How much does it cost to maintain a Mobile App?

Wed, 14.10.2020
Wed, 14.05.2025
How much does it cost to maintain a Mobile App

Mobile App maintenance is Important

App maintenance is important and every app on the store needs to survive. Factors such as new OS releases, new device releases, design popularity changes, and functional needs are some of the reasons why you should have an app maintenance plan before you even start any app development.

It is essential to maintain a mobile app to avoid any certain interruptions, which also incurs some additional costs. If you are not investing in mobile app maintenance, then it could be reasons like app failure and dreaded app uninstalls.

People generally think that all you have to do is build the app, complete the app store submission, and you are done. If the app is built properly then nothing more needs to be done. This is all wrong. It does not matter how well a mobile app is built, there is always regular and continuous work to be done to maintain it.

Mobile app Maintenance Include

1. Keep up with the latest iOS and Android devices
Technology is always improving and keeps on updating which means that both platforms have new versions that come out. Generally, the technical aspect comes out with new versions every year. A common issue that unwantedly happens is certain app features just stop functioning. IOS and Android release new versions to developers first before so they can release it to the public. This is the opportunity to work out with any related issues that may be connected with the release.

2. Delivering Better User Experiences
There is no secret key to your mobile app’s success and growth. You need to provide better user experiences (UX).

Elegant user experience helps you:

  • Develop long-term relationships with users
  • Get better feedback and positive reviews
  • Improve user retention
  • Increase customer loyalty

3. Updating the design (UI)
Design pieces need to be changed and updated accordingly. The User Interface is just as important as the functionalities that require changes. What is popular in design always keeps on changing. You are going to get new ideas to make the design look more modern and fresh.

4. Increased ROI in the Long Run
When you regularly update your app, you can get plenty amount of financial benefits like maximizing ROI. It will also help to look for different ways to decrease costs and acquire new users.

5. Securing Your Mobile App from Cyber Threats
With the growth of the mobile app, there is also an increasing quest for cybersecurity. As an app developer, you are relatively responsible for the security and safety of apps and websites.

Types of mobile app maintenance

Perfective Maintenance: With trending mobile features and functionalities, you will know about new and changed user requirements that need to be maintained. It would be visible to take feedback into account, take care of functional modifications in the source code, and offer a perfect user experience.

Adaptive Maintenance: With adaptive maintenance, the system will be updated if you keep track of the changes made in the application. You may need to make necessary adjustments in a working environment like an operating system, hardware, or software environment that could impact the application’s operation.

Emergency Maintenance: There could be an emergency, which means problems like the issues or errors would be sudden, unpredictable, and unexpected. In such scenarios, you need to address and find solutions immediately, offering a seamless app experience.

Preventive Maintenance: Preventive maintenance implies the elimination of the occurrence of errors. The focus is to reduce the complexity of the application and improve the maintain factor through code restructuring, code optimization, and documentation updating.

Corrective Maintenance: With corrective maintenance, you can take care of the repairs, faults, and defects that are detected in the application. App maintenance also includes errors like design, coding, and application logic.

Cost to maintain a mobile app

When you are looking into app maintenance costs, you will consider important aspects like nurturing servers, push notifications, payment gateways, and more. The mobile app maintenance costs can be significantly higher during the first year, which is up to 50% of the total development cost, and decrease to 15-25% for each year after that.

Hosting: You will find multiple hosting options, such as a cloud-based environment. Cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) are generally less expensive as you only pay for what you use, and the maintenance cost of the server itself is lesser.

Analytics: To understand what your users are doing so you can make the right change decisions you need to track your user’s usage and receive reports which provide you answers. Tools like Google Analytics provide a lot of information that helps you to make better decisions.

Bug Fixtures and Updates: If you only have 1 bug that requires a quick fix in the line of code, it will cost you about $50. Updates will always be necessary with any technology. You will notice that all the apps you have on your phone have regular updates.

Third-Party: While developing your app, you can choose to use licensed technology by paying a fee. This is relatively important that you should discuss in the beginning to find a way around it.

Customer Support: If you want to truly be successful you need to listen to your users. Having someone dedicated to responding to users is a vital key to great reviews, comments, and suggestions. This will be an ongoing cost to you as well.

Conclusion

The best solution to have a hold of all of these is to discuss a maintenance plan with your mobile app development team. This team will be able to provide you with any app maintenance that is required. Discuss these options and the costs associated with your team before the time slot so you know the full scope cost and not just the cost of app development. You do not need to waste your time with development if you are not going to maintain the app. Fixing bugs, making updates and improvements, and customer attention is key to user loyalty. Remember even small things can change any negative into a positive version.

mohsinali chidi
Mohsinali Chidi

  • businessgrowth
  • mobileapp

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