4 Hidden Costs of Developing a mobile app in Singapore

It is a common understanding that having a mobile app developed from start to finish is not cheap or should not be slighted. Most people see the main bulk of the cost in the development stages. While this is true, because development takes a lot of resources and expertise, but one should not turn a blind eye to the hidden cost of developing a mobile app as well. Some hidden costs examples are testing, protecting your intellectual property (IP), marketing your app, technical support, infrastructure and maintenance.

1. Testing
Don’t you hate it when some apps are just so buggy and have tons of glitches? You do not want your mobile app to be falling into this category. Therefore, mobile apps should be tested multiple times with beta-testers so that they could give you feedback on the mobile app. As you chance upon these bugs or glitches, the improvement and fixing of these issues will cost you some money. However, it is indeed a crucial step, and as an apps developer in Singapore, we would advise you to do so.

2. Protecting your intellectual property
Since your mobile app may be a novel idea that you came up with to solve a certain issue, or to carry out a certain function. It is wise to protect this intellectual property as you launch the mobile app, in case someone steals your idea or try to undercut you in the market in the future. Of course, legal fees do not come cheap but this hidden fee might be well worth an investment and save you from more complexities in the future.

3. Marketing your mobile app
Marketing can be done in various ways. Be it social media marketing where you engage influencers to promote your app, or using advertisements on Facebook or Instagram, it really depends on the type of mobile app you are creating and the audience for it.
Email marketing campaigns can also be used if you are targeting the corporate audience. Depending on which avenue you choose to market your app, and how much exposure you wish to gain, the hidden cost in marketing should not be taken lightly.

4. Technical support, infrastructure and maintenance
For simplicity’s sake, we lump these three categories of hidden costs together.

Technical support consists of actions to facilitate and sustain the functionalities of your mobile app.
Infrastructure is the cost of hosting your data in a secure location and this could be very costly.
Maintenance is the reiterations and refinements to your mobile app as more and more users start using it. Maintenance can cost 20-30% of your total development costs on a per annum basis.

This cost category is known to be high among apps developers in Singapore.

Conclusion
Now that you can watch out for the hidden fees that may catch your budget by surprise, it is best to find out the hard dollars and cents so you could have a better picture of how much it actually costs you to develop a mobile app. With that said, our doors are always open if you need to discuss or have any queries about the costs of mobile apps. Send an email to marketing@sginteractive.com.sg to book a consultation session with us!