How To Develop And Maintain A Flutter Mobile App
By: Sophia Martin
Tags: Mobile Apps, Flutter, Startup, Mobile App Development, Technology

The cost to develop a cross-platform mobile application can range between $37,000 to $171,450 and possible to climb up to $500,000 or higher with an average cost of $150 per hour for the developer. But Flutter based mobile apps can cost you much less than these figures as you can hire flutter app developers with the average per hour cost of $18 to $35.

How?

Despite knowing the fact that Flutter has become a hot sensation of the market and has garnered more than 1 million downloads, many of you are in doubt “what exactly it will cost you to develop an app with Flutter?”.

Whether you want to develop a basic app or an enterprise app, the development cost is one of the primary concerns for startups and enterprises. So when it comes to developing an app, there are three most important things that not only affect the performance of your app but also influence the development cost.

App Design: The first thing that attracts the user’s attention is, the app design, but Flutter provides you an advanced Google UI kit that helps developers in creating attractive apps for both iOS and Android platforms. Since Flutter provides you a broad range of free-to-use widget and design tools, therefore developers can easily save their development hours which ultimately reflects in cost reduction.

The first thing that attracts the user’s attention is, the app design, but Flutter provides you an advanced Google UI kit that helps developers in creating attractive apps for both iOS and Android platforms. Since Flutter provides you a broad range of free-to-use widget and design tools, therefore developers can easily save their development hours which ultimately reflects in cost reduction. User’s Experience: No matter how beautiful and amazing applications you have developed, if it has excessive use of animation or bigger images, then it will take a long time to load the page. However, with the stateful widgets of Flutter, and layered architecture of Flutter allows developers to customize the app with full control on-screen pixels to animated graphics without any limits. The wide set of widgets will help you deliver a pixel-perfect experience on both iOS and Android and eliminate the risk of writing the codes from scratch which will cut down the development time and its cost.

No matter how beautiful and amazing applications you have developed, if it has excessive use of animation or bigger images, then it will take a long time to load the page. However, with the stateful widgets of Flutter, and layered architecture of Flutter allows developers to customize the app with full control on-screen pixels to animated graphics without any limits. The wide set of widgets will help you deliver a pixel-perfect experience on both iOS and Android and eliminate the risk of writing the codes from scratch which will cut down the development time and its cost. Development Speed: Flutter is based on Google’s in-house programming language and comes up with a “Hot Reload” feature that helps developers in making instant changes in the backend of the application. By using this feature developers can speed up the development process and help in saving development time.

In addition, here are the few facts and stats that make you understand the costing of the application:

The survey report reveals, with the most common per hour costing of Android/iOS developers ($100/$150) in the US, the medium app development will cost you around $25,275.00 to $171,450.00, which can go up to $727,500.00.

The breakdown of the app development cost and the major factors that can affect the cost of the development.

According to the Clutch 2017 survey report, on average, the minimum app development project is between $5,000 to $10,000 with the MVP.

The average price to develop an enterprise app can be starting from $140,000.

According to the survey, over 80% of mobile apps take up to 3+ months to develop whereas 40% of apps are built-in 6+ months.

In the Nutshell: To wrap up all these statistics and facts of mobile app development cost and time, it is fair enough to conclude there are multiple factors that influence the cost of app development. However, the breakdown of app development hours can be far lesser with Flutter.

Let’s understand what are the best features of flutter that make the entire app development process faster, cheaper, and smoother.

Understanding the Unique Features of Flutter Affecting the Cost of App Development

There are multiple features of Flutter that make it a winning choice over other leading frameworks and help in building modern applications although under budget.

Here’s how these features help in cost-cutting and expediting the development process:

- Free To Use

Being a young framework, 39% of developers are already using flutter for app development as it is based on Dart programming language and an entirely open-source platform. Moreover, it brings you detailed documentation of the platform that helps developers learn it quickly. Flutter is not only easy to learn but also helps you save on license costs.

- Compatibility on Multiple OS (Operating Platform)

One of the best benefits of hiring a flutter app development company is that you don’t need to hire app developers for different operating platforms. Flutter provides you a wide range of widgets which are the part application, not the platform. So there is less chance left for facing any compatibility issues between Android, iOS, and Windows applications developed with Flutter. Moreover, Flutter’s app compatibility translates into fewer app testing requirements and helps you market your app in a real-time.

- Speed Up The App Development Process

The longer your app will take to develop, the higher the cost will be. There are multiple ways that Flutter can speed up the development process and help in delivering projects in less no. of hours.

Here’s how it makes it possible:

Offering platform-specific widgets

Hot Reload functionality for instant corrections

Detailed documentation for quick learning and easy understanding

Single Codebase

With the increasing number of app downloads on both iOS and Android platforms, it is worth launching an app on multiple operating systems to capture a large number of users through different platforms. I know it can be a budget draining task for the startups. But Flutter is an ideal cross-platform app development approach that helps you develop multiple applications by using a single codebase. When developing an app with Flutter, the app developer has to focus on creating a single codebase. One version of the application can be run on Android, iOS, and Windows.

Ensuring High Performance

The mobile applications developed with Flutter always ensure you high performance on any performance as it is based on Dart Programming language that is simple, fast, and easy to compile into native code. Flutter based apps can 60FPS as it does not access OEM widgets owing to having its own widgets. So developing a cross-platform mobile application using Flutter is a good approach to save development time and cost and eliminate the risk of developing separate apps in native code.

Testing Support

While developing an app using Flutter, you can save a great amount of time on testing as developers can perform testing at different levels as a unit. Flutter offers you the best widget testing feature that expedites the UI testing. In addition, Flutter holds a separate package named Flutter driver to perform app testing easily and smoothly. Therefore, time and efforts utilized for app testing can be reduced to a greater extent and turns flutter app development into a cost-effective measure.

In a Nutshell: These are the few reasons that not only make Flutter a second-most loved framework for developing high-end cross-platform applications but indirectly help in reducing app development time and cost. However, the question is still open: how much does a Flutter app will cost you?

Let’s dig deep to find the closest answer…

Flutter Mobile App Development Cost in 2020–21

Determining the exact cost of any app development is one of the most challenging tasks but the key findings suggest that the cost to develop an app ranges from $25,000 to $700,000, based upon various industry survey reports. But we have carried out detailed research on app development cost, which lists estimates based on widely used app features, design complexity, choice of the operating system, software development team, tech stack, and more.

But, with the availability of technology, mobile app development companies, and increasing competition in the market in 2020, the figures have not remained the same. Here are the price estimations of the app development if you choose to hire mobile app developer .

Here are the following elements that help you understand the Flutter app development cost or majorly influencing your app development budget:

1. Native or Cross-Platform

The final cost of app development definitely affects the cost of development. Native applications are developed to suit the specific guidelines of the operating systems, thus you need to opt for Android app development solutions if you are choosing an Android Native app and vise versa. This will ultimately toss your app development budget. In contrast, hybrid apps work with multiple operating systems and allow you to target a large no. of users through various platforms without draining your budget.

But, due to the technical superiority and performance, 75% of startups choose iOS native apps, 61% Android Native Apps and 10% Hybrid apps.

2. App Design

You must have heard that the first impression is the last impression! App design does exactly the same and is the first thing that grabs the attention of the user. But app designing consists of UX (User experience) and UI (User Interface), which help in developing seamless user experience and add a touch of colors and creativity to your app.

If you are also dreaming of becoming the next big app like Uber, then you need to hire UI/UX designers to develop an outstanding look and feel of the app. But, the cost of UI/UX designers is depending upon the design complexity of the app.

3. Backend

The backend is the backbone of the app which manages several aspects of the app like app security, data backup, real-time chatbots, server, and many more. Since the backend is the most integral part of any app, therefore it takes up around 140–190+ hours for the development.

4. Features and Functionalities

A custom-made mobile application with customer-centric features is the need of the hour for any industry. But, it can be the biggest cost influencing element of your app development. The cost of the app development increases based on integrated functionalities which can push your budget from hundred to thousand dollars.

The journey of app development does not end with the final development. It needs regular updates as per the latest trends and new devices or versions of operating systems that adds up a cost to your app development.

Basically app maintenance includes:

App Update: App updates are something that gives users something more advanced user experience. But it depends on the business owner when they want their app to be upgraded.

App updates are something that gives users something more advanced user experience. But it depends on the business owner when they want their app to be upgraded. Bug-Fixes: No matter how superior your app development team is, there is no app that is bug-free at all. And once your app is launched, it becomes tough to fix those bugs so it is important to deeply analyze the app and detect the bugs before its launch.

No matter how superior your app development team is, there is no app that is bug-free at all. And once your app is launched, it becomes tough to fix those bugs so it is important to deeply analyze the app and detect the bugs before its launch. Design Changes: App design is something that actually attracts users but over time it gets out-dated, so it is important to maintain your app and change the design to make it more accessible for the users.

Conclusion

Developing your app with Flutter can be a great choice for entrepreneurs as well as startups because it is equipped with better features which ultimately help in reducing app development cost and make it easier to maintain.

This post has covered all the major features of Flutter and factors that can affect the cost of development and maintenance of the app. Still, if you find yourself in doubt at any point, then it is recommended to collaborate with the software development company for expert solutions.