How to reduce development cost of web application? The tips you must know.

Wise actions leading to reducing the web app cost are more than welcome. They can be your project’s crucial decisions. How come? Read the article, educate yourself and make it happen – do your best to reduce app development costs. 

Start your process wisely

Having an idea you believe in is a start. That is the point where web apps begin the journey. Second, comes the budget. Try out to make it more specific and answer the question of how flexible or limited it is. It’s always better to know the truth, even if it is not the best scenario you can imagine. Knowing your budget is a crucial step, you can start with materializing your idea. A defined budget will help you to set the rules, plan, adjust all that impacts the web app development cost, and make your idea ready to happen.

Let’s say you know your budget, you have thought it through and you are fully aware of what you can afford and what is beyond your reach. Potential conclusions you can have may look like:

• I think it could be tight to produce all the must-have functions so I need to save some money. 
• I will be able to deliver a core set of features but I haven’t taken risks into cost consideration. I need to have some extra money. 
• I don’t know exactly what are the average web application development prices, so I need to have a financial buffer.

There may be many more scenarios as above, but they will all communicate one thing – it’s always good to save money and look for ways to reduce app development costs.

We know that is not an easy issue to figure out, so based on our experience we want to share with you some tips on reducing the web app cost. The first and the most important piece of advice is to begin saving money from the beginning. Yes, just after you got the idea, defined the budget, and did the market research – start to think about development cost reduction.

What impacts development cost

We know that topic of web app cost is complex and requires a lot of time to go through all the factors affecting price. However, we also think that subject is very important, therefore we described all we know about web app estimation in one material. If you are wondering how much your web application may cost, be sure to check our article about web application development estimation.

As you already know, the web app development isn’t the low-cost game to play. It’s especially difficult if are not experienced and you don’t know what actions you can take to reduce cost, but at the same time, to not lose the quality. The good point to start from is to know which process components are of particular importance when it comes to affecting costs.

Product’s scope

What is your project scope? Which features are your must-haves and which you can give up and thus save time and money? Defining the product’s scope is a difficult and quite complex process. Why? First, you need to know the business value behind the final product. To know the value you have to know your target audience – their needs, problems, and how your product will solve them. Exploring the users’ needs and how to respond to them is the field of UI UX process. It can be hard to conduct the research on your own, so again the best way to handle this is to decide on outsourcing the development. Every good quality software development company has resources to examine and help you to understand how potential users can benefit from your software product.

Technology partner

The cost of building a web application depends on the technology partner’s rate. However, choosing the right software development company for your project shouldn’t be only a matter of money. The important is the code quality, experience in similar projects, valuable reviews of other clients.

Moreover, you will pay more if you hire developers from countries where the cost of living is higher like USA or Canada. The development team from Central Europe will cost you less.

Tech-stack

Finding the proper tech stack to build your software product is another aspect you need to pay attention to. The tech stack has a significant impact on the app development cost because it gives the direction of the development workflow, determines the cost and possibility of app growth (scalability), and regulates the commercial risk grade. Again, if you are not experienced in building apps, it’s always better to discuss the issue with a software development company that will advise the best possible technology.

At Software Things we are true advocates of JAMstack technology, as we built many successful digital products using this technology. If you are interested in more details, check out our guide on JAMstack.

Frequent priority reorientation

The software development company estimates costs based on the product’s requirements. The product’s requirements result from the business value which covers users’ value. The more you are aware of your priorities: the market, users, and your business needs, the more precise cost estimation you get. However, the thing is, the web application is rather a custom-made product and its requirements are born during the project. They simply evolve with the project. Nevertheless, it’s always good to do your homework first, investigate your priorities, and be prepared for the project.

If you are not able to set in stone the list with project requirements, it’s better to decide on time and material model pricing. It lets you define the core features but it gives you the freedom to adjust the requirements to the evolving product. Choosing time and material contracts allows you to be agile with your web application and that just makes the product better. T&M supports also the changes in your product demands, and this protects your budget.

Tips on how to reduce web application development costs

Saving money on the web and mobile app development process is not an easy task to perform. This is because the development process is complicated and consists of several stages. There are also many unknowns and risks and that’s why you need experts to do it well.

Despite the complexity, it is worth thinking from the beginning, in a way that makes it easier to spot areas for cost reduction. Below you find our pieces of advice on what you can do to hold your costs down while maintaining the quality up.

Prepare well your project requirements

As already mentioned the amount of work that must be done, before the development process starts is huge. The idea you have must be adapted to the market, audience, and budget you want to spend. The more accurate you will be, the better for the development team: developers and project manager.

A very helpful piece of advice to apply is to prepare a document with the requirements you want to reach. Try to include there already mentioned factors: your vision description that focus on business value, market and users’ needs with the features you want to offer as a core of your product, define the platforms you want to launch your application on, set timelines, and budget.

Don’t be very worried if you are not able to list all features your application should have, or if they change during the development process. First of all, you need to have the defined business value you want to achieve with your product and your target audience pain points described. Having this set of information, the software development company will help you to discover and list all the features, and you will be sure that they will cover the users and business vale.

At Software Things we conduct workshops with the potential client during which we define the values and the core set of users’ needs, and together with the client, we prepare a proposition of the features the product should have. The workshops clarify the vision and requirements and allow for presenting the most accurate cost estimation.

Choose the best development partner

Find the technology company that will understand you, support your vision with proactive solutions, and will be a reliable partner. The experienced and pro-client software house will help you also to reduce app development costs. How? They know their work and surely they will advise you what can be done to save money. Besides, choosing a partner with great specialists will save the development time and thus money also.

When choosing the partner to develop an app, communication, and chemistry between you and the company are also important factors. During the project, you will have a lot of joint work and discussion, so a good understanding of each other will facilitate and improve the project delivery.

Build-in technology adapted to product’s goals

Technology stack is a key issue to discuss while thinking of ways to reduce web app development cost. An appropriate tech stack allows you to save money and time spent on development but also stay away from major programming errors, scale up the product when applicable, and secure the data of the audience. The best technology to build your product will depend on its needs and demands.

Choosing the tech stack whose usage is cheaper is not a good approach and leads to poorer web app quality. So how can you reduce the cost with a tech stack? By choosing the most appropriate one. Taking into account the cost point of view, the solutions supported by open-source tools can have a significant impact on reducing web app cost. Open-source solutions are usually free to use, so they are an obvious way to save money.

Secondly, it’s always good to think if the frameworks or technology we want to choose are supported and known as reliable. This is crucial to avoid a situation when in two years, the tools you used to build the product cease to exist.

Another aspect worth considering is to work with tools that can be easily integrated with third-party solutions. Such action will save development time, as you will not have to build each piece from scratch.

As you could have already thought, the decision about tech stack, tools, etc requires technical knowledge and experience. For such a decision it’s wise to follow the experts. The reasonable step to take is to choose the right software company and together choose the best technology.

Start with simple design, improve in full swing

The sophisticated design needs time. The designer has to dedicate a lot of work and energy to making your web application stand out from the crowd. The more complex and time-consuming the design of your product is, the higher cost you will pay.

Surely a well-thought design will help your product, especially from the marketing point of view. The question is, does your web application need to have a complex design from the beginning?

One of the ways to reduce development costs is to decide on a simple design when launching your product, and come back to the case when you will be sure your product rocks and people need it. Start simple, check whether it works, and improve in full swing. Following this rule can surely help you to save money and secure your product’s growth process.

The second option to save money without losing the code quality is to use ready-made UI kits and libraries. Talk with your technology partner about the idea of using the ready UI kit, and certainly, you will find solutions helping you to reduce web app development costs.

Bet on MVP (minimum viable product)

When it comes to technological products, it’s good to be cautious, verify your ideas and then develop them as they become successful. Therefore, building MVP is an often way the entrepreneurs choose for materializing their ideas.

MVP is a scaled-down form of a digital product with minimal numbers of features that reach the goal – brings the business value and benefits the users. Launching MVP is faster, cheaper, and allows for gathering audience feedback needed for further product improvement.

But what are the minimal features that should your MVP include? Try to answer if the features in your MVP support your product.

• Are they feasible? Will the experts be able to implement them?
• Are they desirable? Will they solve the problems of your target audience?
• Are they viable? Will they bring business value and fit into reaching your business goals?

Test the features with prototype

How to be sure that all developed features are 100% needed? The best way is to prepare a clickable prototype of the application which allows you to check you get everything you need. We assure you, it is the best option to test the product with users before the development phase begins.

Prototype testing allows you to reduce app development costs without additional effort and time. You will know if users understand the product and its features, but you will also find out how user-friendly the design is. Just let the people click the app through and listen to their feedback. This way you will develop only needed and essential features.

Summary thoughts

The ways you can reduce the web app development cost give you many options that you can take advantage of. The most difficult aspect is that they require knowledge and experience. Thus the wisest decision is to choose the right development partner that will help you to go through this path.

Of course, it’s good to investigate the possibilities of smart moves you can take to save money and time, but in the end, we advise you to follow the experts. From your perspective, be sure that you are well-prepared thanks to planning and organizing the execution.

At Software Things we focus on engaging partnerships and delivering products that work well, for the users and the business. So if you have questions regarding your web application plan or you are pretty sure you need to materialize your idea – we are here to help you.