How to manage app development cost of your first project?

 

• Planning and managing app development costs adequately is crucial in battling scope creep, and assures you to accomplish your expected return on investment.

Exactly how much does it cost to develop an app? Perhaps one of the first questions that app companies and developers ask when they launch an app development project. App development cost estimate is what lies at the very bottom of any app development budget. Most of the time a business owner finds themselves trying to answer these two questions- how much does it cost to make an app for my business and how to manage the app development cost of your first project.

Businesses find it difficult to introduce a mobile app strategy into their current business model. Already available modes of thought, legacy systems, development theories, and even underestimating the value of mobile app development overall are just a few reasons why companies are lagging behind the requirement of mobile app innovation. This possibility is to build a new course of scalable business, which is a blind spot for many entrepreneurs, founders, and enterprise administrators. 

In addition to that,  the cost associated with transitioning from existing processes and launching a successful mobile application, register heavy on  management. It's natural to make miscalculations, and when companies are estimating investments such as app development,  dodging the errors that can let development costs rise is a good idea. So, the question for many people is how much does it cost to build a mobile app and how to manage it? 

What is included in App Development Cost?

Before we get into the biggest hidden costs of app development, you must understand the mobile app architecture. This is critical when you are looking for a vendor or talking to your IT department for help in developing, hosting, and supporting your app. This way, you will understand what they are and aren’t providing.

Remember that for most popular custom app solutions, these services need to be purchased and assembled individually. They can be divided into four divisions :

• Infrastructure services (Content delivery network, servers, etc.)
• Administrative services (to update your app, manage user accounts, etc.)
• Functional services  such as SMS and Push Notifications
• IT support services (updates to your app, bug fixes, changes, etc.)
  

What affects mobile application costs? 

The corporation model in software development represents the client and the developments team's responsibilities.  The model is called the project management triangle which signifies constraints of project management that are time, finance, and project scope. 

Let's break them down one by one. 

• Time constraints refer to the amount of time prepared to complete the project 
• Cost constraint refers to the estimated amount prepared for the project
• The scope constraint refers to all that must be done to deliver the project's result

The important question you need to ask is how do those constraints influence the project's final costs? These three constraints are usually competing constraints:

Increased scope translates to increased time and increased cost 

Tight time constraints could translate to increased costs and reduced scope 

A Tight budget on the other hand could translate to high time and reduced size

An alternative approach to project management is considering your three constraints as finance, time, and human resources. If you need to finish the job early,  you can get more people working on the project, which will increase the project’s total cost. Developers tend to develop a mobile application faster if you increase the budget or cut down the scope. Just like that, if you increase the scope,  the development team will need similar increases in funding and schedule.  By doing this, if you cut down the budget without altering the schedule or scope, it will lead to inferior quality. But if you need to get a product to the market under tight deadlines and minimum budget,  plan to build its Minimum Viable Product(MVP). The project’s MVP has minimum functionality to authenticate your business idea without expanding the app development price.
Read more- How to manage app development cost of your first project?