Short on Cash? Build an App on a Budget

In case you haven’t heard, the market for mobile apps is huge and growing. There’s expected to be a 62 percent increase in mobile app sales this year over last year, which will translate into $25 billion worth of app sales.  Not only can money be made directly through app sales, but there are other methods for monetization such as in-app advertisements. In addition, apps can be a great way to increase customer interaction with your business or brand, so even if you aren’t looking to make a profit, building your own app can provide tangible benefits for your business.

However, building an app can also be very costly. In fact, building a simple app can easily cost you upwards of $10,000, and that’s without any fancy bells or whistles. For many small businesses, this cost on a product that may or may not bring profitability is simply too high to risk.

Thankfully, building a good app doesn’t have to break the bank. Here are four suggestions on how to build an app on a budget.

Consider Your App Development Choices Carefully

Before building your app, it’s important to carefully consider your options when choosing who will develop your app. By making a choice based on price alone, you’re almost bound to end up disappointed.  If you’re going with an app development company, you should be sure that they have qualities such as an extensive portfolio of app development work, good communication and commitment to deadlines. And of course, they should be willing to work within your price range, too!

Simplify Design

Choosing a simple design is a great way to build an app on a budget. Trying to make your app “shiny” will result in spending more in both design components and the time necessary to put everything together. Instead, focus on user experience and ensure that customers will enjoy using the app instead of just seeing it. By cutting out customized graphics heavy interfaces or creating your own Photoshop files, you will be able to still give the customer a good design without stressing your budget.

Only Add a Few Core Features

Resist the temptation to build an app with too many features. While a multi-use app with lots of features sounds like a great idea, it’s much better to start off with an app that only has one or two core functions. That way, you won’t have to pay for costly development work to build functionality into the different areas of your app. Not only that, but testing and debugging your app will be made much simpler, as there will be fewer areas to test and tweak, as well as fewer areas to fix in case something does go wrong. If your app is a hit, you can always add more functions to your app later down the road.

Pick One Platform

In order to build an app on a budget, it is important that you select one specific mobile platform for your app and launch it before moving onto other platforms. While it would be great to build an app for multiple platforms such as Android, iPhone, Windows and Blackberry, the costs for developing the infrastructure to suit each individual platform is simply too prohibitive for most small businesses with limited budgets. With many successful apps launching on only one platform before later branching off, there are very few drawbacks to concentrating on launching your app on one platform and assessing its viability before moving onto another.