How much it costs to build an app or the whole truth about money
upon Learning that I am developing a mobile app, my friends from time to time, asking: "how much it costs to develop an app?". And I honestly replied: "200 dollars". The application will write HELLO WORLD on the screen, it will not miss the store because of a "bad user experience", but to work-then the app will be!
The amazing thing is that a huge number of developers really makes something for $ 3,000, and even puts it in the App Store.
Some stories of Russian developers are strikingly reminiscent of the stray fairy story "about the magic helper": in the spirit of the skate of a humpbacked or a gold fish. Out of nowhere there are designers and composers for free and doing exciting things, and programmers with humility of Cinderella at night scribbling initially brilliant code...
I just want to look them in the eye and earnestly ask:
— Guys, you are from which stories?
But in my harsh reality the development of qualitative, though not a large application for the Appstore – it's a long, difficult and expensive.
The main items of expenditure when a project is created:
the
The whole layout will be done by the example of our app "Memorii". The app is free, all the functionality can be viewed.
When designing apps we aim to create a "tool" that, when applied correctly allows a person to seek advice from your subconscious and obtain from him adequate and accurate answer.
But back to our budgets.
All the items of expenditure given adequate market price. That is, the price for which you can hire a competent expert or outsourcing company. You can obviously find a person for pizza and beer, but this is not a professional approach. So you can make one app, but not to build a new Studio.
the
Before starting work on the project – it should come up. We need: shared project concept, art bible that defines the style of the project, sketches, examples of content, the scheme of the screens and description of the main technologies. The more coined in the early, the faster and easier to do then.
The saddest thing is an attempt to save at this stage. We spent too little time on the job and paid for it then too significant alterations.
We have developed a principle at the design stage we have to do the paperwork so that the project could be outsource and to be sure that you do everything right.
5 weeks, 40 hours,$ 65 an hour (collectively) and that the budget of the project leaked the first $ 13,000.
the
From the point of view of the average person artists work slowly, they work delightfully slow. And most of this work proceeds, or they have in mind, or in small changes of color, shape and angle completely invisible to the untrained person. This leads to the fact that a full-sized, full color picture with a decent level of detail requires two full working days.
No, a separate drawing can be done in a day. But if you need them to do 62 as in our project – do not even expect. 2 days is the minimum. At the same time, part of the pictures will not fit and will need to be redone. Sad arithmetic – 20 hours on a picture, $ 20 per hour, 62 symbols in the application and, voilà, we just spent 25 thousand dollars.
3D animated we had not a lot, open doors, ride elevators, turn the mirror. Only 5 independent scenes. For modeling, skinning and other 3D-shnye the bells and whistles went 210 hours.
Another 250 hours of time eaten up by rendering all application screens. If you ask me that there is so much time to draw – I can't answer. But I do know – especially faster could not be – no one freebies and everything worked in full force.
the
I noticed a strange pattern – if you ask a programmer how long will it take to create a "foreseeable" in size product the answer is always the same – 2-3 months. Like projects and different platforms and languages and still for 2-3 months.
Even more strange that it's true. In two months you will be almost working prototype of your app. It will be impossible to use it, but most of the functionality will be present.
And over and over again, in different projects, it turns out that debugging functionality to the mind and requires 3-4 times more time than prototyping, which software ego cleverly gives for the finished product.
In our project I had to throw away established on the Cocos2D engine the prototype, so as a cheap pseudo-3D that we wanted to use looked pathetic and writhed like a half dead cockroach under the user's fingers, instead of butterflies and flow of the silk.
In fact programming to nearly release took 8 months and cost 45 000$
In the modern AppStore apps more than residents in Irkutsk. This means that just a normal application will not interest anybody – neither buyers nor journalists nor Apple itself. The application should be something that really sets it apart from the rest. It may be odd physics, unique gameplay, special speech recognition technology or psychedelic art style. But whatever it is, it will take time and hence money.
In our application, this uniqueness has become a scientific psychology (in contrast to the popular, which women's magazines). To obtain primary data, we conducted a large-scale study, which involved over 500 people from several dozen countries. We had to pay for the creation of methods for attracting people to the study, for statistical processing and for scientific expertise on the part of the faculty of psychology of St. Petersburg state University, for the review of the literature on the subject (Yes, having academic degrees in psychology, we still ordered a review of literature on a given topic, to be absolutely confident in yourself)...
In the end we got a projective technique that works on a mobile device and provides a diagnostic accuracy of emotional state more than 75%. Lüscher on his test nervously smokes on the sidelines.
The total budget for the development of "psychomechanics" as we called scientific side of our application, amounted to $ 10,000.
The application requires depth. Otherwise, the user will be "nothing" in it to use it. In the Navigator are maps, angry birds levels, in our application 5 different use cases, and 62 possible result. By multiplying 310 they give different interpretations of the result. 310 moderately short, meaningful, meaningful, beautiful and competent texts.
It's a hell of a lot – it's a novel consisting of short chapters. The lyrics were written jointly by a team of psychologists and fiction writer Sviatoslav Loginov.
the
The Russian market is small. For the product price of a few dollars, earn on the Russian market is not easy, for this it is necessary initially to create something that will appeal to all, but specifically for the Russian.
the
World market up to 50 times more. But in order to do something for him, it is necessary to speak the customer's language. Each text must be translated by a professional translator and proofread by a native speaker, with the right education and experience. We have localized our product (70 000 characters) in English and French. It ate a bunch of time and $ 3,000 (and Yes, it was very inexpensive).
The entrance to the building, which houses our office closed bars with a combination lock. This castle has a unique feature – when you press the buttons and the door opening is not issued any sound. And although the code works in half of the cases I have to meet guests, ponazhimat buttons, did not understand that the door is open.
In the application, almost any action the user needs to be voiced. 43 different action and each your sound. And there would have to be music. And it should reflect the atmosphere of the application, and should grow out of his pants MIDI files beginning of 90-x and sound orchestral polyphony. Some time ago I bought the game Bastion just because of the stunning music – especially since the game is not much more expensive album.
We were lucky — the music and sounds we wrote "on friendship" Alexander Dmitriev, voicing projects for Rovio and Mountain Sheep. In our humble application, 20 minutes of music written specifically for us. For all we paid a paltry $ 1,000.
Musical theme of anger
Polishing is a nasty process, when in the app, almost nothing has changed and everyone is busy. There to move, hang on, here a little reformatted, here the behavior is not obvious, and then the app suddenly hung.
The polishing took one and a half month's work of the artist, programmer and project Manager. And even now the project is full of rough edges that cling to the opinion of professionals of all stripes. 6 weeks,$ 20 per painter,$ 35 for the programmer,$ 15 for the head (he is, thank God, not on one project) – and here we say goodbye to 17 000 dollars.
About marketing written two previous articles:
How to become a millionaire in the AppStore or some formulas about promotion and sales. Part 1
and
How to become a millionaire in the AppStore or some formulas about promotion and sales. Part 2
We spent about $ 10,000 on research and experiments. Made a successful exit in the Russian AppStore, receiving 3 place in the category and 40 in the overall ranking. But flew so fast that I had to learn how the market and what we have not.
We changed the name and icon. The number of downloads increased 10 times. In order to come out in the US and the world would have 50 000. But lay 30 000.
the
Last but not least, the whole process has to manage. Even in a small project employs more than 10 people, their work needs to be coordinated, it is necessary to hold in one's head what is happening and what result we want to obtain in the end. It is necessary to study and to resolve the resulting contradictions. In General, it is necessary to spend money on a person who during the whole project doesn't create any bytes included in the application. With a total development time per year, simple arithmetic begins to resemble a series of horror movie – $ 15 for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year – for the money you can buy a new decent car...
Yes, could be done cheaper.
You could do much cheaper.
Many things could be saved, the part not to do it.
But whether it was necessary to begin to make a tasteless hack? I don't know any secret of success, but I do know that it is necessary to do something you'll be proud of myself.
Article based on information from habrahabr.ru
The amazing thing is that a huge number of developers really makes something for $ 3,000, and even puts it in the App Store.
Some stories of Russian developers are strikingly reminiscent of the stray fairy story "about the magic helper": in the spirit of the skate of a humpbacked or a gold fish. Out of nowhere there are designers and composers for free and doing exciting things, and programmers with humility of Cinderella at night scribbling initially brilliant code...
I just want to look them in the eye and earnestly ask:
— Guys, you are from which stories?
But in my harsh reality the development of qualitative, though not a large application for the Appstore – it's a long, difficult and expensive.
The main items of expenditure when a project is created:
| Article | Consumption |
| application Design | $ 13 000 |
| uniqueness | $ 10 000 |
| Producing graphs | $ 35 000 |
| Programming | $ 45 000 |
| the Text content | $ 5 000 |
| Localization | $ 3 000 |
| Music and sound | $ 1 000 |
| Polished | $ 17 000 |
| Marketing | $ 30 000 |
| Management | $ 30 000 |
| total: | $ 189 000 |
The whole layout will be done by the example of our app "Memorii". The app is free, all the functionality can be viewed.
When designing apps we aim to create a "tool" that, when applied correctly allows a person to seek advice from your subconscious and obtain from him adequate and accurate answer.
But back to our budgets.
All the items of expenditure given adequate market price. That is, the price for which you can hire a competent expert or outsourcing company. You can obviously find a person for pizza and beer, but this is not a professional approach. So you can make one app, but not to build a new Studio.
the design of the app – $ 13,000
the
Designer (for games – game designer) – 20$ per hour
Art Director – $ 30 an hour
project Manager – $ 15 per hour (part-time)
Before starting work on the project – it should come up. We need: shared project concept, art bible that defines the style of the project, sketches, examples of content, the scheme of the screens and description of the main technologies. The more coined in the early, the faster and easier to do then.
The saddest thing is an attempt to save at this stage. We spent too little time on the job and paid for it then too significant alterations.
We have developed a principle at the design stage we have to do the paperwork so that the project could be outsource and to be sure that you do everything right.
5 weeks, 40 hours,$ 65 an hour (collectively) and that the budget of the project leaked the first $ 13,000.
Trade graphs – $ 35,000
the
-
the
- 2D artist – $ 20 per hour the
- 3D Modeler, animator – 25$ per hour
From the point of view of the average person artists work slowly, they work delightfully slow. And most of this work proceeds, or they have in mind, or in small changes of color, shape and angle completely invisible to the untrained person. This leads to the fact that a full-sized, full color picture with a decent level of detail requires two full working days.
No, a separate drawing can be done in a day. But if you need them to do 62 as in our project – do not even expect. 2 days is the minimum. At the same time, part of the pictures will not fit and will need to be redone. Sad arithmetic – 20 hours on a picture, $ 20 per hour, 62 symbols in the application and, voilà, we just spent 25 thousand dollars.
3D animated we had not a lot, open doors, ride elevators, turn the mirror. Only 5 independent scenes. For modeling, skinning and other 3D-shnye the bells and whistles went 210 hours.
Another 250 hours of time eaten up by rendering all application screens. If you ask me that there is so much time to draw – I can't answer. But I do know – especially faster could not be – no one freebies and everything worked in full force.
Programming – $ 45,000
the
-
the
- Senior programmer – $ 35 per hour
I noticed a strange pattern – if you ask a programmer how long will it take to create a "foreseeable" in size product the answer is always the same – 2-3 months. Like projects and different platforms and languages and still for 2-3 months.
Even more strange that it's true. In two months you will be almost working prototype of your app. It will be impossible to use it, but most of the functionality will be present.
And over and over again, in different projects, it turns out that debugging functionality to the mind and requires 3-4 times more time than prototyping, which software ego cleverly gives for the finished product.
In our project I had to throw away established on the Cocos2D engine the prototype, so as a cheap pseudo-3D that we wanted to use looked pathetic and writhed like a half dead cockroach under the user's fingers, instead of butterflies and flow of the silk.
In fact programming to nearly release took 8 months and cost 45 000$
create a unique – $ 10,000
In the modern AppStore apps more than residents in Irkutsk. This means that just a normal application will not interest anybody – neither buyers nor journalists nor Apple itself. The application should be something that really sets it apart from the rest. It may be odd physics, unique gameplay, special speech recognition technology or psychedelic art style. But whatever it is, it will take time and hence money.
In our application, this uniqueness has become a scientific psychology (in contrast to the popular, which women's magazines). To obtain primary data, we conducted a large-scale study, which involved over 500 people from several dozen countries. We had to pay for the creation of methods for attracting people to the study, for statistical processing and for scientific expertise on the part of the faculty of psychology of St. Petersburg state University, for the review of the literature on the subject (Yes, having academic degrees in psychology, we still ordered a review of literature on a given topic, to be absolutely confident in yourself)...
In the end we got a projective technique that works on a mobile device and provides a diagnostic accuracy of emotional state more than 75%. Lüscher on his test nervously smokes on the sidelines.
The total budget for the development of "psychomechanics" as we called scientific side of our application, amounted to $ 10,000.
Creating text content 5 000$
The application requires depth. Otherwise, the user will be "nothing" in it to use it. In the Navigator are maps, angry birds levels, in our application 5 different use cases, and 62 possible result. By multiplying 310 they give different interpretations of the result. 310 moderately short, meaningful, meaningful, beautiful and competent texts.
It's a hell of a lot – it's a novel consisting of short chapters. The lyrics were written jointly by a team of psychologists and fiction writer Sviatoslav Loginov.
Localization – $ 3,000
the
-
the
- 15-25 cents per word
The Russian market is small. For the product price of a few dollars, earn on the Russian market is not easy, for this it is necessary initially to create something that will appeal to all, but specifically for the Russian.
| Russian | Google translator | Literary translation |
| This state is pushing for deep and subtle perception, by stimulating the senses and protecting them from any sudden actions and decisions. | This state is pushing for deep and subtle perception, exacerbating feelings and protecting them from harsh actions and decisions. | This state fosters a deep and acute perception, sharpening your senses and safeguarding against sudden actions and decisions. |
World market up to 50 times more. But in order to do something for him, it is necessary to speak the customer's language. Each text must be translated by a professional translator and proofread by a native speaker, with the right education and experience. We have localized our product (70 000 characters) in English and French. It ate a bunch of time and $ 3,000 (and Yes, it was very inexpensive).
Sound and music – $ 1,000
The entrance to the building, which houses our office closed bars with a combination lock. This castle has a unique feature – when you press the buttons and the door opening is not issued any sound. And although the code works in half of the cases I have to meet guests, ponazhimat buttons, did not understand that the door is open.
In the application, almost any action the user needs to be voiced. 43 different action and each your sound. And there would have to be music. And it should reflect the atmosphere of the application, and should grow out of his pants MIDI files beginning of 90-x and sound orchestral polyphony. Some time ago I bought the game Bastion just because of the stunning music – especially since the game is not much more expensive album.
We were lucky — the music and sounds we wrote "on friendship" Alexander Dmitriev, voicing projects for Rovio and Mountain Sheep. In our humble application, 20 minutes of music written specifically for us. For all we paid a paltry $ 1,000.
Musical theme of anger
Polishing – 17 000 dollars
Polishing is a nasty process, when in the app, almost nothing has changed and everyone is busy. There to move, hang on, here a little reformatted, here the behavior is not obvious, and then the app suddenly hung.
The polishing took one and a half month's work of the artist, programmer and project Manager. And even now the project is full of rough edges that cling to the opinion of professionals of all stripes. 6 weeks,$ 20 per painter,$ 35 for the programmer,$ 15 for the head (he is, thank God, not on one project) – and here we say goodbye to 17 000 dollars.
Marketing – $ 30,000
About marketing written two previous articles:
How to become a millionaire in the AppStore or some formulas about promotion and sales. Part 1
and
How to become a millionaire in the AppStore or some formulas about promotion and sales. Part 2
We spent about $ 10,000 on research and experiments. Made a successful exit in the Russian AppStore, receiving 3 place in the category and 40 in the overall ranking. But flew so fast that I had to learn how the market and what we have not.
We changed the name and icon. The number of downloads increased 10 times. In order to come out in the US and the world would have 50 000. But lay 30 000.
Controls – $ 30,000
the
-
the
- project Manager – $ 15 per hour
Last but not least, the whole process has to manage. Even in a small project employs more than 10 people, their work needs to be coordinated, it is necessary to hold in one's head what is happening and what result we want to obtain in the end. It is necessary to study and to resolve the resulting contradictions. In General, it is necessary to spend money on a person who during the whole project doesn't create any bytes included in the application. With a total development time per year, simple arithmetic begins to resemble a series of horror movie – $ 15 for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year – for the money you can buy a new decent car...
Final
Yes, could be done cheaper.
You could do much cheaper.
Many things could be saved, the part not to do it.
But whether it was necessary to begin to make a tasteless hack? I don't know any secret of success, but I do know that it is necessary to do something you'll be proud of myself.
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