How Much Does It Cost To Build A Social Media App (Features, Business Model, Cost)
By: Sophia Martin
Tags: Business, Mobile App Development, Technology, Mobile Apps, Startup

How much does it cost you to develop a social media app in 2020–21?, it is one of the most often asked questions by businesses. The typical cost to create a social media app like Facebook, Instagram, Tumbler, can be ranging from $35,000 to $50,000+, depending upon the factors like app type, features, complexity, design, software development and more that influence its development cost.

From Facebook to Instagram, Twitter to LinkedIn, Whatsapp to Snapchat, all have become a social media sensation of the town that is continuously booming on the internet these days.

With the projection that global social media users will reach by 4.41 billion in 2025 from 3.6 billion in 2020, it is fair enough to say that social media apps will quickly take the world by storm. In fact, the existing social media applications have already revolutionized the way people communicate with each other and have become an integral part of everyone’s life.

Moreover, the impact of social media apps have reached to that extent where the majority of people first check the notifications of the social media app on their smartphone in the morning. Right from checking what’s new in the work to keeping up with their friends and family, the smartphone users are widely using these apps for communications and interactions.

Now, many of you are wondering, how it can be rewarding for your business in 2020–21?

The truth is, a mindfully developed social media app can be helpful for both- you and your targeted audience. Since people are spending an average 2 hours 24 minutes on social media on a daily basis and this time has been growing since 2012. While there is no way to predict the future. But, considering the current statistics, it is fair enough to say that global usage of social media apps will likely to increase in the coming future.

Where millions of people are being engaged on social media apps for numerous topics on a daily basis, even highly functional websites fail to achieve that level of engagement that social media platforms provide. And this is the sole reason why businesses are spending in social media applications to fulfill the needs of the specific audience.

But, before stepping towards developing a social media app for your startup, it is important to understand a few things that help you achieve success in the thriving app development market.

Here are the key highlight of this blog:

Growing Popularity of Social Media Apps: Latest App Trends and Statistics

Type of Social Media Apps You Can Consider to Develop in 2020–21

Main Features and Functionalities that Can Make Your App Successful

Advanced Features To Create a Social Networking App

Development Team and Tech Stack Required to Develop Social Media App

Choosing the Best Social Media App Monetization Model?

How Much Does It Overall Cost to Build a Social Media App in 2020–21?

Let’s discuss each point in detail for better understanding:

1. Growing Popularity of Social Media Apps: Latest App Trends and Statistics

Undoubtedly, social media apps are growing at a rapid pace and can ensure you a great success in future. Still, it is worth analyzing the market and evaluating the statistics to determine the scope of launching your social media app in 2020–21.

Here are the key statistics of social media market that you need to know:

Wrap Up: Considering these fantastically powerful and flourishing figures, it is fair enough to say that social media apps will not go anywhere in future. This is why, number of progressive startups spring up like mushrooms and work hard to secure their place in the cutting-edge competitive market.

To achieve success, one thing you need to keep in mind, is to bring a unique and innovative app idea to change the whole concept of social media and offer value to the potential users that they never received before via communication channels.

So now the question is, how to develop a brilliant social media app and how much does it cost you?

To get the answer to this question, first you need to decide which type of social media app you want to create?

2. Type of Social Media Apps You Can Consider to Develop in 2020–21

There are a number of social networking apps developed for different goals and to attract different categories of people. So what’s your type of social media app?

Here are the few categories, from which you can easily choose:

Social Media Sharing Networks

This is one of the most common trending social networks, that provides the privilege to share and create video and photo content with your friends. Through this app, users can create short videos or start their video channel by using various photo filters and interesting features to make out the best from these social networking apps. And the perfect example of this type of social media networks are Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat and more.

Relationship Building Networks

Applications like Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin are the most widely used relationship building networks, leveraging millions of users from all around the world. These apps are working in three ways, developing personal contact networks, professional networks and also helping people to find suitable dating mates.

Social Content Publishing Platforms

Right from blogging to micro-blogging, social content publishing apps like Twitter and Tumbler are playing a great role. Investing in these types of applications is a real worth as it helps in generating traffic and increases the eagerness among users to create and share their thoughts with the world by utilizing this platform.

Discussion Forums

Discussion forums or Q&A service providing social media apps were the first on the internet. The prime goal of these apps is to exchange the knowledge and provide expert advice to the users through the forum.

Online Reviews

Today, in the digitized era, majority of the users are relying on the customer reviews and ratings of the products and services before making an online purchase. This type of social media app is really worth investing in as it helps in pushing forward the quality services of your business.

Conclusion: No matter, whatever kind of social media app you have decided to develop, make sure your app has:

Excellent UX/UI design that attracts the attention of the new users.

Delivery satisfying user experience.

Provide access to use apps anytime and in any location.

Integrated will all the latest features to ensure improved functionality.

Apart from all these, you must be wondering, what features are necessary to consider in developing brilliant social media apps in 2020–21?

3. Main Features and Functionalities that Can Make Your App Successful

The success of the app greatly depends upon the features and functionalities you choose to integrate in the app. And when it comes to launching social media apps, the game solely depends upon the features, its structure and UX/UI design of the app.

However, before you prepare a list of features, keep in mind that these are one of the biggest cost driving factors of the app.

Note: These are the rough estimations of building features, it can go less or above these figures depending upon the choice of mobile app development team you hire, feature you choose and complexity of the app you decide to develop. Moreover, the cost to develop the back-end of the app is still to be added in the app development cost.

So the list of expenses didn’t end here with this table. Since every business has different requirements and goals, therefore, social media apps are constructed with different sets of features. So customizing the app even with the basic features is a complicated task, therefore it is worth enough to hire a mobile app development company to develop a brilliant app.

4. Advanced Features To Create a Social Networking App

With the emerging technologies and increasing number of social media applications in the app stores, developing an ordinary app is not a sensible decision. Where Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, and more already are leading the social media app industry, it’s time to incorporate advanced features in your app to redefine the user experience.

Here are the few advanced features and its development cost/time that you should consider in 2020–21:

AR Filters: Like Snapchat and Instagram, increase the curiosity of the users to try new photo filters everyday in your app. These apps offers you a bunch of AR based face filters right from enhancing features with beauty masks to adding dog’s ear to your face. To add these features to your app, you can use ML kit or ARCore, or simply choose to hire app developers to customize the filters without any hassle.

Like Snapchat and Instagram, increase the curiosity of the users to try new photo filters everyday in your app. These apps offers you a bunch of AR based face filters right from enhancing features with beauty masks to adding dog’s ear to your face. To add these features to your app, you can use ML kit or ARCore, or simply choose to hire app developers to customize the filters without any hassle. Pro Photo Editing : It’s amazing to give access to in-app picture editing features and allow users to customize their picture by using different photo editing tools. Developers can integrate editing features with the help of FFmpeg and allow users to leverage better editing options.

: It’s amazing to give access to in-app picture editing features and allow users to customize their picture by using different photo editing tools. Developers can integrate editing features with the help of FFmpeg and allow users to leverage better editing options. Location Based Content: This can be an exciting feature for your social media app to analyse the user’s location and start showing the content posted by the others with the same location tag. You can hire app developers to develop this feature by using Google Places.

5. Development Team and Tech Stack Required to Develop Social Media App

Building a social media app is a complex task, therefore, instead relying on freelancer or in-house development teams, it is always worth hiring mobile app developers experienced in developing such apps by leveraging latest technologies and proven methodologies.

Since Native iOS/Android app development requires various specialists, therefore you need to look for the dedicated team of developers including:

Project manager: Capable of understanding client’s requirements and able to get it executed from the development team.

Capable of understanding client’s requirements and able to get it executed from the development team. UX/UI Designer: To create beautiful design of the app which is simple, easy and seamless to access and ensure excellent user experience.

To create beautiful design of the app which is simple, easy and seamless to access and ensure excellent user experience. 2 iOS Developers: Expert in developing apps using platform specific programing languages.

Expert in developing apps using platform specific programing languages. 2 Android Developers: Experienced in creating apps using platform oriented programing languages.

Experienced in creating apps using platform oriented programing languages. Back-end Developer/ Front-end developer

QA Engineer: Who will deeply analyse your app and test it by running it over multiple platforms.

6. Choosing the Best Social Media App Monetization Model?

There is no use of developing any mobile app if it fails to make a profit for your business. While there are various monetizing methods, but here we have discussed some of the proven monetizing strategies to help you make best profit from your app:

In-App Advertising: Ads are the most common ways to generate profit from the app, but keep in mind to show relevant advertisements and in certain limits. Excessive amounts of ads can make your users panic and encourage them to uninstall the app.

Ads are the most common ways to generate profit from the app, but keep in mind to show relevant advertisements and in certain limits. Excessive amounts of ads can make your users panic and encourage them to uninstall the app. In-App Purchase: Most of the social media apps are free to use, but you can offer premium subscriptions to get some additional features.

The choice of the app monetization method is depending upon the audience you are trying to target, location of the users and operating system you choose to launch your app. Else, you can hire a mobile app development team to get better app monetization options.

7. How Much Does It Overall Cost to Build a Social Media App in 2020–21?

According to the survey report, the average price of developing a simple app is starting from $40,000 to $60,000, medium complex can cost you in between $61,000 to $69,000 and the complex app can go above $100,000+.

There are thousands of mobile app development companies around the world that claim to be best app developers and can ensure you the cheapest development cost and allow you to develop a social media app under $25,000.

But let me tell you, that’s just a marketing trap for you!

The truth is, there is no fixed price of social media app development, but with the average $50 per hour cost of the developer- a basic app can be developed at $15,000+, medium complex app will cost between $20,000- $30,000 and the complex apps usually goes beyond $50,000+ with all the modern features.

If you are thinking that high cost of developers will ensure you high quality, then, this is just a myth. The actual development cost of the social media app is greatly depending upon the skills, experience, geolocation and expertise of the development team that you choose to hire. So it is always worth to be choosy and calculated while hiring the mobile app developer for your next project.

Conclusion

With the end of this post, hopefully, you are able to estimate how much a social media app will cost you roughly. Building a complex social media app like Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more, it is worth to use an MVP approach to test the product concept first and what exactly you are trying to achieve through a social media app.

With so many features and functionalities, complexities, and technologies available to choose from, it is recommended to look for a mobile app development company that can easily evaluate your business requirements and be able to suggest your best solution with an accurate pricing model.