Do you want to build an MVP but are confused about its costs?
Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is an important version that contains just enough features that can be used by early app users. The feedback provided by such users’ values and helpful to perform changes based on the current demand of the market.
It not only saves your overall costs but also helps to determine the future of your app in the market.
But how much does it cost to develop an MVP?
The costs to build an MVP can range from $10,000 to $150,000. However, the cost can impacted by several factors including complexity, design, and others.
Here we will discuss the factors impacting costs, the need to decide on a budget, and strategies for minimizing the cost to build a minimum viable product.
Let’s begin together.
Factors Impacting the Cost of Building an MVP
How Much Does It Cost to Build an MVP?
After identifying the range of MVP app development costs, it is significant to know the factors impacting the costs.
In the below list, you will find it all.
1. Complexity
The complexity you decide to put in an app can impact the overall costs.
Large-size apps and complex MVPs that contain several features along with integration require more resources, which substantially increases the cost of developing an MVP.
Here is the list of complexity levels and how they impact costs.
| Complexity Level | Description | Cost Range |
| Low | Basic functionality, few features | $10,000 – $30,000 |
| Medium | Moderate features, some integration | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| High | Advanced features, extensive integration | $80,000 – $150,000 |
You can decide on the complexity by identifying the number and type of features required to make an MVP.
2. MVP Design
The type of UI/UX design you select has a large impact on the development cost of an MVP.
Adoption of simple designs is budget-friendly, while complex and advanced designs produce higher costs due to their nature.
Besides this, businesses need to identify their goal and requirements along with budget constraints, to determine the design approach for app development. Here’s a list to follow.
| Design Level | Description | Cost Range |
| Basic | Simple, minimalistic design | $10,000 – $30,000 |
| Standard | Clean design with standard UI components | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Advanced | Custom design, animations, and polished UI | $80,000 – $150,000 |
Apart from this, UI/UX principles also play an important role in deciding MVP app development costs.
3. Tech Stack
The type of technology used in MVP impacts the developing cost of an MVP.
Here, the tech stack comprises databases, types of languages along frameworks. The choice of technologies you select can become more costly than others.
The given list can help you decide the tech stack.
| Tech Stack Type | Description | Cost Range |
| Basic | Utilizes common, widely-supported technologies | $10,000 – $30,000 |
| Standard | Incorporates some specialized technologies | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Advanced | Utilizes cutting-edge or complex technologies | $80,000 – $150,000 |
Technology impacts the cost by increasing efficiency. Through automation, it can improve the performance of MVP.
4. MVP App Compatibility
The platform-selected app compatibility impacts the overall cost of building an MVP. How?
Whether you select an Android or iOS platform based on your audience reach impacts the cost. Besides this, selecting the hybrid app development process can be much more costly.
Well, it can result in covering users over both platforms. Here is the list to follow:
| App Platform | Description | Cost Range |
| Web | Accessible via web browsers, responsive design | $10,000 – $30,000 |
| iOS | Native app for Apple’s iOS devices | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Android | Native app for Android devices | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Cross-platform | Utilizes frameworks like React Native or Flutter for both iOS and Android | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Hybrid | Combines web technologies within a native wrapper (e.g., Cordova) | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Wearables | Apps designed for wearable devices | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| IoT | Apps designed for Internet of Things devices | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Mixed Reality | Apps for AR/VR devices | $80,000 – $150,000 |
Here, you can hire Android app developers and iOS app developers to assist in deciding the right platform to launch MVP.
5. Development Team
An MVP development cost estimation depends on the team selection. However, there are two elements to consider before deciding on the right team, including location and expertise.
Selection of the right team can assist in reducing the overall cost of app development. All you need to do is identify the team that can help you achieve success through the MVP app.
The list to check the impact of the team’s location and expertise on cost can be detailed below.
| Development Team | Location | Expertise | Cost Range |
| In-house | High-cost region | Experienced developers | $80,000 – $150,000 |
| In-house | Low-cost region | Experienced developers | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Outsourced | Offshore | Experienced developers | $20,000 – $60,000 |
| Outsourced | Nearshore | Experienced developers | $30,000 – $80,000 |
| Freelancers | Variable | Varies | $10,000 – $50,000 |
Relying on the locations listed above, such as the United States and Europe, can cost you more compared to Asia-Pacific regions.
Apart from the above factors, others impact the cost of MVP App after its launch. Below mentioned points below can assist you in knowing them in detail.
- Marketing: When you launch MVP, it is vital to perform mobile app marketing. Performing advertising for the MVP app can be one of the mediums for ensuring its growth in the market. There are diversified types of mobile app marketing available that impact costs.
- Maintenance: Maintenance does not start once the app gets developed; instead, it is a continuous process that can affect the costs of MVP app development.
- Sale: For the investors who await for app launch, it can be a golden opportunity to increase the capital invested for MVP development.
Understanding the factors impacting costs is not the end of determining the average cost to develop an MVP.
Have you ever thought about why you need to have a budget for your MVP development process? Learn it in the next section.
Why do you need to Plan a Budget for MVP?
You have well understood the cost of building an MVP along with the factors that impact it.
Now, it’s time to learn the reasons behind planning a budget for MVP. Here are some of them you can go through.
To Set a Realistic Budget
You must set a budget that is realistic and relies on developing an app. MVP is an important part of it and is useful to set the budget by identifying the type of features that will be used in an app and the functionalities that matter.
It helps to Validate the Idea
A mobile app idea becomes valid only after you start executing it by investing capital and gathering the market insights required. Deciding the budget for MVP fuels the idea of an app as it is one of the foremost steps towards making your app dream a reality.
To Attract Early Adaptors
Investing in an MVP is useful for attracting early adopters and it is effective in successfully gaining potential app users. Once you begin to attract the target audience, it becomes simple for you to entail and retain them.
Helpful in identifying Users’ Demand
Investing in an MVP can be useful for exploring the user’s demand and also effective in understanding their insights related to the app and its growth. Another factor that needs to be implemented is that by using this feedback, you can update your app.
Effective for Time Management
After developing an MVP, you can explore the time that will be needed within the process of creating an app. It is important to identify the overall time because here you are awaiting your potential app users.
Understanding the requirement to plan a budget for MVP, its cost and other factors is not all that you should have.
What about having strategies that can minimize the cost you invest in MVP development? In the next section, you will learn them all.
Strategies to Minimize the Cost of Developing an MVP
Are you ready to minimize the cost to develop an MVP?
You can go through the list below to learn different types of strategies for minimizing the overall cost of creating an MVP.
1] Identify the Potential Users
If you want to reduce the cost of building an MVP, then search for your potential app users. It is important to create MVP after recognizing the type of users.
Here, you can conduct market research that will be useful to learn about the user’s behavior and identify the existing gap.
2] Clarify the Top Features for MVP
Defining the type of features that will make up your app is essential. You should clearly define the core features of your MVP that can help to estimate the cost of MVP development.
Knowing the top features is important for enabling significant methods that can attract your target audience.
3] Resource Allocation
To reduce the cost, you need to clarify the budget and allocate the resources accordingly. This step is also useful for performing resource optimization.
It is required to minimize the risk associated with MVP development. Here, you reduce the chances of investing in features that are less required or not essential.
4] Outsourcing and Freelancing
Adopting software development outsourcing and freelancing is one of the essential parameters to consider here. This is an important and cost-effective approach, as here it is not needed to hire full-time employees.
Here, you need to hire them for a couple of months or years just for the project, and then you can invest in the core strategies of business development.
5] Introduce Scalability
Implementation of agile methodologies can be a medium to reduce the cost of MVP development. By introducing scalability and agility in MVP, you can relieve the burden of managing it later.
Scalability implementation can assist in expanding the areas of the app to work even when lots of traffic is generated over it.
6] Early Testing Practice
You should adopt early testing practices for your MVP. Regular testing of MVP can help identify bugs and errors at the first stage.
Further, you can mitigate such issues and prevent costly defects. Early detection of errors saves time and costs that can impact later.
Now, as you learned the cost of MVP app development, the factors impacting it, and suitable strategies to be implemented for reducing the same, you might be bothered about how to proceed, right?
Well, a team can help you here.
How Long will It take to Build an MVP?
Want to know the time taken to make an MVP?
The approximate time that can be finalized depends on the table below.
| Complexity Level | Time Taken (Estimated) |
| Low | 1-3 Months |
| Medium | 3-6 Months |
| High | 6-12 Months |
Well, the time varies depending on the type of complexity involved in MVP development.
Why can Nimble AppGenie Can Help in MVP Development?
Selection of a team is crucial for determining the cost and even identifying the type of ways to make it. Before you decide on a team, here are three rules that can be helpful.
- Experience: Determine if the team selected has enough experience to carry on with your MVP.
- Reviews: Here, you can check with the actual clients of the team to identify the actual scenario.
- Budget: You should check if the team cost is budget-friendly to develop your MVP.
Align with Nimble AppGenie, we satisfy the three rule test and are effective to meet your demands.
We are the best MVP app development company and can help you with the process of MVP and app development.
Conclusion
MVP app development costs are impacted by different factors including complexity, app design, tech stack, app compatibility, and the development team. Other than this, certain post-launch factors should be considered, as they can impact your cost after MVP development. These factors include marketing, sales, and maintenance.
You can implement effective strategies for minimizing the overall MVP app development costs. These strategies comprise resource allocation, early testing, identifying potential users, clarifying top features, and others.
FAQs
The cost to build an MVP depends on multiple factors, including app complexity, compatibility, design, tech stack, and team development. Besides this, the cost can vary from $10,000 and $150,000.
The factors can be determined as below:
- App Complexity: The more complex app requires high cost and vice-versa.
- App design: The design of the app varies from complex to normal and so that its costs.
- Tech Stack: The type of technology that you select for app creation has a larger impact on the cost of its development.
- Compatibility: Platform compatibility matters a lot once you decide to launch an MVP
- Development Team: The team selection and its cost differ based on two components, including location and expertise.
There are a certain number of strategies that you can opt for to minimize MVP software costs. Here is a brief.
- Resource Allocation: Allocating resources is useful to optimize them and reduce investment in unwanted features.
- Outsourcing and freelancing: Outsourcing MVP development can help reduce money invested to hire employees for the long term.
- Identifying potential users: You need to identify the potential users, as it is one of the important measures to achieve success.
- Introduction to Scalability: After implementing agile tactics, you can ensure the growth of your app.
Planning a budget for MVP development is crucial for setting realistic financial goals, validating app ideas through execution, attracting early adopters, understanding user demand, and effectively managing time. A well-defined budget ensures efficient resource allocation and cost-effective development.
Resource allocation is critical for optimizing resources and minimizing investment in unnecessary features. By strategically allocating resources, you can reduce the risk of overspending, focus on essential functionalities, and mitigate the chances of investing in less required features, ultimately reducing overall development costs.
The UI/UX design of an MVP can vary from simple and minimalistic to complex and advanced. Here you need to understand the user interface and experience before selecting the right design for your MVP.
Beyond the initial development phase, the post-launch factors impacting the cost include marketing, sales, and maintenance of an MVP.
Niketan Sharma is the CTO of Nimble AppGenie, a prominent website and mobile app development company in the USA that is delivering excellence with a commitment to boosting business growth & maximizing customer satisfaction. He is a highly motivated individual who helps SMEs and startups grow in this dynamic market with the latest technology and innovation.
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