You’ve had an excellent idea and chose to create a mobile application and now you need to learn how to save money without quality loss? We are here to help you with this problem! In this article, we will analyze the topic of reducing your costs for custom mobile app development.
Building a mobile application represents a complex process demanding a careful strategy and an accurate estimation of time and expenses for the development. The development of a product that solves your operational difficulties and adds real value to the customers is key to success.
You will need a substantial amount of money, but don’t despair! If everything is made right, chances to build a quality application and meet your business needs increase. Plus, there are many ways to cut mobile app development costs.
How to reduce mobile app development costs without losing quality
Prepare the product requirements once
Software engineers appreciate detailed requirements. That’s why is essential to start each project by collecting and processing the client’s demands and preparing a quality technical specification. This document is fundamental for efficient collaboration between the customer and mobile app development company and understanding of the whole project.
Made right, this helps to prevent such dangers as budget under or overestimation, a different perception of project tasks and objects, a difficulty of product acceptance by the customer, nonconformity of the end product to customer expectations.
Meantime, developing a consistent and reliable software requirements document helps both you and the mobile application development company to establish project scope, project stages, budget, set up deadlines, stick to the planned schedule, and enhance mutual cooperation.
Such simplification of work results in saving time for the development and raising the chances of building a successful product. So, try to provide a complete specification as possible. Or apply to specialists so that they collect your ideas, demands, and write it based on them.
Outsource your project
Outsourcing of mobile application development services is another method to cut your costs. A challenge is to choose the perfect outsourcing company for your goals.
It’s important to choose a software outsourcing company with an alike mentality and business culture because it directly influences communication transparency and efficient collaboration.
Look for the golden mean between price and quality, too cheap can be risky for the result of your project. Also remember to check out the company’s ratings, reviews, and project expertise that you can look through in portfolio. We discussed more this topic and how to choose the best outsourcing company for your needs in our article: Why Choose Outsourcing Instead of Having an In-House Team?
Start with MVP development
An MVP (Minimum Viable Product), is a product with only the necessary features, that can support users implementing the startup’s main concept. The MVP approach is part of Lean development focused on creating product models, tracking performance, and learning how to make the product stronger and more successful.
How can you reduce the cost to make a mobile app with an MVP? Analyze your competitors, list and prioritize features, build an MVP, then study customers’ behavior and feedback.
MVP implementation helps you to reduce both the time and the expense of creating applications: you just develop the main features and get a proper solution. You will then add new features, make updates, and update them again. Therefore, your product is constantly undergoing improvement and development.
Choose custom software development
If you have clear long-term goals or you are looking to increase the profitability of your business, custom software is the best solution! Usually, custom-made solutions address your exact needs and can be more effective than out-of-the-box solutions.
Custom software will have a positive long-term effect on your business. Many companies may be initially concerned by the price of custom software solutions, but the initial cost can be regained by overcoming the particular problems that off-the-shelf software can’t solve.
If you want to know exactly why custom software solutions are the best, you can check out our article: Reasons Why Your Company Needs Custom Software.
Pay attention to design
Mobile app interface design is an essential part of the entire development process. Generally, it takes 20% of the total project cost, so make sure you established a simple and user-friendly design from the beginning of the process.
Choose the right technologies
Usually, JavaScript frameworks are preferred by the majority of developers over other languages. They are essential in order to make sure that the entire process is fast and smooth.
React Native is the most famous JavaScript framework, being the basic tool for tech giants like Instagram or Paypal. React Native represents an improvement over normal mobile development in two areas: the developer experience and cross-platform development potential.
Anyway, choosing the most suitable technologies can be difficult, that’s why if you have no experience in this field, we recommend you to consult with a reliable custom mobile app development company, that will help you with the technical part.
Choose cross-platform mobile application development
We assume that you want your app to run on many devices. Developing an app for iOS, Windows, and Android will result in more money spent.
If you want to cut costs and reduce the time and effort spent in development, cross-platform development is a modern and cheaper alternative to the native development approach. This involves developing and using a single code-base for all platforms, which significantly reduces costs.
By opting for cross-platform mobile application development, the expenses for all additional services are drastically reduced, allowing your company to see the ROI faster.
The benefits of cross-platform mobile application development are huge!
Proper communication
It’s very important to communicate with your team, to be aware of the app development stage at the moment. Take part in task management and planning processes. This will enable you to have it all, including your budget, under control.
In any case, keep in mind that being under control does not mean being under constant pressure and pushing the team too hard!
Basically, the more you interact with the team, the better they understand your ideas, goals, and priorities. Effective collaboration is crucial!
Test your product
Testing must be carried out correctly and carefully, so make sure the mobile application is tested on multiple devices.
It’s important to test your application yourself because this way you can check everything out, clarify some issues, make sure the team understands your requirements and they build the app according to your needs!
Conclusion
Low-cost mobile app development is possible with the right team and the right idea. It’s always a mix of customization and app functionality, but saving in the right ways can considerably increase your ROI. If you need help finding the right team to make your money-saving app, WebChain can help!