Reduce your Mobile App Development Cost Using Google’s Flutter SDK
Author : John Prabhu 12th Dec 2019
In our day-to-day life, smartphones and mobile apps have become a part of our life. The Manifest found that “In 2018, One in five millennial app users (21%) say they open any app more than 50 times a day.” Another research by App Annie found that “People use about 10 apps every day.” and “Over 30 apps are used per month on average.”
Millennials nowadays plan most of their day using their smartphones. No matter whether it is traveling or shopping, they can plan their schedule ahead of time using online applications. Thus, smartphones have reduced friction in completing a task or sticking to a schedule. With technological advancements such as IoT, you can manage almost everything using your smartphones and mobile apps.
While we approach technically, the population is split into two communities: Android users and iOS users. Businesses have no choice but to establish their presence on both the platforms and, native app development consumes more time and money. As a result, the concept of cross-platform app development was adopted, and one of the most popular cross-platform app development frameworks is Flutter.
It was developed by Google and is based on the programming language Dart. It is an open-source framework, and you can develop both Android and iOS apps from a single codebase. As Flutter simplifies the app development process for businesses, now you want to know how much does it cost to make an app using Flutter.
Estimation of Flutter App Development Cost
As said earlier, with Google Flutter, you can develop a mobile that is compatible with both Android & iOS. Instead of developing entirely two different mobile apps, you can use Flutter to develop a single codebase and then use it accordingly. Thus, it reduces the time and cost when compared to native app development. However, the cost estimation of Flutter app development is affected by various factors. Enlisted below are the major factors.
- Front-end Design
- Back-end & Server
- Functionalities & Integrations
- Maintenance & Support
Designing
How appealing is your UI, and how easy it is to use your app? If your app fails to make a better first impression, it is hard to gain the users back to your app. Both UI and UX make a difference in the usability of your app. Thus, designing comprises of two parts:
- Designing a seamless user experience
- Enhancing the app’s outlook with creativity and colors
If you are planning to offer a flexible user experience, you need to constantly have a look at contemporary UX design trends and update your app accordingly.
Recommended Read: 6 Contemporary UX Design Trends for 2020
UI design helps develop a pleasant look and feel for your application. A cognitive and smooth app design interests your users to spend time on your app. As UI/UX designing plays a huge part in app development, it does play a part in estimating the development cost of your Flutter app. Below are some of the factors that influence the pricing of UI design:
- Graphics & Animations
- Complexity of Designs
- Interactivity & more
For example, let’s assume you are planning to cater to K-12, Universities, Community Colleges, Educational Institutions, and Corporates. In this case, for K-12, you will be required to use colorful and animated images to attract most of the children. For corporates and community colleges, stock images will do the job, but you might be required to add video content. Hence, the cost to develop your app will considerably increase when compared to a simple app with only a few stock images.
The complexity of your Flutter app depends on the following criteria:
- App Representation
- Live Images
- Dynamics
- No. of Display Options
Back-end
For any application, the back-end of it is its backbone. Front-end is what your users see, and the back-end is where all the supporting operations are performed. Hence, back-end acts as the brain of your app and controls the server, real-time chatbots, app data, app security, and data backups. As the back-end of an app is built using various logics and algorithms, it plays a huge part in estimating your Flutter app development cost.
- Your app’s database will store all the required data to deliver a better-personalized experience.
- The server of your app will handle the client requests and manage operations even during heavy workload.
- Your app’s back-end will also have data encryption programs and security codes.
- Moreover, your app’s back-end is responsible for creating data backups.
- Real-time push messages deliver on-spot assistance to a user.
Functionalities & Integrations
In the current mobile app development scenario, you can include many features in your app that meets all the user requirements. Mobile apps have a different level of scope in the B2C market than B2B. However, you can’t completely neglect mobile apps in the B2B space. Hence, you can explore various possibilities with your mobile app idea. It can be an online store, game app, or any other app.
Most of the industries are on the lookout to build a mobile app that is obsessed with customer-focused features. Depending on the requirement and future upgrades, the app development cost may vary between hundreds and thousands. Enlisted below are the 3 common types of apps developed:
- List View Application — Along with a few basic features in the app menu, an optimized version of your business website will be delivered.
- Dynamic Application — A mobile app that generates real-time data access and built on a server to provide a personalized experience. Examples: Facebook, Instagram, etc.
- Gaming Application — A mobile gaming app with simple graphics or high-resolution animation, 3D graphics, built-in AI features and more.
Also, you can tailor your app with specific integrations and functionalities. All of the above-mentioned apps are built based on the following user requirements:
- Payment gateway integrations
- GPS & AR navigation
- Social integration
- SMS gateway integrations
- 3D modeling
- AI-enabled chatbots
- AR/VR based apps
Maintenance & Support
Being open to suggestions will improve your app’s usability and when you listen to your audience, it certainly makes a difference among your audience base. Just like every mobile app having advantages, it has some disadvantages too. So, even after the product launch, you must be constantly checking for new upgrades and suggestions and implement them in your app.
Once you have built your dream app and launched it, only the developer knows and understands your app’s functionalities completely. Hence, along with app development cost, you should also consider the maintenance cost of your app as well. As the feedback for your app can be both positive and negative, you can avoid future blunders by incorporating maintenance costs for your mobile app. We understand that your end-users are the deciding factors for the success of your app. So, taking suggestions from your end-users and delighting them will come under the maintenance of your app.
Here’s what covers under maintenance: application data, system uptime, and server scaling. Also, depending on your user suggestions, you will be releasing periodic updates. While adding new features, it is common to detect few bugs and resolving them simultaneously also influences the cost of your Flutter app development project.
Final Thoughts
Hence, when you depend on Flutter’s single code-base for your cross-platform app development project, you can add new features by coding once and reusing them for all the platforms. Thus, unlike native app development, it makes it easy for you to add new features to your app across different platforms. Also, in comparison with other frameworks, Google Flutter is a better option for developing cross-platform apps.
With an adept team of mobile app developers, we deliver pixel-perfect apps using Firebase with exceptional UI/UX and a strong codebase. Share your web/mobile app development queries with media@techaffinity.com or get in touch by scheduling a meeting.