Mobile App Maintenance Costs Evaluation in 2020

App Maintenance Costs

With the emergence of smartphones, tablets, and improved mobile access, almost every company is looking at some sort of software development program to better serve current and future clients. Although executives are typically able to budget for the production and delivery of the product, many forget to consider the long-term costs of the product as well.

If we talk about app maintenance costs, Developers need to schedule endless patches, enhancements, and repairs. Prescient development partners will allow their clients to prepare ahead. Most of them also integrate a maintenance fee into contracts. The industry standard for software maintenance is about 15% to 20% of the original production costs. But if your app costs $100,000 to build, the cost of mobile app development estimated that you’ll spend around $20,000 a year to maintain the software.

The cost of mobile app development may sound costly. And it’s expensive for many businesses who don’t get ready for the software development process. However, the greatest mistake made by company executives and their development partners is to strive to create a flawless, bullet-proof application from the outset. Everything they really do is overspending on the initial costs. In reality, an oft-quoted Standish Community study found that 45 percent of traditional application features (both web and mobile) was never used, and another 19 percent were rarely used. Your aim as an organization should be to avoid developing such features.

App Creation and Maintenance Costs

When your app is released, you will need to create new content, monitor how your app is running, and let your users know what’s new. If your app depends on a server to store information such as user records or payment history, you will also have to pay for this information. 

Each app needs continuous maintenance and content updates to keep users satisfied, interested, and coming back for more. Depending on the size of the software, you will also incur extra server costs, emergency repair, push alerts, payment processing, and more.

Now, if we talk about app creation and maintenance costs, A reasonable rule of thumb is to budget 20% of the initial development costs when estimating how much it would cost to maintain software. If your initial development cost is $100,000, you can fairly expect to pay around $20,000 a year to support your software.

Mobile App Maintenance Costs        

As soon as your app becomes available to its users, you will be entering the next step of the lifecycle of software development: maintenance of mobile applications. 

This also means that you need to budget accordingly to keep the app not just up-to-date but also stable and enticing to its users.

Paying attention to app maintenance will pay off in the long run – raising the customer retention rate by just 5 percent has proven to increase company profits by between 25 and 95 percent.

Although you can find examples of app cost breakdowns online, referring to them can lead to more frustration than guidance. After all, the software can be designed in a completely different way – even though the one you’re examining looks identical to yours. 

Some areas that could have a major effect on your costs include a presence on Google Play and AppStore, as well as operating with a native or cross-platform solution.

App Maintenance Costs Fixed or Variable

The first step in designing your mobile app development budget is to identify and measure the cost of developing your mobile app. As with every other product, these costs can be divided into two categories: app maintenance costs fixed or variable costs. Fixed costs almost never adjust over a given time span and remain the same regardless of how much or how little product production is undertaken. Two examples of fixed costs are the cost of leasing office space during the development of mobile applications or the procurement of MacBooks that you can use for growth.  

Variable costs differ depending on the workload. In growth, a major variable expense is the cost of an external software developer, which can range from $70 to as much as $300 an hour, depending on the scope of the project. You can hire or contract a developer and then discover that your wonderful new tech monkey doesn’t really have the skills, credentials, or experience required to complete the job as you expected.

Which application takes the highest maintenance cost?

Native apps are very costly. Although the cost varies significantly depending on the product, surveys found that the business software ranges from $50k – over $1,000,000, with an average cost of $271,000.