Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The financial low down on mobile applications

Following on from yesterday's post about getting your app right first time, Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps anwers more questions. This time around the finances involved.

So how can I make money from my App?
There are two main options to consider regarding mobile application monetization.
1. Offering Consumers A Free App And Make Money From ....
- Advertising
- Charging for extra functionality
- Charging for upgrades
Free apps receive significantly more downloads than paid for apps therefore you are guaranteed more downloads and could then use this as an opportunity to make money from displaying adverts, offering extra paid for app functionality, offering paid for functional upgrades.

2. A Paid For Mobile Application
You can charge consumers to download your app. If you are planning to do this ...
- How much would you charge?
- What do you base your charge on?
- Have you researched what a consumer might pay for a similar app?
- Are you prepared for less downloads than if your app was free and possibly have a more aggressive marketing campaign?

3. How much does a mobile app cost?
Mobile application development cost can vary depending on the type of app required. The key factors that have impact on the cost of an app are:
- How many features will need to be incorporated
- Complexity of the features within the app
- Goals and expectations
- Has a similar app been developed before or is this completely be-spoke
- Time required to create a good design
- Estimated app development time / duration.
- Server development and infrastructure costs
- Amount of project management required
- Amount of testing required

So is it a good idea to try and get the cheapest app developer I can find, or should I use a mobile application development company who might charge me more?

There are ways of paying less than the going rate to get a mobile application developed, but the old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ very often applies.

Inexperienced mobile app developers can leave you with a mess of poor quality code that is unreliable and impossible to maintain. In addition to this, using offshore app developers can lead to communication issues and difficulty in them understanding the culture of the target market. The risk exists that you will end up with an app that you can't use properly, can’t maintain, and gets bad reviews because it crashes or behaves erratically.
It’s a common occurrence in mobile application development that clients come to us to recover ‘botch jobs‘ whereby attempting to do things on the cheap has backfired and proved a false economy. For all the above reasons, it is therefore vital that you understand the risk of cutting corners and recognise the value of handing the development of your application to a reputable mobile application development company.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps

No comments: