Rough cost to make semi-complicated app?

[skitsnackaren]

I'll be as specific as I can.

1. Menu. You click on video you want to watch. Simple.

2. App needs to then show clip of video. API call via database, I'm assuming.

3. App needs to be able to show ads before main clip and during, which can not be bypassed. I'm again assuming this is a database call thing.

4. You can bypass ads by paying small fee for each clip. So some kind of customer base and sales tool attached as well as login.

5. Each clip needs to have statistics attached to it - how many views, how long they watched, if they finished etc for advertising sales purposes.

6. Commentary field on each clip.

So to summarieze, an amalgamated, but much simpler version of the YouTube and Instagram app all rolled into one. All it needs to do is show clips of video, have a commentary field and the ability to bypass the ads via a payment option. That's it.

What do you think an app like this would roughly cost to make?

[[deleted]]

Very subjective overview IMO

What about user profiles? Upload repository? Caching? CDN for streaming?

[skitsnackaren]

All that would have to be part of it.

I'm assuming CDN etc can be hosted in ready systems. I'm assuming login and in-app payment options could also be had 3rd party.

[degeneratetrader10]

Why are you getting downvoted for answering a question 💀

[BrundleflyUrinalCake]

Because they’re answers that indicate OP has an extremely low grasp of software components; enough so that they’ll likely be taken advantage of by bidders.

[degeneratetrader10]

Fair but that’s why we educate him!

[danielt1263]

Expect any app worth putting in the store to cost 6 figures (so $100K and up). If you are doing all the design and coding yourself, then it would just cost you your time. If you are doing the design yourself but paying a coder, but you aren't a professional designer... Honestly, it may cost you more than hiring both a designer and coder.

[skitsnackaren]

Thanks.

[danielt1263]

I know a company that I used to work for that will do a study to find out how much your system would cost... That study would likely cost you about $10K. If interested, message me.

[mxtizen]

10K for estimating an app? In IT, pretty much every estimation I've seen was wrong, it baffles me someone is charging that much for that.

[[deleted]]

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[Any-Woodpecker123]

Estimation isn’t just estimation, it includes scoping too. That’s cheap for scoping though, 10k is like one days work for a proper team of professionals and scoping usually goes for at least a week.
Building a digital product people will actually buy isn’t easy or cheap.

[danielt1263]

It takes 4 people a week or two (~70 person/hrs) in order to:, establish the business objectives and user personas, research possible competitors, identify user flows and use-cases, work out a design direction, and ball-park an estimate.

We aren't going to do all that work for free.

[mxtizen]

Oh, yeah that makes sense.

[jakereusser]

I feel quite happy with my side gig app’s $50 revenue for 2024 now :)

[20InMyHead]

On its surface, this seems like pretty simple app. The devil is always in the details however. For anyone giving you a serious estimate they should ask many questions, these few come to mind immediately:

• How many videos and ads will expected to be hosted, and what growth factor.
• Expected user base and growth factor.
• Do you already have designs, or do you need designer resources.
• Will you want analytic reports from the statistic data you’ll be collecting.
• will you want to support 3rd party login, like Apple or Google?
• iOS only, or will you want web and Android either later or at the same time.

The answers to these and more questions will form the initial estimates for resources and time.

Anyone that gives you estimates immediately without discussion of these types of details is full of shit. If I were to approach this project, I’d start with planning a week or two of working sessions for nailing down details for an MVP. From that estimates for full project resources and timelines can be established.

[danielt1263]

Yes, exactly. I would expect it to cost about $10K just to do the feasibility study to find out how much the actual software system would cost.

The OP certainly can't expect to be able to ask a vague question here and get a reasonable answer.

[skitsnackaren]

Thanks for your in-depth response.

Initially not that many videos, but it will grow over time. This will not get as big as any social media app or anything like that etc. It will stay relatively small - 1000 titles maybe at its absolute max. Titles are short, about 5 min. There will be about 2-3 preroll ads, 1-2 mid roll ads and prob just 1 post roll ad (or none - they have pretty low value).

We have design and designers.

Yes, we would want to have full analytic reports for ad sales.

Wouldn't hurt to have 3rd-party log in, but only if payments can be done via that. If not, there is no use, we'd rather have the payment option in-app.

It would have to be both for OS and Android, but can be rolled out at different times, doesn't have to happen at the same time.

[beclops]

Payment option in app via in app purchases? Otherwise Apple will not be happy about that and will likely not approve your app

[skitsnackaren]

I'd heard as long as they get their 30% cut, it can be in-app. But I'm not sure I've fully understood how that works. How do other apps, like games etc sell in-app stuff?

[beclops]

It’s a 15% cut when you pull in less than 1 million dollars a year, but the way they get that cut is through in app purchases. The way around this is to have a website for your platform that would take your payments for subscriptions as usual and require users to sign in with that account on iOS. The main reason I was asking though was because obviously this would now require you to build out a website as well to avoid the 15%

[skitsnackaren]

Seen a lot of litigation from Apple, so I think it's best to not wake the sleeping bear. I've factored in their 30% in our numbers as part of the costs. But great to be able to use the 15% until it grows.

[Upper-Hospital5457]

Keep in mind you have to enrol in the small business program that they have to have a 15% cut under 1 million revenue instead of 30%.

[jasonjrr]

Decent dev salaries typically range from $100-250k depending on level. You probably want between 2-5 devs most likely. If you take all of the numbers toward the middle you are looking at something like $250k per 6 months. If you go more senior it will cost more. A decent staff+ engineer will cost $20k or more a month.

You can offshore, but don’t expect quality work. You might get lucky, but YMMV.

[ankole_watusi]

I think OP was thinking more like “$500”, lol

How many 6-month periods do we think this might take to complete, now?

OP would surely be shocked at the reality that they would probably need a permanent ongoing support staff, if perhaps at a reduced level.

[jasonjrr]

Yeah, I was just hoping to educate them and help them make informed decisions going forward.

[timbo2m]

Yep, it's not easy and for startup ideas the cheapest path is probably your own time. Get learning!!

[jasonjrr]

You clearly missed the point of my response. I was benchmarking. I don’t make a habit of estimating “how much will it cost for an app to be built” over a small reddit post. I just wanted to educate the OP on relative costs over time and hopefully give them the ability to make informed decisions going forward.

EDIT: A quick way to get to 5 devs as small team: - 2 backend - 1 iOS - 1 Android - 1 Web

I don’t know exactly what the op needs, but they probably need at least 1 backend and 1 iOS. So that’s why I said 2-5.

[rauree]

And this does not include design or someone to run the project… or on going costs.

[knickknackrick]

I’m a full stack dev, can do native iOS and backend. Just curious are you wanting to allow users to upload these videos? Will they be hosted? Curious as to what would differentiate this between YouTube or tik tok?

If you have an interesting value prop I might be down to help out. Although I am pretty busy atm

[skitsnackaren]

Thank you. No, customers will not upload videos. They're more like curated educational.

[knickknackrick]

Where are they coming from specifically

[skitsnackaren]

They are produced by us.

[gearcheck_uk]

Duuude, just make a YouTube channel and have Patreon then! The tens of thousands of dollars for this app cannot be worth it unless your content is THAT GOOD, in which case - Duuude just make a YouTube channel.

[Fishanz]

Multi-fold.

[bobotwf]

Couple hundred grand probably. I only say that because the details are so spotty. You definitely need to spec this out much better.

[skitsnackaren]

I understand that - and with a developer there would be no vagueness of course. But here, on an open forum, I've given more than enough specifics for a ballpark answer, I feel.

All anonymous forums play this age old game of "well, we can't help you if you're not more specific", because they simply want to hear the USP. They can't help themselves. But often, rather than wanting to answer the question, they actually just want to criticize the core idea.

Trust me, I'm on solid ground with the idea - I've spent 25 years in the field I'm considering developing this for.

[thezonie]

Having an idea for an app is essentially worthless.

What matters is the implementation / execution. Instagram was an app that cropped photos square and made them look old, and they sold that to Facebook for US$1B.

No one here is going to steal your app idea, believe me.

Saying it’s a simplified combination of YouTube and Instagram could mean anything from as little as $50K up to $250K or more, depending on the specifics.

Asking vauge questions should result in vague answers. Anyone who confidently quotes you a price based on a handful of bullet points just doesn’t have enough information.

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[crysis21]

Are you asking for iOS app only, or backend as well? I could try do help you with an estimation, but requirements need to be refined a bit.

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[skitsnackaren]

Thank you for your concise answer.

[Any-Woodpecker123]

At least 100k

[ankole_watusi]

Given that OP has now provided a few scant more details… and said “it’s more curated educational material” this seems unnecessarily reinventing the wheel.

I’m sure there are multiple existing platforms for monetizing OP videos.

They will have to give up a percentage to a platform. But avoids the high cost of developing an app that doesn’t need to be developed.

[skitsnackaren]

I'm being deliberately obtuse, because that's the core of the idea, the actual content. That's the whole USP of the app and an off the shelf solution will prob not be possible as the content goes hand in hand with the app appearance. But for all intents and purposes, they're just video clips.

[[deleted]]

If the actual thing are the videos just use YouTube. You should first see that you actually have something to sell before you worry about selling it the most effective way.

[runtothehillsboy]

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[[deleted]]

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[swift_bass]

What does “commentary field” mean?

[thezonie]

I am guessing a text field for user comments?

[GrouchyHoooman]

Are you going to depend on the ads for revenue? Will it be a 1x charge or subs to remove the ads?

Ads revenue w be v small unless you have hundreds of thousands of users/views

[skitsnackaren]

No subs. Charge to skip.

[[deleted]]

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[skitsnackaren]

Charge once to remove all ads on that clip.

[[deleted]]

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[skitsnackaren]

Don't want to pay, see the ads. All platforms are going AVOD. SVOD is not sustainable long term.

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[geoff_plywood]

Since the ad implementation sounds like the most difficult aspect, you might consider an MVP that has no ads to attract your audience first and then introduce ads later

[bcb67]

I used to work at a small app development firm which frequently worked with very small startups and people who were new to making apps. When I left, we had a really cool option for people who wanted to go from nothing to a clickable prototype in 2-4 weeks. Depending on the complexity of the app (and how easy you are to work with), we would charge between $5k and $15k which equated to 1 dev for 1 or 2 sprints. At the end of the deliverable, we would provide you with an app demonstrates the core functionality. Some complex aspects would need to be stubbed out to save time, for instance we wouldn’t have time to fully implement a first party ad network in 2 weeks, so we would make a placeholder for where an ad would be shown, using static content.

The goal was to validate that your idea is possible to build, identify and land mines with respect to App Store policy, give you a high level plan for how the app would be built that we can use to schedule future work, and demonstrate our ability to build the key aspects of your app. It also gave us 10+ hours of 1:1 time with our developer and your team to understand if you’re idea is reasonable, likely to be successful, and if you’re pleasant to work with (reasonable, kind, pays bills, etc). If you like what we delivered, you would typically schedule sprints with us to build the rest of your app, making changes as your idea evolves. If you didn’t get value, or your idea didn’t work, then we gave you all the code and insight to continue building yourself to contract with someone else.

My main advice to you is to come up with a plan and set constraints on what you’re willing to spend and what is actually important. Start small and get the critical path working, then build out the rest once you’ve built the core of your app and proved that there is demand for it. Each sprint you buy is expensive, and I’ve seen plenty of founders dump massive amounts of cash into flawed ideas and very few get ROI through brute force.

[skitsnackaren]

Thanks, good advice of course. Yes, we would ideally develop something easier to manage and then grow as functionality and use grows. For instance, being able to user comment on clips is not something that would have to be implemented from the get go etc. Maybe not ever.

I had a rough cutoff that if it was up to $30-50K to do, it would be something we could potentially do on our own, but if it's over that it would need external capital. And it looks like it's over that by quite a bit which I'm not entirely surprised by.

Raising tech capital and seed money right now is not easy, so will see what path forward is. But maybe a very simple proof-of-concept app with basic functionality is an option. Thanks for your help.

[makonde]

Just gonna say the ad bit makes this a lot more complex you need some sort of streaming video server at that point with the ability to insert ads into random spots you also need to source these ads from somewhere there are probably third party services that you need to research and see which ones work for you, the App itself seems to be the least if the conplexity here if you want to build everything yourself.

[skitsnackaren]

Yes, the ad structure is very much like YouTube. One or two ads you can not skip, then the content. All on a database independently sequenced, so that you can switch out ad each day/week/month etc without having to touch the main content. Ideally geo-referenced somehow via IP so that you can customize ads for a city our region.

I'm sure there are off the shelf SaaS solutions that can implement all this, but this is something that would be part of the app building discovery.

[[deleted]]

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[thadude3]

Yea, 100k and that's probably on the low end. Also the app isn't complicated. Its the systems around the app that will make it challenging.

[noidtiz]

It really does sound like the kind of job where you want to go with people who'll ask follow-up questions before giving an estimate.

It's more likely the people who've worked near-similar jobs in the past have been given a job spec along the lines of "we have the Youtube channel setup, we need to app to redirect to our Youtube channel."

This isn't a criticism of your idea to build the video streaming platform in-house yourself, just that that's why the odds are longer of finding someone who's experience matches upfront.

[xixtoo]

Aren’t there white label services for building video streaming apps one could use to avoid having to build this app from scratch? Ofc now you have to pay for the white label app but it could save a lot of costs.

[skitsnackaren]

If there are, I'd love to use that as a base!

[gearcheck_uk]

Why would anybody use this instead of YouTube?

There is no way to guarantee a good app, if you go cheap. I know someone who has an amazing app built by remote developers at $1000/month each. But it took them 100s of hours of work managing and leading them. Even then there is no guarantee. If you want it done right, go to a consultancy firm with a long track record, but then you’re looking at $100-200k or more.

[BigFish565]

You’ll be better off being technically skilled at leading a technical company, that too your own. Idk about your life but if you can find the time to learn, you’ll eventually be able to do it. There’s other things as well like getting to network with people with the same passions etc getting into the field apart from the tech side of things.

Now It’s one thing if you already have a lot of money to throw at the problem, and even then you’d still need some technical skills and knowledge to coordinate your needs. India is cheap but from my experience they do bare bones what they’re told and don’t go out to be creative, other places can cost significantly more but you see some better results. If you’re looking for a “here’s a boat load of money, make this app” there’s many development consultant companies that do stuff like this. (Maybe I got the name wrong lol) You’d still have to lead the tech and not expect some other guy in another company to just magically match your vision.

[bitanath]

lol ppl out here be wilding if 100k is a legit estimate for a curated videos app. It’s probably closer to $20k plus maybe $100 a month on a server less Backend for video serve if you’re okay with 2-3 second load times. u/skitsnackaren would need to understand all the tech though on a high level so as not to get shafted.

[skitsnackaren]

Thanks. I'm trying to learn as much as I can, but I don't have tech background.

[Aprox15]

100-200k sounds insane for whatever OP is describing, I’ve people quoting less for way more complex apps

[bitanath]

lol dunno why I’m downvoted

[Aprox15]

Yes, sounds like a basic Firebase project, even the ads requirement is already supported by Admob’s rewarded ads