How Much Does It Cost To Maintain An App?
How Much Does It Cost To Maintain An App?
Blog Article
The Importance of App Maintenance and Its Cost: A Comprehensive Guide
How about if we reveal all that is covered in the scope of the App maintenance, the reasons why you need to regularly manage your App, what kind of hours and money you should be planning to invest to manage your app in 2024? That would be cool, ya? So let us discuss this in detail!
What is covered in the Scope of App Support & Maintenance?
The App is needed to be regularly updated largely for its following parts and components:
iOS App and Android Apps whether built-in native or cross-platform tech.
Web Parts/ Web App (Front end, backend, Web replica of mobile apps).
Native APIs and Third-party APIs.
Database and Design files.
Any new feature development utilizing during the maintenance
Activities that we perform for App Support & Maintenance
Following are the high level tasks that are performed to regularly upkeep and update your App:
Complete QA Testing by a dedicated QA Engineer and Business Analyst to figure out all possible Bugs – mostly a one time effort for every major release.
Here we assign a dedicated Quality Engineer/ App Tester with a Business Analyst who will note down all the functionality of the app, build test cases (or populate more test cases on top of existing test cases you have), setup a bug tracking board on Jira or Trello or jetbrains (though a simple google sheet would do the job too), build negative test cases, create Test Automation scripts (if needed), create UAT list and then execute all these test cases and create an exhaustive list of all possible issues sorted by their severity and share with the client + Add known issues/ bugs as reported by the client already.
The deliverables after this step is completed are as follows;
– Complete Test cases, sorted by the priority.
– Steps to reproduces the bugs, clubbing of bugs according to their origin.
Fixing of Bugs are Reported by the client + Bugs as reported by our Testing Team across iOS, Android, Backend, Web or anywhere else.
The next logical steps after knowing what all bugs we have is to fix them! A team of developers is assigned to reproduce, Fix and then re-test the reported bugs regularly and then plan on shipping the App build on live every week.
The deliverables here would be:
– High Quality Apps and backend are being shipped to the App stores every week like a clockwork.
Updating the App and its underlying Technology Whenever there is a soft or major OS update from Apple or Google.
As simple as it sounds, Apple and Google launch several soft and major OS upgrades throughout the year and even though they won’t let your app stop working suddenly it is advisable that you update your app to the latest OS versions as soon as they are launched.
Updating Apps to be compatible with all latest releases of all third Party APIs being used in the App and in the backend.
Your App is not standalone and it uses a hell lot of third party services (that are being consumed through APIs or web services) for many functions like (but not limited to):
– Authentication APIs (like FB signup, Twilio for OTP, linkedin signup etc).
– Payment Gateway APIs (like paypal, braintree, Paytm and what not).
– Location based/ Map APIs (Google location, foursquare etc).
Regular App Performance optimization for a high-performing App
Following are the activities that should be performed regularly to keep the performance of your App top Notch:
– Resource optimization (battery consumption, camera usage and so on).
– Load time optimization by optimizing heavy content, API calls.
– Regular improvement in onboarding and overall User flow. Small things like remembering the password, easy login, and easy download of data make your user happy and retain him for a long time.
Periodical App Code cleanup as a regular practice and Code repository Maintenance.
When you have an App Maintenance Team on retainer then why not keep them busy with regular code cleanups, updating comments, doing version controls in git, managing the repository, and simplifying project modules to make the product future-proof and also to make life of any other future developer easier.
Regular Documentation, Creating App’s SDKs and APIs
Regular documentation is an absolute essential activity but in the Agile App Development world, it gets missed because App development teams prioritize releasing first over any documentation.
App Maintenance Plans and Pricing from Agicent
We’ve kept it very simple, you retain us for X number of hours a month for App maintenance and pay the fee. Obviously, the more hours you retain us for the better will be the pricing.
Skills and Engineers needed for App Maintenance Process
If your App runs on both iOS and Android and also has a web front end along with a backend, then you need following skilled Engineers to perform App maintenance:
– Native or Cross-Platform iOS/ Android Developers.
Native would include Swift/ Xcode developer for iOS; Kotlin/ Java and Studio Developer for Android.
Cross-platform skills would be React native, Flutter or Ionic.
– Backend Developers
The skills can be node.js, MongoDB, ExpressJS or MERN Stack or Laravel/ PHP, or .NET or Java (Depending upon the tech stack being used at your backend).
– Web Front End Developer
If you have a landing page website or a complete App’s replica on the web then you may need web front end developers experts in HTML, JS, React JS or Angular or PHP/ Laravel or ASP.NET (Depending upon the tech stack being used at the website end).
Factors to consider to find out how much does it cost to maintain an App?
Although we have made easier and straight forward for you to do app maintenance by offering hourly maintenance plans, but there still can be some factors that can raise or bring down the cost of App maintenance as follows:
The complexity of the application
The basic factor that contributes to the maintenance cost of the application in 2024 is the complexity of the application. Everyone wants to have advanced apps with more and more features, screens, and much more. But keep in mind that if you are adding these it will further raise your maintenance costs to the greatest extent.
Hybrid Applications
The smartphones available in the market depend upon different operating systems. Everyone loves to have the one that they prefer the most. Android and iOS platforms are the two leading operating systems that the majority of users prefer to have on.
Third-Party Integrations
The integration of third-party sources also adds up in raising the overall maintenance cost of an application. More will be your app linked closely with the different external sources such as payment platforms, social media services, higher will be the overall maintenance cost of your app.
Why Hiring Agicent for your App Maintenance Cost Project?
– We are OCD when it comes to anything related to the development of the Apps. Believe it or not, our team is almost available 24*7 if there is anything wrong in the App and we try to fix it then and there. Our customers can vouch for this, try us yourself.
– We have simple, straightforward and transparent App maintenance plans. As shared above, we have the best plans available for you on retainer and you won’t need to bang your head to get estimation of every single task. The whole idea of having Agicent managing your App is that you focus on your important business and expansion while we take care of the App in the given hours. Simple as that.
– We have real expertise in Apps, been creating Apps for 13 years. Managing Apps like HASfit, VaycoPlus, Mediorbis that have millions of users. We know how to scale an App from just an MVP to as big as an App handling 10 million users everyday, this is a proven expertise. You’d love to work with the team that knows their stuff and loves it just too much.
– We have common interests – We help you make your App big and we become big ourselves. That’s just enough motivation for us to do the right work.
– Feedback system – Every month before raising an invoice, we ask our clients if they still find our services as good as we promised during the “sales cycle” and raise it only when they say yes.
Conclusion of App Maintenance Cost & Process
Application development and maintenance is a never-ending process. Right from adding updates to resolving issues, there are a lot more things that go on side by side throughout. The expenses on an app do not end with its creation, they kind of keep on but for only the good. The App is the core part of your business, you can’t leave it unattended and that is where Agicent comes into the play. Start maintaining your App as necessity before it becomes mandatory!
Source: https://www.agicent.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-maintain-an-app/