What is the cost of developing an APP?

I have contacted tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and developed more than 30 apps online. Nothing is better than me to answer this question. .

This article is a million answers for people who want to do an App project well! Because this is the experience that we spent millions of trial and error costs!

Since we have been engaged in the app development industry, we have received a lot of customer inquiries every day. Among them are entrepreneurs, project managers of companies and so on. I have contacted tens of thousands of customers who want to be an App in about 2 years. It is found that 80% of customers are prone to make some fatal mistakes.

Internet is a magical big network, and software customization is also a mode to provide the most detailed quotation. You can come here if you really want to do it. The starting number of this mobile phone is one, the middle number is one, one, three, and the last number is four, seven and four. You can find it by combining them in order. What I want to say is, unless you want to do or understand this, if you just join in the fun, don't come.

I think it is very simple to make a software, so the description of requirements is very vague.

◆ Be in a hurry to quote, and quote if you are not sure about the demand. Then start to follow this quotation.

◆ I don't know what I want, I want to be a mall, and I want to be Taobao.

◆ The difference between a website and a mobile App is unclear. I want to make a mobile application, but I said I want to make a website.

I think all software has templates, and templates are very cheap.

Lack of patience, I don't understand or think about how complicated what I want to do.

I don't know what specific function I want to do, so I can only guess by the developers. We need to make an offer now.

Facts tell us that these problems will definitely lead to the following results.

◆ The project is completely different from what I thought.

◆ According to the survey of foreign professional statistical agencies, 52% of the project managers in outsourcing projects were forced to leave/demote/dismiss because of the out-of-control/failure of the project.

◆ When the project went online, there were many loopholes, and repeated tinkering could not solve the problem. You have to redo it later. (Didi taxi encountered this situation when outsourcing, and it was a mess to find outsourcing. Scrap it directly without using it once)

◆ Mistakenly treat the unreliable quotation obtained when you are not sure of your own needs as a real quotation and start budgeting, which leads to the late capital budget failing to keep up and then the project goes out of control/bankruptcy.

We often meet customers who ask us for advice first, saying that the software company they used to find was too cheat people. What you make is like a piece of shit. If you ask carefully, you will find it. It turned out that he was completely unclear and uncertain about his needs before the project started. In this way, I started to work in a daze, thinking that the developer would help him improve the rest. In fact, these customers told me that none of the developers I met would help them give up halfway.

There is a simple reason. The more careful you think about the requirements, the higher the development cost. Generally, it is normal for the cost difference to be several times to several times according to the degree of refinement of demand. For the project of 1 10,000, the salary cost of 1 10,000 is not enough. This is why the quotations of different developers will be so many times worse when customers make inquiries at ordinary times. Not only expensive and cheap. The root cause is that everyone's understanding of needs is completely different. If the customers themselves don't know, then no one will.

Responsible outsourcing companies will ask you the details of your requirements carefully, and irresponsible outsourcing companies will quote you as soon as they come up?

People are always lazy, lazy when they want to think about things, and lazy when they want to think. Therefore, customers generally hate this kind of patient developer who will ask the requirements carefully. Instead, I like to ask nothing, but I don't know what you want to do, but I want to quote an ultra-low price to attract the developer into the pit. The final result is generally the situation we mentioned earlier, and the project fails directly. Either it was killed by the "black-hearted" developer halfway, and the price was seriously increased halfway (the original function of 1 was 50,000 halfway). Because you chose him, either give up halfway or continue to add money according to him. Most people don't want to waste half of the advance payment, and they don't know how much it will cost to add such a function. At this time, it is no longer possible to choose other developers to try. So I will choose to do it. . .

The most common example I have seen is that many people come up and ask how much it costs to make an APP. Or how much does it cost to make a simple APP? Or I'm going to take a taxi, such as Meituan/Taobao/JD.COM. COM/ Didi. . . How much is the same APP?

The first one: how much does it cost to make an APP?

In fact, asking this question is like going to a 4S store and asking, how much is a car? There are 654.38+10,000 family cars, and the super-running10,000 vehicles. According to the use (cars, cross-country, sports cars, racing cars and buses are also cars), the configuration, engines and devices are different, and the price and cost are very different. In the same way, it is the same for you to ask the APP. You must clearly express what kind of APP you want, what scenarios you want, what problems the APP solves, and how to solve them (what functions are needed specifically). Just asking about the price is no less than asking about the car in the 4S shop. I just want a car, just tell me the price. People will treat you like a fool. Because you didn't tell others what kind of car you really want! ! !

If you just ask me how much it costs to make an APP? I can only tell you that hundreds of millions to hundreds of millions are possible.

The second type: I want to make a simple APP. how much is it?

Everyone has a different definition of simplicity. How simple and specific are you? What are you going to do? Many people think that WeChat is also quite simple. . . I suggest you clarify the specific function every time you ask.

Third: I want to take a taxi like Meituan/Taobao/JD.COM. COM/ Didi. . . How much is the same APP?

Generally, entrepreneurs who ask this question have a characteristic, and many of them can't tell what they want. Maybe I just took a fancy to the map function such as Didi taxi, but the description is similar to Didi taxi. The map function of Didi taxi actually accounts for less than 1% of the whole software system function of Didi. In the same way, some people took a fancy to the group buying part of Meituan and said that what they wanted to do was Meituan. Some people saw JD.COM's online payment and said they wanted JD.COM. If you ask me directly, I really don't know what function you want in the example. Because it is impossible to completely imitate a Meituan/Taobao/JD.COM. COM/ Didi takes a taxi. . .

Why can't you imitate it completely? Seemingly simple Meituan/Taobao/JD.COM. COM/ Didi taxi/Wechat ... The app you see, the software development cost is more than 10 million, even hundreds of millions (especially in the complex background). Because the details of these big companies' apps are complex and the background is complex, it is beyond your imagination. Nowadays, many so-called software imitates JD.COM and WeChat. It is also said on the Internet that companies like WeChat JD.COM can be developed for you. It can be said that the function that can really be achieved is less than 1% of WeChat JD.COM. Give a few concrete examples. For example, the most basic registration login may be divided into email registration login, WeChat authorization login, QQ authorization login, Weibo authorization login, SMS verification code registration login, and password retrieval is divided into email retrieval and SMS retrieval. Here are seven situations. If you do one or seven kinds of development, the cost may be seven times or even higher.

Another example is the search function. The simplest search function may take several hours to develop, but this kind of search may still work normally with thousands or tens of thousands of commodity data. But if there are millions of commodity data, it will definitely collapse at this time. It's not just the product data that will have an impact, such as whether your search function supports fuzzy search (that is, the input keywords can be biased) or accurate search. How fuzzy a fuzzy search can be is very important. The search function of Taobao JD.COM is such a big platform that many large companies just need a development team of more than a dozen people to develop and optimize it all the year round, and the cost of raising these people is millions or tens of millions a year. Now you can turn on Taobao's search function and take a closer look at how many details it has (advanced search, region, price screening, search result sorting, etc.). If you are interested, you can check the financial reports of these listed companies yourself. The cost of software development varies from tens of millions to hundreds of millions every quarter. Big companies will certainly recruit people who need it, and those who don't need it will not recruit so many people. Due to the limited space, more detailed reasons and precautions will not be repeated.

The following is a job advertisement for Didi taxi. If you are interested, you can see how many people are in the technical team behind Didi taxi.

In March alone, hundreds of technical posts were being recruited. The average annual salary is between 200,000 and 400,000.

Didi taxi recruitment position

Now you can understand why you are so afraid of these questions? Because the entrepreneur really told me clearly that I want to make an APP similar to Taobao/JD.COM. COM/ Didi takes a taxi, but the cost of this APP is astronomical. You may just want some of the functions, or just want to imitate his business model.

Some people may think that this is a big company, so they need it. Do I need to think so carefully at the beginning of my business? To tell you clearly, it is very necessary.

Waiting until the error occurs to solve it will be very costly or directly lead to failure.

Big companies are good not only because they are big companies, but also because they can become big companies.

And you don't think about it, and no one thinks about it for you. Don't pin your hopes on these software companies you found online. They'll just tell you it's simple. Come on, you'll be rich if you come. Internet people are stupid and rich. You don't know what function your APP needs, and you will definitely suffer in the end. Because when you don't know what you really want to do, the software company you are looking for doesn't even know yourself.

You want them to give you the details to consider, and they will only give you the concept of cutting corners. Because doing so can give you a lower quotation and increase your chances of choosing him.

There was a real example before. A customer only told an irresponsible developer that he had registered and logged in, but didn't tell him to retrieve the password, and the developer didn't remind him. Finally, the software didn't get the password back. If you don't want to be cheated under such circumstances, please consider the details of your App as much as possible.

For example, the functions of shopping cart include adding to shopping cart, removing from shopping cart, adding/reducing the quantity of goods in shopping cart, directly inputting numbers to modify the quantity of goods, and paying in batches. You said that many developers will only do one of the functions, and most developers will not consider the others. And the average entrepreneur will think, Taobao has it, and it generally has it. Why don't you do this? Entrepreneurs usually see the mature products of big companies. You know, the development cost of Taobao is billions. And after years of iteration and updating.

Alibaba Group's third-quarter financial report of 20 15 shows that the product development expenditure of 20 15 in the third quarter was RMB 3.225 billion (about US$ 507 million), accounting for 15% of the revenue. You're right, the development cost of a quarter is 3.2 billion. One year is10 billion.

In most cases, you won't mention the details to the developers, and there is generally no such thing. If others will consider you more comprehensively, then the development cost will be high.

Here I list three things that most affect the quality and cost of APP software. I hope everyone must keep it in mind! ! ! It is convenient to find a suitable developer and control the quality of the project.

1. Function development mode

There are several development methods on the market now:

A, carrying out shell processing on a webpage to generate an APP.

The development method of creating an APP by adding a shell to a web page costs hundreds of dollars to buy a ready-made mobile website template, and it only takes five minutes to wrap an APP in the shell, but the effect is poor, traffic consumption is poor, browsing experience is poor, and access speed is slow. Some developers take advantage of customers' ignorance and treat this five-minute crash as an original ecological development APP to deceive entrepreneurs. Sell thousands to tens of thousands of prices. Entrepreneurs often think they are cheap (ask a dozen companies for the cheapest).

B. Web page+original ecology mixture (Web page part accounts for more than 80%)

The effect of the hybrid APP is slightly better than the first one. However, in order to make the effect close to the original ecology, it needs continuous optimization and modification, and the money spent will not be less than that of the original ecology. And if you don't optimize the web page and system, you just piece it together. And then the effect is similar to web shell.

C.HTML5 development

The cost is about 50% to 30% of the original ecological APP, which is also a way closer to the original ecological development. But it is subject to many restrictions. The compatibility of major platforms is still insufficient, and it is still in a transitional period, consuming system resources. Change the card on the low-end mobile phone. The APP of mobile phone Taobao is currently mashing up HTML5+ original ecology, and comparing cards on many low-profile mobile phones. Recently, it has been optimized a lot, but the previous performance is not ideal. JD.COM and Facebook both tried HTML5, but they also suffered from immaturity. The future of HTML5 may be bright, but the cost of trial and error during this period may not be affordable for small companies.

D. Original ecological development

It is the most commonly used and mature method at present. The more attention to detail, the higher the cost. Generally, the development cost of an APP ranges from thousands to tens of millions according to specific functions.

2. How to realize the function (the complexity of the function and the number of users)

For example, the search function mentioned above, the specific requirements for the search function will make the cost differ by tens of thousands of times. Not only search, but also several examples. For example, the chat in WeChat can be divided into text chat, picture chat, recorded language chat, voice instant intercom and video chat.

Voice instant talkback and video chat are just a brief mention. These are all things that cost millions or tens of millions to develop. Wechat, QQ and even their own language intercom and video chat have many problems, such as large echo, large current and loud noise when many people chat at the same time. It's not that Tencent doesn't know, it knows, but it's difficult to solve.

Take recording transmission as an example here. Generally speaking, we listen to a piece of music for 60 seconds, which is about1m. A 60-second voice of WeChat is compressed to tens of K, which ensures the sending and receiving speed. At the same time, we also do speech noise reduction (reducing surrounding noise) and so on. And if these are not considered, simply send a voice. It is normal that the development cost between the two is several times to several hundred times. Similarly, when your APP is finished, you will find that the message is sent slowly, consuming a lot of traffic and so on.

3.3 compatibility. Applications on mobile phones

I believe that when you use mobile apps, especially Android phones. It must be found that some apps will flash back and get stuck. This is because some functions of this application are not compatible or have bugs on this phone. These problems are numerous and difficult to solve. When you are just a user, you won't feel how strong you are, because most of the products you use are very mature products developed by big companies. But you must consider it when you are an entrepreneur yourself. Because no one wants to develop their own APP, 8 of 10' s mobile phones have flashed back. But it's true. Many apps that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop are flashing back everywhere.

Compatibility has a great impact on the cost (it will be several times to hundreds of times more expensive). Only available for Android. There are more than 10,000 models of Android phones in the world, and different brands, resolutions and operating system version numbers will affect the compatibility of programs. In many cases, the cost of compatibility debugging is greater than the cost of software development. To be compatible with mainstream mobile phones, it costs hundreds of thousands to buy a tested mobile phone. If an APP is developed, it will not be debugged and developed for compatibility. And to do compatibility debugging and development, the cost will be n times worse.

In addition, speaking of templates, many times some projects can save a lot of costs if they have mature template solutions.

But the template is the same, and the price difference is huge. The same mall template may have a price difference of dozens of times, because the details and functions are completely different, and the functions may be ten times worse. If you don't carefully observe the details and functions before buying, you will definitely make a hullabaloo about after buying. The whole process of this system may be incomplete, not to mention that you operate this incomplete system.

In addition, not all apps have templates. Generally speaking, there are only many app templates related to shopping malls. Moreover, there is a difference between mature and immature templates. The cost and time of truly mature template development are huge, and a company cannot have many good templates at the same time. Because of the large quantity, it must not be refined. The cost of developing a good template is already huge, and there are many at the same time, which means that the cost and energy invested in each template will not be too much.

On March 30, several common pits in app outsourcing development were updated.

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Public pit 1:

Customers ask outsourcing companies what famous cases do you have? The outsourcing company said yes, Meituan, Dianping, Ctrip, and Store 1 (give an example of an app with a certain popularity in the first, second and third lines) were made by us/were our cases.

In this case, 90% is the concept of stealing or pure deception. Whether the company you are looking for is a big company with hundreds of people or a small company with only a few people.

The reality is that any App you have heard of is basically recruited by Internet companies themselves and is unlikely to be outsourced. You can search Baidu for any app name or Internet company name+recruitment that you have heard of, and you can see that they have recruited a large number of programmers and engineers for a long time. The company has a technical team of dozens to hundreds or even thousands of people for a long time.

Even if they really look for outsourcing, it may be the first phase of the earliest venture, but the system they later became famous is completely different from the one they originally looked for outsourcing, and the business code is completely different.

Outsourcing is a low-cost trial and error in the early stage, and it is likely to be scrapped directly if it is useless once. Didi taxi was the earliest outsourcing development before it was officially used, but it was scrapped directly and recruited people to do it again. However, this outsourcing company may jump out and say to customers n years later: Didi taxi is my customer's case, and I made Didi taxi. If the customer does not understand, then it is incorrect to use the concept of "stealing". Didi taxis are looking for them not because they are awesome, but because Didi taxis may also be pitted by them.

What's more, when the team of this well-known App company started, some outsourcing companies boasted about the founder of the team, but it was only a little bit, and there may be no actual cooperation projects. Then, n years later, this outsourcing company found that a bragging young man succeeded. At this time, he jumped out and said that XX is my customer and XXApp is our customer case. .

Another situation is that, for example, large Internet companies, such as Ctrip, Dianping or Store 1, are sometimes too busy in development. Occasionally, they will find some outsourcing companies to outsource some personnel and invite several technicians to help them with temporary chores for several months. Generally speaking, it is something with marginal technical content and no access to core business code. But at this time, the outsourcing company will say that we made a public comment. They are all stealing concepts, which is awesome.

There is no way to force deception to enhance customer trust. Just expose it.

Actually, you can do a simple experiment. When you look for an app outsourcing development company in Baidu or any other platform company, you will meet N official website companies with public comments, or click at home. Ctrip, Meituan and other apps are all his customer cases, or their business people personally brag about this awesome.

In fact, these internet companies that have been cooperated do not know that they have been cooperated. In the past, a stalk said that eating KFC once is a strategic partner of KFC and adding oil once is a strategic partner of Sinopec. In the field of app outsourcing, there are many companies that really do this, not to mention small ones. Even a large number of outsourcing companies that have already listed are boasting so much. It is a pleasure to steal concepts.

Public pit 2:

Be sure to read the contract given to you by the outsourcing company carefully. Many times, deceived customers have legal affairs in their own companies, but they have also been cheated. Because your lawyers and lawyers can't understand those seemingly professional technical words at all. So I don't know whether he is talking nonsense or being reasonable. It's about acceptance criteria and development requirements. Basically, if Party A's company doesn't know technology, even if it has professional legal affairs, it is too easy to be cheated.

Generally, the requirements are not described in detail in the contract or are not mentioned at all in the contract. I only said that I want to make an app. When will it be delivered? In fact, such a contract is useless. Only you have verbally discussed the requirements when discussing making an app, but if it is not implemented in a very detailed contract, the outsourcing company can finally deliver anything to you. This is not even the first time you have discussed it, because there is no evidence in the contract to prove what you are going to do.

Similarly, there are development methods (native or mixed, H5 or shelled) and acceptance criteria. Not to mention these, every time a bomb is buried in advance, you will be blind when you meet a liar. If you can't sue anyone at all, it's legal fraud.

Generally, the responsible company will give a very long requirement document in detail in the contract, which has at least dozens of pages according to the size of the project, and has its own prototype diagram and requirement description. The technology used, project architecture, development methods and so on are very clear.

This document is a very important annex to the contract. It describes in detail what your project will look like. Without this, both parties are actually forced to sign the contract. There is no definition of what to do at all, and it is not against the contract to hand in something casually.

This seemingly common sense thing is actually unknown to most laymen. I see at least dozens of cases of outsourcing development being cheated and trapped in this place every year.

If Party A doesn't pay attention to this point, even if it is cheated, it is useless to sue anywhere. Because no one else has violated the contract. Your contract is a piece of waste paper.

Temporarily updated so much, the app outsourcing pit is very, very deep. The best way is that Party A's own company has a technician who can participate in the selection of developers and gradually hand over. I will update it slowly in the future, hoping to help people who really want to start a business.

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Recently, many friends asked me if I wanted to do development. If the project needs to be developed, you can communicate with me directly by private message or WeChat. Specializing in O2O e-commerce and intelligent Internet of Things?

Answer 2:

20 13 internet development company has been established for more than three years, and the development cost estimation of App is one of the tasks involved every day. Because the price of App development varies according to the complexity, the number of function points, platform requirements and other factors, we temporarily ignore these factors and evaluate the cost of App development from the perspective of personnel input.

Assuming that the workload of developing an App is 200 man-days and working days (according to most App projects we have contacted, the workload of most App projects is about 150-250 days on average), we need to develop three platforms, namely Android, iOS and CMS. In the case of forming your own team, the personnel needed for the project are: a product manager and a project. According to the configuration of this person and the average market salary of each person, the following list can be obtained:

Product manager => Monthly salary: 10K Investment time: 10 days.

Project manager => Monthly salary: 12K Investment time: 10 days.

UI designer => Monthly salary: 8K Investment time: 10 day.

Android development engineer => Monthly salary: 10K Investment time: 50 days.

IOS development engineer => Monthly salary: 10K Investment time: 50 days.

Background development engineer => Monthly salary: 9K Investment time: 50 days.

Test Engineer => Monthly salary: 7K Investment time: 20 days.

Note: The salary of the above personnel is based on the salary of Guangzhou at the beginning of 20 16, and it is assumed that all personnel have about two years' work experience. People in different cities and different levels of experience will have great differences in salary. For example, the salary of developers from Guangzhou to Shenzhen will be higher, and the salary of developers with more than three years of experience generally exceeds 10K. In this way, the cost of an App project with a workload of 200 man-days is about 10W, which should be close to the cost of 14W together with the expenses of employee social security, welfare, equipment, venue and personnel management, without considering the vacancy period of personnel, the cost of recruitment and the risk of the project for the time being. This is the price that a company that already has a mature App development team needs to pay. For a company that has no App development team and relevant development experience at all, this cost estimate needs to be at least doubled, and the development cycle will take a long time to basically achieve the similar effect of the former.

As far as most app projects are concerned, developing an App standard project requires developing a set of background management system (CMS)+ Android client +iOS client. The development cost of most projects ranges from1.2-250,000, and the specific price needs to be determined according to the functional complexity, quality requirements and which platforms to develop. In addition, individual part-time, team or studio, or professional app development company, there will be a big gap in the cost of quotation and the quality of development. General quotation cost: individual

So, what is the specific quotation reference standard of App when quoting? Whether it is an individual, a team or a different company, the quotation evaluation method in the industry determines the quotation cost according to the workload, that is, how many man-days are needed for the development of the whole project and how much is charged per person-day, and the total development cost can be obtained by multiplying the two parameters. For example, to develop an O2O App project, Android (50 person-days) +iOS (50 person-days)+background management system (50 person-days), and the total number of developers is 1500. If the charge is1.2000 per person per day, the total development cost of the whole project is1.8000.

Many outsiders can't understand how it costs so much to develop an app.

Learn from the industry, a simple analysis:

The staffing for developing an App project is very complicated. It takes only one developer to develop a website, while it takes three developers to develop an app, which is usually three times the development cost of a website with the same function. The basic staffing of App project includes: product manager, project manager, UI designer, background development engineer, Android development engineer, iOS development engineer and tester. For a professional App development company, an individual or a team may hold several positions, so the quality of the developed project cannot be guaranteed.

The labor cost of App development is higher than that of website. Usually, a developer with one or two years of experience in developing Android or iOS will have a labor cost of around 65,438+0,000 (due to the high demand for development talents in the current market environment, the labor cost of technology development is also high). Usually, the basic labor cost of an app project will reach 6- 100000, plus employee welfare, equipment, venue, personnel management, marketing cost and business communication cost, basically the basic input cost of an app project will be around 12- 150000. Temporarily ignore the gap period of personnel and recruit.