Cost of Outsourcing App Development: Building Your App Offshore

Sure enough you have heard the clich that says you get what you pay for. As the whole world is becoming more and more dependent on mobile devices, businesses have been quick to seize the opportunity to reach out to the largest part of their customers through mobile development. Companies that do not have a financial capability to invest into in-house app development choose outsourcing, which is often outsourced overseas with foreign app design firms.

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Outsourcing Software Offshore

This may seem as a good choice in the beginning, but in the long run this decision may turn into significant trouble. Cost of outsourcing app development may vary from $3,000-$300,000, which is a range far too expensive to be helpful when calculating the budget of the future app. All developers charge their prices. We will tell you about the risks that offshore outsourcing of app development posses, so that you were aware of problems that may arise - after all, forewarned is forearmed.

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The Risks of Outsourcing Application Development

First and foremost, when you offer a resident of a foreign country to take part in crucial solutions that define the future of your company, you run the risk of facing cultural barriers. Outsourcing software creation to a foreign software development agency means that the cultural views on aesthetics and technology may differ, and, as software development is mostly outsourced to third-world countries, the standards utilized by foreign developers may not comply with the latest trends in the modernised countries. Another problem is that it may take more time for them to get into the details of your outsourcing project, which might result in lower time and cost efficiency.

Linguistic divide is one more major disadvantage. It is really hard to communicate all your ideas in detail to a person who does not perfectly speak your language, which may cause miscommunication. Moreover, the person, whom you relaying your outsourcing project requirements is thousands of kilometers away and is sitting in front of a camera of their computer, which may be accompanied by risks of poor internet connection and an overall bad communication quality. And as you now without a doubt, app development is a complex process throughout which the participants share their complicated ideas and use elaborate IT terminology.

But let us get back on topic, the primary reason why many businesses choose outsourcing is cost. Yes, a foreign third-world outsourcing company may charge you a tempting $15 an hour, but will the investment pay for itself in the long run? An experienced outsource software developer who offers their services at $115 an hour is likely to bring you more value than three junior developers working overseas at $15. Even if you sign a non-disclosure agreement, you are exposing valuable information about your business and precautions like court settings.

Security issues and data leaks are also common companions of overseas development. Statistics shows that businesses that outsource design experience data leaks and IP losses 30% more often than the companies that build their apps in-house or inside the country. Even if you sign a non-disclosure agreement, you are exposing valuable information about your business and precautions like court settings.

It is absolutely understandable that even knowing possible risks, sometimes outsourcing is the only option. If you have decided that you want to hire foreign app developers to build your business app, here is a list of alarm signals to watch out for when selecting the agency:

Extremely low costs. $75 an hour is an average standard to low cost that the developers in this price tire charge. If buy into developers who charge $5-$15 an hour for their software design services, it must strike a warning note that the product will likely be of low quality.
Inadequate contact information. Pay attention to the contact info that the developer gives to you. Development agencies based overseas often buy a UK or US area code or use a temporary address to get in touch with domestic clients. Modern technologies make such things easily attainable, and some firms and freelance experts take advantage of it as an aggressive strategy to boost their sales. Such developers typically delete this kind of contacts after the product has been delivered to prevent further communication if there are any problems with the app. To save yourself the trouble, thoroughly investigate the candidates for hire and check the local or office numbers they provide you with.

Insecure wire transfers. Wire transfers are much less secure than credit card transfers. Be on the watch when a developer demands a wire transfer instead of a credit card one. A reputable digital agency will accept secure payments that minimize the chances of fraud and legal issues.

Clients

The Cost of Outsourcing App Development

A reliable developer will always help you find ways to lower the costs without compromising on the quality. In app development, the budget of the project largely depends on the type of the app the clients wishes to create.

For example, a simple corporate system will cost significantly less than complex solutions with many functions and integrated tools. Human resources is another important factor that determines the budget for the project. It is obvious that when you hire a freelancer to work on your app all alone, the cost will be lower than if you hire a full development team with designers, coders, managers, testers and so on.

Average Cost of Application Creation

Keep in mind that besides the hardware necessary for the development process, you need to pay for hosting and domain name. Many digital firms also charge a developer fee, and all these payments may recur on a monthly basis. The price for app development may vary from $25 to $250 an hour from one developer to another. The price may also vary depending on the level of complexity of the application. The developers are likely to take more money if the app is feature-rich or require many integrated services, for instance, in-app payments. The cost of building a simple program can range as much as from $5,000 to $50,000. At the same time, the cost for the development of a complicated solution may rise as high as up to $1 mln. Of course, there are reasons that drive the costs up, such as providing for regular updates of the software, supporting user issues, keeping track of the reviews of the customers and more.

Cost Evaluation

You can reduce the cost if you know exactly what features you want your program to possess and clearly communicate these requirements to the developer. On the contrary, if you do not have a clear image of the future app in mind, it may shoot up costs drastically. It is a good practice to make a chart of features you want to have and develop a comprehensive mobile strategy before proceeding to actual development. Negotiate the cost with developers and ask them to provide you with the estimation of the cost. After all, you want your investment to pay off in the long run.

In-House App Development

There are companies that prefer building smartphone apps in-house because they believe that it is cheaper, quicker, more controllable, easier and much more effective. Are you thinking of creating software in-house? Then you should be aware of three major challenges that companies that prefer developing apps by themselves often face:

Even with a team of ten experienced developers working on the project, more than 90% of companies, according to recent studies, lack employees with necessary skills to complete in-house projects.

Core members of the development team include a designer, a number of developers, a project manager, and a quality assurance manager, and it may take weeks to find people with appropriate skills and hire them.

Your digital specialists may not posses the high level of expertise you will not even know if you are not knowledgeable in software development. Scalability and accountability may cause problems too, because you will not have enough staff if the project expands or may have issues controlling the process.

Develop With Us

Our enthusiastic and skilful programmers, designers and managers are glad to assist you in developing a perfect solution for your business that will bring value and boost sales.

You just need to share your ideas with us, and we will take care of the rest - planning, design, coding, deployment and maintenance of the application. Our specially trained experts will conduct a research on your business to define its weaks and strengths to optimise your workflow and increase productivity. Drop us a line right now, if you feel that you have some ideas or questions concerning app development. We will be happy to hear from you.

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