How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Social Media App?

Social media has become a habitual thing for a while now, but it has only recently become an integral part of it. Every day, millions of people around the world check their cell phones first thing in the morning, many times along the day, and the last thing before they go to back to sleep.

Social media is not merely a place where users chat with their friends and family and comment on their birthday pictures anymore.

It is now a place where people go to get entertained. It’s a place where people expect to get the news. It is also a place where brands and users meet.

Currently, most users access social media platforms from their smartphones. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter maintain leadership in this market. However, new apps like TikTok take the market by storm over and over again, changing the rules of the game and the game itself as well.

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Social Media App Market

Making a social media app in 2019 might seem a bad idea at first. After all, there are so many solutions already available on the market. Nowadays, smartphone users have a vast choice when it comes to social media apps.

The majority prefers to go with the flow and settle for the most popular giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. However, some users search for a more niche solution that would meet their lifestyle, interests, and hobbies better. Why not offer a solution tailored to this audience and turn it into the next Facebook?

How to create a social media app that will not only get noticed but will also spark the interest and attract the target audience? If you think of creating a new social media app, the first thing you should do is study the market. An innovative app idea is great, but it is not enough to start the development process of a new product.

Before any app development activities begin, you need to have a complete business strategy at hand. Base your strategy on thorough market analysis. Learn everything you can about your target audience. You never know what data you might need for your next update or marketing campaign.

Next, plan your user attraction, engagement, and retention strategies. Develop your unique market proposition, a feature that will make you stand out from the competitors. This feature should be hard to copy. We don’t say “impossible” since it’s very presumptuous to think that technology cannot be copied, reproduced or stolen nowadays).

Social Media App MVP Cost

According to the best practices of mobile app development and the Lean approach, it’s best to start building your project from an MVP. A minimum viable product will help you see whether your idea meets the demand of the target audience, how the users react to and interact with the product, and see how effective your marketing is.

Later, you can coordinate your marketing and development efforts with the results obtained from the MVP study. An app MVP is also a great lead generation tool that will help you get in touch with the needed audience.

If you build an MVP of a social media app, how much will it cost? The exact price will depend on the set of features you want to implement, the number of features, the technology stack, the project design, and the deadlines you set for it.

A simple ten-screen app MVP needed in a quarter is likely to be much cheaper than a ten-screen app with a sophisticated design, required in a month.

A social media app MVP with a basic feature set could have the following functions:

A basic MVP app with the above-listed features will cost about $22,000. We are speaking here about an MVP app for one platform.

The development is likely to take from two to three months. The price includes UI/UX design, custom development, project management, quality assurance, and business analysis.

Speaking of an MVP that has more features but is not highly sophisticated, we should tell you that it would cost more. Let’s say you want to build an app MVP with more features and design of a more substantial complexity for 1-2 platforms.

A product that includes additional features and services will cost approximately $45,000, and the development will take between four and six months. The price includes UI/UX design, custom development, project management, quality assurance, and business analysis.

In case you would like to build a sophisticated social media app that has complex features, sophisticated design, and support, for two and more platforms, you shouldn’t expect a low price for it. The development cost of such a project will likely be over $115,000.

The price includes UI/UX design, custom development, project management, quality assurance, and business analysis. Complex, sophisticated projects usually require support and non-stop ongoing development, so their development costs are continuously growing.

Please note that the numbers provided above are intended for information purposes only. The actual development rates and final costs cannot be determined before a development company evaluates your project accurately.

To do so, they need to work it through with a business analyst and the development team as well. Based on the vendor you choose, their location, and the level of their expertise, the hourly rates or the fixed price will differ too.

Here is a short video on “How to Create a Minimum Viable Product for an App”:

Developing a social media app that attracts the attention of smartphone users in 2019 is not easy. However, this challenging path is fascinating and attractive due to the great opportunities it offers.

In case you dream of building the next Facebook for your target audience, take a shot! The world has already seen success stories of apps that beat the titans no one even remembers any more. One more advice we can give you is to avoid building a template or a cross-platform app. Such solutions can dispel your audience and disappoint them in terms of the implementation of the app idea.

It’s better to focus on one platform and polish the product for it, gradually expanding to more platforms when your app starts to generate revenue. And, don’t build a clone. Make something original the smartphone users haven’t seen yet!

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