If you have a business, then having a website is absolutely necessary to promote your service or product and capture the interest of a larger audience. The apps are often considered as an added luxury. However, if your business is big and is international, both apps and websites are a must have. The cost of setting up both website and app varies based on their complexities. Small businesses can easily do well with simple websites and apps having basic features and information.
Does your company need a website or an app or maybe both?
As mobile app usage continues to rise, many businesses and companies are jumping into the craze quickly. However, this needs to be taken into account that an app may not always be for benefit of your audience or even to your business. Independent services would likely to grow with an interactive website rather than an app while on the other hand; big retail services would benefit more from having an app.
Deciding which platform to use for propagating your service and business is crucial. Following are few pointers you can take to decide on that:
Do not invest on the wrong platform
Always do good research before investing in hiring firms to build an app for you. You may find out later that your customers prefer using your website rather than the app which would result in wastage of both your time and money that went into making the app. However, some cases show that clients and audiences prefer using a mobile app due to its quick accessibility.
Prioritize your needs and work with them
Before hiring a software development team, you need to first analyze what technology is popular with your audience. Google analytics is a great tool for analyzing your audience and finding out the user preferred platforms.
Responsive websites are useful if you are on a tight budget, rely solely on SEO and make frequent changes and updates to your content.
Apps are useful when you are expecting to send and receive huge amounts of data, work with complex user interfaces and want to take full advantage of the functions of a smartphone.
The selection of platform for your business should derive from user needs and what they prefer to use. Having both app and website may be a good idea for some cases but it all depends on user habits and preferences. Investing unnecessarily on an app while your customers and clients clearly prefer an interactive website is a bad business idea.
Developing apps- cheap or costly?
The price range of developing a good and informative app can depend on a number of factors, among which the investment is labor is the main money pit. An off-shore company or a development company that uses outsourcing to develop apps will cost you much less than a domestic developer. In the same way, an independent developer for hire would cost less than a big and established firm. Thus the cost of making a app really depends on how you want your app to be and really setting out your priorities straight before you go in and contact a developer. Establishing a budget is essential for any investment and here are a few steps you can follow to carefully devise up a budget that would benefit your business growth:
1. Always figure out your priorities
There are three factors that go with making an app- great quality, fast production and cheap costs. The important thing to understand is that you can only have any two of these attributes. A developer that offers great quality apps in less amount of time with little budget should be considered as marketing spam. Thus, laying out your priorities is important. If you want a great quality app then you have two budget options before you- either you opt for quick development which will cost you more or you opt for cost saving process which would take longer.
2. Location
Location of the development firm determines the budget of the development process. Off-shore development of the app is cheaper than hiring on-shore engineers and development firms often capitalize on this fact by charging on-shore rates while they are outsourcing the software development to offshore companies. Although using both offshore and on shore resources can work in the benefit of budget when the development firm uses on shore engineers to work on the main design of the app while using off-shore resources for designing basic parts.
3. Creating an estimated budget
Keeping the current state of industry in mind, you have to take into account the fact that the final cost of the app will be more than your estimated budget. You can make your own estimation or hire someone to make it for you. The person you hire for the job should have knowledge about similar apps or should have previously worked on them.
4 Methods of app development
There are two methods of app development that are currently used- one in which entire documentation and plan is laid out and the entire process follows that, the other requires no pre-set plan, and developers figure out the codes and related information as they carry out the process. With a laid out plan of the process, there is a little flexibility, however you have an idea about how the app will turn out to be or what will be the costs from the beginning.
Agile development process is more flexible, but costs can go up as the development progresses.
Here is the basic run down on app development:
The app costs are largely based on its defining features, the complexity of the algorithm and the platform for which it is built.
Apps that are simple and run only on one platform will cost less than apps running on multiple platforms whose cost can reach up to six figures.
The cost of the app also depends on the company building it, in terms of being built by offshore companies or established on shore agencies.
Also you should always take into account other costs, app updates, marketing while making a budget for your app.
How much should a website cost you?
Websites are integral part of and business or company. A company with an interactive website will get more audience than a company who doesn’t have one. The cost of making a website varies based on the needs of a person. A simple website with less resource will generally cost less than a complex website that runs on its own hosting server.
Since developing websites are simpler than building an app, there are two ways you can go around doing it:
Doing it yourself: this option is more applicable for small businesses and independent businesses. Making a website yourself requires more time but you do not need to have knowledge about coding and design. A simple website can be made from scratch with less money but offers few to no flexibility and customization.
Hiring professionals: if your website is a source of most of your audience numbers then you need to have an interactive and complex website with enough customization tools. Hiring a professional in this case is more suitable but will cost you some money.
The main aspect of website programming is the host and domain name. A catchy domain incorporated with SEO, keywords and brand identity leads to increased traffic on your website and hence will be shown more in search results. Hiring professional web designer and firms will ensure that your website is able to attract customers through SEO. Yes, it will cost you more, but devising a budget for the website programming and designing will help you meet your financial goals.
If you are looking for an independent way to build up your website without any professional help, then there are lots of online we template sites that offer readymade web designs at a very low cost. You would just have to select fonts and designs and not do any coding. This option will save you huge amounts of money but if you have a big business or is a multinational company, then this should not probably be your method of choice.
Bottom Line
Both websites and apps are integral to businesses and services that rely heavily on online marketing and online services. The costs of making apps and websites differ on individual preferences and how they are made. Small businesses or individual services might not benefit from having an app but require a highly interactive website. On the other hand, large businesses such as online retailers are better off with both an app and a website. However, with the recent advances, people are more inclined towards using mobile apps for a better and faster accessibility and hence businesses are trying to transform them accordingly. A cheap and quality app and website sounds unreal and probably is. Thus, prioritize your needs and then invest carefully!
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