Chat apps are on the top of chart ever since smartphones have paved their way to the communication landscape. Take any demographic bracket, pick any random user, you would rarely find a phone without a messaging app. That’s how integral it is to mobile telephony.
And when you talk about this segment, WhatsApp messenger looks to dominate the stream and rules the idea fairly well – with top-of-the-line features that commit to a profound messaging utility.
With the accessibility and reach the absorbing chat machine has claimed in such a short span of time connecting people and trends, it has completely revolutionized the way day-to-day communication takes place – becoming the first choice of more than a billion users.
No surprise, the chat app made Facebook go out of the way to acquire it for a whopping sum of $21.8 Billion in the year 2014 – whisking investors and observers to rethink trade and inspiring people like us to think chat business.
So, how handy and accessible is it for us to think of a venture like this. Let’s keep aside cost-benefit scenario and penetration rate and the trailing market share, which hugely depends on how smartly you do a product and market it further (and most importantly how the product is received by the target user-base). Here, we are still finding out if as a chat app aspirant, you can afford to have an app like this.
So, the question remains, how much it costs to develop an app like WhatsApp.
Let’s begin with the features
A full-service chat application popular with users contain at least these features:
■ Support for various data formats (text, video, audio, emoticons, photos, stickers etc.)
■ Group chat and Message Broadcasting
■ VoIP phone calls
■ Video chats
■ Event management
■ Sync with calendar
■ Conference calls (both voice and video)
■ Chat Encryption
■ Geolocation integration
■ Cloud services synchronization
Besides having these facilities WhatsApp also supports features like:
■ Server backend for messages and media sync between devices
■ Offline, server and cloud data storage/backup
■ Account management, Facebook authorization routine implementation
■ WhatsApp web
■ Contact and location sharing
■ Push and in-app notifications about app events
■ Friend adding/server catalogue search
■ Voice calls/group voice calls
■ Message search
■ Contacts/message marking
■ Delivery and reading confirmations
■ Pictures upload/download
■ Device’s calendar sync (appointments/meetings/reminders)
■ Extensive contact management options
Basic vs. Advanced
Before we start crunching numbers and try to figure out the cost details, it’s important to know that this app started off way back in 2010 with basic features limited to then-prevailing messaging trends and requirements. As the time passed by, the app steadily grew in its propositions to offer a broader set of chat features and engagement attributes further evolving into a more absorbed and refined messaging platform.
Comparing the two:.
Required resources 2010
1 UI/UX Designer
1-2 QA Engineer
1 Backend Developer
2 Mobile Developers
1 Project Manager
Required resources 2016
1 UI/UX Designer
2 QA Engineers
2-3 Backend Developers
3-4 Mobile Developers
1 Project Manager
App Building Timeline 2010
iOS 350 hours
iOS Design 100 hours
Android 300 hours
Android Design 100 hours
QA 20% of total time
PM 10% of total time
App Building Timeline 2016
iOS Over 500 hours
iOS Design 150 hours
Android 450 hours
Android Design 150 hours
QA 20% of total time
PM 10% of total time
So, if we compare the efforts clubbing the time and resources required, it has gone about twice of what it was in the year 2010. Of course, with what we see as a more detailed and advanced application.
This new app demands more improvised approaches, integrated learning, streamlined facilities and tools and an advanced process-support backing it up throughout the course of development – topping up the efforts and thus lifting up the tariffs.
However, looking into a lenient picture, as the app is already up and running and you now have more number of options for development, it brings down the cost of developing the app. So, when we look at both the ends and put them together with their mix of averages, we find a trifling cost difference between the two, while the base references and features remain quite apart – both in terms of quality and number.
Cost Analysis
Putting the details together and decoding the analysis into interpretations and numbers, we get some ballpark figures designating global averages. Based on which, an average cost of building a WhatsApp can be around $50,000- $60,000 (US$) – which includes approx. 150 hours of UI/UX design, about 500 hours of development, with 20% of Testing and 10% of Project Management efforts. Which makes it about $70 per hour as a global average. This rate, however, highly varies based on the level of expertise and the experience you choose to hire and of course the location you pick your development partner from. Well, on the other side of the picture, if you go on building a basic app that WhatsApp was in its early days, it will today cost you half the rate, which can be anywhere around $30,000. Which is however not suggested, as you will be starting at a point leading services today have gone past and grown big manifold. Still, you can take it up as a roll-out exercise to claim your existence in the space of messaging apps and further take it to a decent profile when you have enough funds and resources in place.
A marketing graduate, a deemed strategist, a sure geek - Tushar is a fine blender of the art and science of writing. When it comes to tune up content with commerce, he knows the trick. For him, if words don’t make you think and beat, they are not worth your time. A crazy foodie, an unfailing jogger – that’s him off the desk!
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