I can write a special article later to introduce to you the specific differences between the two.

Second: Demand complexity

After confirming the development model, you will roughly know the technical personnel to be invested, and then based on the business mind map and demand documents given by the product manager Wait for project data to accurately evaluate the project development cycle. The complexity of the requirements determines the length of the project cycle, and the project cycle determines the final quotation. Communication between customers and products is very important and determines the direction of subsequent projects. The characteristic of customers is to understand the industry and business, and the characteristic of products is to understand the value of Internet products, how they are available and feasible. Both parties need to work closely together to complete the research and development of the project.

Then after the communication, the product needs to produce the following information:

(1) Product function mind map. Mind mapping is a method of visualizing thinking and an effective tool to express the thinking that occurs. It can draw the functions in your mind according to the hierarchies they belong to, and express your needs more clearly through graphics.

(2) Core business flow chart. Through the mind map, I know the general modules and functional points of the project, but I don’t know the operating logic of the entire product, what roles are involved, and how the information and data are transmitted. At this time, core business process diagrams are needed to express.

(3) Function list. The function list is a refinement of the mind map and a detailed description of the functions to be done in the map. Allow the project manager or development team to understand what the functionality might look like.

(4) Prototype diagram. The prototype diagram is a schematic diagram of the process of converting requirements into products. It is the external logic of the requirements. It allows us to see what the requirements look like more intuitively. The prototype diagram should be divided into front-end prototype and back-end prototype. Through the prototype, you can clearly see the business description, functional classification, business logic, page jumps and detailed descriptions, etc.

Suppose we use a community group buying APP to calculate. After the software company understands the specific functions to be done, it can know the number of people and time that need to be invested in the project, and then make a quotation based on its own charging standards. The calculation is a little more than 190,000. (See the picture below)

The profit model of software outsourcing companies is very simple, which is to sell low-cost employee time to customers at high prices and earn the price difference. The same employee's time can only be sold to a customer. For example: Xiao Zhang works in a software company and his salary is 10,000 yuan. When the company quotes a price to a customer, it may quote a price of 28,000 yuan per person per month. In this way, the company can earn a price difference of 18,000 yuan, and then deduct Xiao Zhang’s salary. Various other expenses (five insurances and one housing fund, company rent, water and electricity, various benefits, etc.), then the remainder is the company's profit.

Another problem is that these documents cannot be sorted out by themselves. In addition, software companies will not make these documents in such detail before signing a contract. This is also a big problem in the current software outsourcing industry. . If you want to sort out these project materials before starting, you can only go to other channels to find relevant product managers. Of course, you can also contact YHang. These will help us save a lot of unnecessary development costs.

After knowing this, you can think about the question "How much does it cost to make an APP similar to XX"? The result can only be a rough price range. If you sign a contract hastily without clarifying the specific needs, then the contract amount will basically be greater than the actual amount of the project.

In addition to development costs, other costs include servers, domain names, third-party platforms (text messages, voice notifications), etc. These are relatively small. The server will account for the majority. In the early stage, If you have a small number of users, you can purchase a low-configuration server first, and then upgrade the configuration later based on the number of users and project conditions.

Finally, to summarize, if we want to get an accurate quotation for the project, we must first determine the project development method, project form (APP, mini program, public), and detailed project requirements (functional mind map, core business Flow chart, function list, prototype diagram), with these we will know very well what to do and what it will look like, so the risk of our project will be greatly reduced.

Please remember that accurate quotations from software companies are based on detailed requirements sorting out. If you try blindly without knowing what you want to do, you will inadvertently increase trial and error. The cost

I hope my review can help those who want to make APPs find the right direction.