Finally you’ve decided that your business needs a mobile app to match your customer’s needs, but how long will it take from an initial idea to the moment when your mobile app will live your brand.
The most common question for all business owners and startup founders would be: how much time and effort does it take to create an app?
The answer is not as simple as the question, but let’s try to do some rough estimation.
Data from different studies says that it takes 4-5 months to create a mobile app.
For example, a 2013 survey by Kinvey indicates that a “MVP-quality native app” would require approximately 18 weeks (4.5 months) to build.
Another study by Goodfirm says that:
These studies suggest that an app development is roughly from 4-6 months process to complete.
Always keep in mind that variations exist and they’ll depend on additional features or functionalities you’d like to include besides the basic ones.
Small apps would have features such as log in, newsfeed and a possibility to connect and interact with friends.
A medium-sized app would have all mentioned plus sharing settings (sharing with external platforms), geo-localization, video support and some sort of integration.
The most complex apps would additionally feature multiple languages, robust settings, photo/video editing and algorithms allowing to receive tailor-made content.
The more complex the app, the longer it takes to be developed.
V1.0 MVP
Although, generally speaking, an app takes from 4-6 months to develop, the first version of an app (v1.0 app) may be built in less than 4 months but it depends on many factors.
Some of these factors are:
- A v1.0 app usually takes about 4-6 months
- Apps range from a few weeks simple apps to years-long work since quality takes time.
- Apps that target many features require more time to build than simpler ones.
- Timeline is somewhat determined by budget
- Team of cross-technology experts can speed up the building process.
- More efficient timeline can be achieved with the team with right skills and experience.
Too many features requested for v1.0 app can cause problems since apps that are more focused will perform better.
Don’t forget that a long list of features will increase the timeline drastically and also the costs as well.
If you’d like to check a rough estimation on some or all features you want, you can try out this handy mobile app development calculator to see how much your idea could cost you: https://www.appdevelopmentcost.com/
Key stages in App Development
Since an app development is a repetitive process with different stages of researching, building, testing, tweaking and releasing your app, let’s list them:
1. App Idea!
The very first stage of developing a mobile app is researching your ‘app idea’ or creating a user story. List the reasons on why do you want to create an app, how will it contribute to your customers, does it already exist, how will it be different and what will it do for your consumers etc.
You will have to do an extensive research on the target market demand and substantiate customer pains, market size and validation of your product idea. You should also research your competitors’ apps and business strategies. This stage is vital because 77% of users never use an app 3 days after installing it.
This stage will usually take several weeks of research and ideas validation.
2. Feature Set
Now you should think about app’s functionalities – all the features you want to include in your app – the best is to think about what do you want your app to do, which tasks, functions and operations will it perform, how will it handle data etc.
You should also establish ‘use cases’, tailored to function as templates on how your ideal users will interact with the app. You also have to decide whether your app will be available for iOS, Android and/or Windows.
Keep in mind that developing an app for more than one OS will take longer to finish.
Expect for this stage to take 3-5 weeks figuring out core functions and features.
3. Wireframing
Once you’ve figured out the purpose of you app and the basic feature set, it’s time for you to create ‘Storyboard’ and test your idea against reality.
You should create wireframes – the visual architecture of the app – as it represents the each page of your app and the way how they’re linked.
It’s easy to do wireframes today since there are numerous software tools (InVision, Adobe XD, Balsamiq,) that allow developers to quickly create prototypes.
After wireframing is done, you should test the prototype work. You let users to ‘play’ with your app and provide you with valuable feedback.
For example, some people choose to develop wireframes early during the features stage, seeing wireframes as evidently connected to the use of storyboards and other basic visual representations.
This stage requires from few days to few weeks depending on the complexity.
4. App Development
The app development consists of front end and back end.
Front end consists of that what is visible to users and interactive. Front end developers are responsible for the look, feel and the final design of the interface.
Back end is composed of the logistics that goes behind making the front end functional. Back end development focuses on how the app works. It consists of server, database and an application and it’s what communicates the information and interaction to the users. It includes all activities happening ‘behind the curtain’ such as database management, server-side logistics, data integration and more.
It takes approximately 18+ weeks to complete. (it is said 10 weeks for back end and 8 weeks for front end, but it usually differs depending on the complexity of the app)
5. Beta Testing
During this stage, the app is examined under various conditions to ensure it’s bug-free and that users are comfortable with the interface.
You should only launch Beta testing once you’ve thoroughly completed Alpha testing with your own coding team. You should test the app for usability, compatibility, security, interface checks, stress, and performance.
In user acceptance testing, you’ll discover if the mobile app works for your end users or not.
Beta testing is crucial for app development. Don’t forget, it’s a good idea to test early and often- it will keep your final costs low. There are websites exclusively dedicated to beta testing like BetaFamily, BetaList, Erlibird etc.
Beta testing can take 3-4 weeks so to collect all relevant details for further improvement.
6. Launch
Your app is finally finished, tested and ready to launch – by now your app has a name, a short description and some promotional images.
The policies for launching an app are different for different application stores, so keep in mind that this may take couple of days.
So, your app is launched? You can celebrate, but your work isn’t done as yet.
Launching can take few days depending on the app store policies.
7. Maintenance
As your app will be in the hands of the users, you will get a lot of feedback – you need to incorporate the feedback into the future versions of an app so to improve the usability and functionality.
It is also important to utilize analytics to track app performance like downloads, user engagement and retention.
This usage behavior will give you insight into how to improve the app and enhance the user experience.
In total?
Adding up the times estimated for each of the stages listed would result in the final time frame of approximately 4-6 months to build a mobile app.
As you can see, building a mobile app is rather long and complex process that requires lots of preparation and dedication to do it properly. Bear in mind that on your app journey, you should remain flexible in your timeline expectations and that you should have access to your mobile development team in the post-launch stage.
Considering that your app adventure really begins when people ‘taste’ your work, make sure that launch of your app is the start of your adventure and not the end of it.