How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Mobile App for Local Business

There are a lot of businesses nowadays, which aim at reaching local communities more than international markets. These are mostly on-demand services, food and flowers delivery, dining spots, printing or cleaning services, etc.

Also much has already been saying about digital marketing for businesses shifting mobile. Here are the statistics about the world mobile economy:

How the mobile app will help your clients and your business

When making a rather heavy investment, it’s important to determine the benefits you’re going to bring to your audience, as well as the profits you expect to gain from this affair.

Should I consider building an app for my business?

The major question, which will initiate the preliminary stages of the project. The answer is that most local businesses can benefit from the mobile app if only crafted correctly and fulfills the needs of the visitors. Either it’s reaching out to your customers 24/7 or simplifying the overall shopping routine making it fun and engaging contact.

How can I improve the customer experience for my folks?

Customer queries stats will surely help you see the gaps in different aspects of the business. That is the best weapon on your way to enhancing interaction with the service.

Deploy socializing tools and allow users to share their experiences and directly ask you questions. Engage them with some nice perks and a loyalty program, because people like to get a special status within the company. Believe it, they will keep coming back for your new badges.

There is a wide range of approaches, which nurture your visitors and build loyalty within a mobile channel. Be sure, you’ll find something matching for your particular business.

How my business will benefit from a mobile app?

Basically, the answer is clear – the better the experience you provide to your customers, the more they want to stick with you and recommend it to friends. It’ll surely take some time to return this investment, but in the long term you are legging up on the competition by improving the quality of the entire business – presentation of all items or services, communication, delivery, customer support, etc.

• The first gain out of the mobile app for your business is Larger Profit – besides the major monetization way for your business, a mobile app opens other streams of income like ads or in-app purchases;
• Reaching out to a bunch of new customers – go viral with your sharp and user-friendly mobile app. Extend the audience through promoting it;
• Your app is your business ad – being a tool for earning money, use the mobile app as an object of your advertising – say it out loud what perks this software brings to initiate even more downloads.

What factors will influence the pricing for the local business mobile apps

Of course, there is a wide range of minor, absolutely different circumstances that potentially impact the concluding price of the mobile app.

Here we’ve picked out a list of the most influential factors for local biz mobile app development:

Development model choice

Mainly, there are two approaches to mobile app development organization – outsourcing and dedicated team.

Outsourcing – a whole remote team running the project led by the project manager; the same people handle tasks on other projects of the outsourcing company they’re hired by;

Dedicated team – a specific limited number of specialists hired for the project; usually controlled by the customer representative; employees work solely on the particular project.

Essentially, the major difference between the cost of outsourcing app development and a dedicated team is the number of involved specialists. And as a result, the number of hours you pay for.

Project phase

Depending on what you got on hand at the time of starting the project, the price will also fluctuate.

If you already got a concept, ready-to-go prototype or MVP, consider some scope of work is done. Depending on this, you’ll need to complete what’s left – code review, planning, development, testing, publishing.

Type of the app

Talking mobile applications, in most cases, the choice will fall between traditional native and cross-platform versions. The web app is also built by default along with mobile apps.

Imagine a typical local business mobile application – Restaurant Finder in the area. There are two groups of users – people looking for a nice dining place locally and the restaurants themselves placing info about the spot. The web app is used by businesses to work with the platform. And potential clients of these businesses will usually exercise with the mobile app.

• Native mobile app – full device integration, better security, easier monetization, BUT more costly, intense competition on the market;
• Cross-platform app – faster and easier to build, lower cost, simpler maintenance, BUT limited graphics and features, moderate device penetration, speed issues.

MUST-READ: How To Develop a Shopping App Like WISH?

Choice of platforms and their number

Which one of the platforms will best resonate with your audience usually depends on a number of conditions:

• your target region;
• desired functionality;
• your budget for the project, etc.

Statistically speaking, an iOS mobile app can be in all ways more rewarding than an Android one. But wait up, it still depends.

If the majority of your target audience is located in the transition economy regions (a.k.a. Android addicts), it’s a no-brainer that an Android app is the best way to go as most people own Android gadgets here.

Otherwise, if you aim at getting international recognition overall, then surely go for the iOS app – cheaper, quicker and chances are the most PR and opinion leaders use Apple devices.

Variety of devices

Even if you’re set on one platform only (for example, Android), you also should take into account that each device has a specific screen size to which you should adapt your local business app.

For instance, have you ever tried to calculate the number of all Android-charged gadgets and screen sizes with them? It’s really getting close to a range of impossible tasks. Whereas, the range of iOS devices screens are not as numerous and more standardized. 

So the more devices you choose, the more time is needed to adapt the application to the screen resolutions, hardware specs, etc. Not to mention various versions of OS installed on the device.

Critical features you want to include in your local business app:

• Registration/Account/Login – a fundamental function that helps personalize the approach of the user to the app, withdraw useful data to use in further engaging strategy;
• Admin Panel – adding content, maintenance of the service, managing users, viewing stats – all this is managed here;
• Geolocation & maps – crucial for showing location, path and time to reach it, etc.;
• Lists and filters – both searching for items and filtering a list of displayed items are powerful tools if designed and done right;
• Push Notifications – a personalized communication and marketing tool for engaging users in the app and, at the same time, helping satisfy their needs;
• eCommerce – mobile payment provides maximum convenience to the shopper – paying without cash by integrating their billing information into the app;
• Feedback & Rates – tools for communication, feed, and self-expression are totally expected by users in the majority of markets;
• Loyalty Program – make your users feel special, provide them with different gifts, bonuses and they’ll keep coming back.

CHECK ALSO: How To Integrate Payment System Into the Existing App

How much does mobile app development for the local business cost?

Now, when you know what can influence the overall price of the app and what features to include to make it top-notch, let’s talk hours. Hours of all professionals involved in your project.

Obviously, hourly rates for IT teams will differ from region to region. Among the most common choices of the team would be US-based, ones in Eastern Europe or in India.

The averagemobile app development cost for Indian developers will usually be the least out of all. Just make sure you check their portfolio to assure reliability. After all, rumors around the Indian development style going on for a reason.

Eastern Europe specialists are famous for their high professionalism together with moderate pricing, so they are worth considering for sure:

Specialist	Hourly Rate (USD)
UI/UX Designer	$25+/hour
Frontend Developer	$35+/hour
Backend (PHP) Developer	$30+/hour
Android Developer	$35+/hour
iOS Developer	$37+/hour
QA Engineer	$20+/hour
Project Manager / Business Analyst	$25+/hour
DevOps Engineer	$30+/hour

Australian and American app developers are paid the highest out of this range. Just a hint for you, guys, – these will be in most cases East Europeans relocated to the US or Australia.

For more inspiration, check out the best practices of mobile apps for local business:

• NUWBII – an innovative service for finding appropriate businesses in the neighborhood;
• QuePro – a platform for connecting specialists of all sorts with clients in order to get professional advice.

Concluding thoughts

Here you have it – a solid cheat sheet on what shapes the price of the mobile app for local business. Mind first what exactly is needed to improve your service, transform it to features in your mobile app and go ahead craft it step by step – on your own, with the help of a single developer or a team – the choice is yours.