What is the Cost to Maintain and Support a Mobile App?

Mobile apps have become an integral part of our lives. They offer not only convenience and entertainment but also countless possibilities for businesses to engage with their customers. However, many app owners overlook a critical aspect of app development: maintenance. 

Just like a house that requires regular upkeep to stay functional and appealing, mobile apps also need continuous maintenance to remain relevant, secure, and user-friendly. In this article, we will explore the importance of maintaining mobile software and the costs associated with app maintenance.

Why Is App Maintenance Important?

Adapting to Technological Advancements

• Embracing OS Updates and Framework Enhancements: Timely integration of new operating system versions and framework updates ensures compatibility, enhances performance, and offers access to new features.
• Optimizing Third-Party Libraries: Regular updates of third-party libraries mitigate security vulnerabilities, improve functionality, and provide an overall better user experience.

Complying with App Market Guidelines

• Adhering to App Store Regulations: Constant monitoring of terms and conditions for platforms like the App Store and Google Play enables timely adjustments to remain compliant and maintain a strong market presence.
• Adaptation to Changes in UI/UX Guidelines: Evolving design trends and evolving user expectations necessitate periodic updates to align with the latest market standards.

Ensuring Device Compatibility

• Embracing New Hardware Releases: Regularly testing and optimizing your app for new device models, screen resolutions, and form factors guarantees optimal user experiences across various platforms.
• Seamlessly Integrating Customized Manufacturer Software: Fine-tuning your app to work flawlessly with customized Android overlays or iOS modifications ensures consistent performance and user satisfaction.

Safeguarding Against Security Risks

• Continuous Security Audits: Regular security assessments help identify potential vulnerabilities, enabling timely patches and updates to protect user data from threats.
• Proactive Defense Against Cyberattacks: Staying vigilant and implementing robust security measures reduces the risk of data breaches, safeguarding your app's reputation and user trust.

Responding to Market Trends

• User-Driven Feature Enhancements: Continuously engaging with users, gathering feedback, and implementing feature updates based on market trends and user demands fosters user loyalty and satisfaction.
• User Interface and Experience Refinements: Iterative design improvements based on emerging trends ensure intuitive navigation, seamless interactions, and an exceptional user experience.

Leveraging New Technologies

• Technological Upgrades: Introducing new programming languages, frameworks, or infrastructure enhancements can improve performance, scalability, and maintainability.
• Incorporating Emerging Tech: Assessing the potential benefits of emerging technologies like AI, machine learning, or augmented reality allows for innovative additions that can set your app apart from the competition.

Prioritizing User Satisfaction

• Continuous Testing and Bug Fixes: Thorough testing and regular bug fixing ensure a stable and reliable app, reducing user frustration and minimizing uninstallations.
• Regular Updates for Enhanced User Experience: Iterative updates, based on user feedback and analytics, enhance usability, optimize flows, and increase user engagement and satisfaction.

Demonstrating Commitment to Excellence

• Consistent Updates and Enhancements: Regularly updating your app showcases your commitment to delivering the best possible experience, fostering trust and loyalty among users.
• Continuous Improvement Efforts: Demonstrating your dedication to maintaining high-quality standards creates a positive brand image and instils confidence in your app's reliability.

How To Maintain Your App?

Step 1: Build your app well from the start

Building your app with maintenance in mind from the beginning is crucial to save money and effort in the long run. This involves using a functional platform that can easily scale in terms of features and utilizes reliable and modern technologies that won't quickly become outdated. By choosing the right development framework and technologies, you can ensure that your app remains robust, scalable, and adaptable to future changes and advancements.

Investing in comprehensive testing, including performance, security, compatibility, and other types of testing, is essential. Thorough testing helps identify and resolve issues early on, reducing the need for extensive maintenance and support later. It also contributes to a higher quality product, which is easier to maintain and provides a better user experience.

Carefully considering your app's feature set is also important. Including unnecessary features can not only increase development costs but also complicate maintenance and support. Collaborating with a business analyst during the planning stage can help determine which features are essential for delivering the best user experience. Focusing on core functionality and prioritizing features based on user needs can streamline maintenance efforts and improve the overall efficiency of your app.

Step 2: Take care of scalability

Ensuring that your app's architecture and server infrastructure can handle a growing number of users is crucial for long-term success. As your user base expands, you need to be prepared to scale your app and its underlying infrastructure accordingly. This may involve upgrading your servers, databases, or cloud services to accommodate increased traffic and user demand. Neglecting scalability can lead to performance issues, downtime, and dissatisfied users. By proactively planning for scalability and investing in the necessary infrastructure upgrades, you can maintain a smooth and seamless user experience even as your app grows in popularity.

Step 3: Stick to your team

Maintaining a stable and consistent development team throughout the lifecycle of your app can significantly reduce maintenance and support time. When new developers join a project, they require time to familiarize themselves with the codebase, architecture, and technologies used. By keeping the original development team involved in the maintenance phase, they already have an in-depth understanding of the app's intricacies and can make necessary changes more efficiently. Alternatively, partnering with a reliable development agency that offers long-term maintenance and support can provide continuity and expertise for ongoing app maintenance.

Step 4: Check your analytics

After deploying your app, leveraging analytics is crucial for understanding user behavior and making informed decisions for maintenance and updates. Analytics tools can provide valuable insights into which features are popular among users and which ones are underutilized or ignored. By analyzing user engagement, you can identify areas that require optimization or improvements. Crash and error reporting tools, such as Crashlytics, help you track and address issues promptly. Using analytics data, you can prioritize maintenance tasks, allocate resources effectively, and make data-driven decisions to enhance the overall performance and user experience of your app.

How Much Does it Cost to Maintain an App?

The notion that mobile app support and maintenance accounts for only 15% to 20% of the total yearly budget is often misleading and doesn't accurately reflect the reality for most successful apps. Maintenance, technically speaking, involves bug fixes and adaptations for new devices, screen resolutions, and operating system versions. However, the scope of app maintenance extends far beyond these basic aspects.

In practice, after launching your app, you need to consider a wide range of ongoing activities, such as adding new features, integrating new technologies, creating fresh content, and adapting to the latest trends in features, design, and technologies. The cost of updating an app is primarily determined by its functionality and your plans for improvement.

All popular applications undergo continuous changes driven by data from analytics and external factors. It is nearly impossible to maintain a successful app while investing only 15% of the initial budget per year. This scenario would only be feasible if you created the software, released it, and made no further modifications. However, in the real world, such an approach is insufficient.

Mobile app support and maintenance services can consume a significant portion of the initial project cost, ranging from 20% to even 50% each year. According to industry estimates, maintaining a mid-sized enterprise project can cost between $5,000 and $11,000 per month. To ensure the elimination of legacy code and keep your software up to date, you may need to allocate up to 50% of the annual app maintenance budget.

Let's consider an example: Suppose a logistics project initially costs $140,000 to develop over the course of a year. In the subsequent years, the maintenance cost for this project averages around $5,000 per month. Several factors contribute to this ongoing cost:

1. Large user base and continuous growth: As the number of users increases, the demands on server infrastructure, data storage, and overall system scalability grow. This necessitates ongoing maintenance and enhancements to support the growing user base effectively.

1. Number of features: Apps with a wide range of features require more maintenance effort. Each feature needs to be regularly tested, updated, and optimized to ensure smooth functionality and a positive user experience.

1. Regular refactoring: Over time, code refactoring becomes necessary to improve the codebase's maintainability, scalability, and performance. Refactoring helps eliminate technical debt, enhances code quality, and allows for easier implementation of new features and updates.

1. Adding additional features: To stay competitive and meet evolving user expectations, you will likely need to continuously add new features and functionality to your app. This involves development, testing, and integration efforts, all of which contribute to the overall maintenance cost.

These factors, among others, influence the cost of app maintenance. It is crucial to consult with your development team to gain insights into the specific costs associated with developing and maintaining your app. By allocating sufficient resources to ongoing support and maintenance, you can ensure the long-term success, functionality, and relevance of your app in a competitive market.

In Conclusion 

Mobile development is an ongoing process that requires continuous updates and the introduction of new features to ensure long-term success. While the average cost of maintaining an app is often quoted as 15-20% of the initial development cost per year, this estimate only applies if you solely focus on bug fixes and standard activities without adding anything new. However, to truly retain users and stay ahead in the competitive market, a greater level of effort is necessary.

At Saffron Tech, we understand the importance of mobile app development and maintenance and dedicate ourselves to the ongoing support and improvement of the projects we develop. We recognize that the cost of maintaining your app depends on various factors, such as project size, update frequency, feature set, and the technologies and third-party services utilized, such as maps and payment gateways.

To discover the specific maintenance costs tailored to your project and learn more about our approach, we invite you to get in touch with us. Our team will provide a comprehensive estimate and even provide you with a mobile app maintenance contract template, giving you deeper insights into our work processes and how we can assist you.

Contact us today and let us take care of your mobile app maintenance needs to ensure your app's longevity, user satisfaction, and continued success.