The pandemic-hit years are over, leaving the residue of many disasters and losses. But one of the most significant calamities we experienced throughout these years is the complete shutdown of our educational institutions. Ultimately, the emergence of educational apps saved the fate of many learners all over the globe. No wonder we are experiencing an exponential rise of educational apps giving a fanciful coinage called Edu-tech. If you are looking to build an educational app, opportunities are expansive, and it is the right time to reach out to learners with your innovations.
But for any edu-tech startup, one major challenge is the cost of building an educational app. Make sure to think simple apps offering school curriculums for distance learning can make a difference in beating the massive competition in this niche. Educational apps tend to be highly sophisticated and innovative, with cutting-edge features that transform the learning experience. This is why discussing the cost of an educational app project is so important.
Understanding Educational App Opportunities Through Stats
If you are looking to build an educational app, you must be aware of the craze around tech-driven tools of learning. The exponential growth stories of educational apps are something too glaring to betray our attention. According to Statista, the mobile and eLearning app market will cross the $243 billion valuation by 2022.
The key instigators that are playing the most crucial roles in shaping the edu-tech success stories are the popularity of remote education thanks to overwhelming access to handheld devices and the emergence of era-defining technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-powered intelligent knowledge bots, natural language generation transformers capable of creating rich contents, and many others.
Let’s explain the factors shaping the cost of building an educational app. But before using these cost factors, let’s first give a cost overview of the educational app project.
A Short Overview of the Cost of An Educational App
A multitude of factors ascertains the cost of educational apps. These factors include app features, the chosen operating system platforms, the development time required, the location of the developers, and several other factors.
The cost to build an educational app also differs as per the developers’ locations or the Irving and engagement models. With outsourcing remote developer teams, you can lower the cost of development to a great extent by making a balanced choice between the cost and the quality of developers.
You must make a detailed budget estimate for the app project when you are looking to build an educational app. A top-notch educational app will likely cost between $20,000 to $60,000, based on the choice of must-have and good-to-have features and functionalities. The hourly rate of developers greatly impacts the cost of building a mobile app. In many countries with established outsourcing markets and competitive development rates, such as India, the hourly rate can range from $15 to $40.
Consider the Development Team Makeup
When you are looking to build an educational app to reach the broader market, it is understandable that you would like to make it for multiple platforms. For a cross-platform educational app project, you need the following specialists.
- An Analyst
- A Project Manager
- 2 UI/UX designers
- 2 Android developers
- 2 iOS developers
- 2 React Native or Flutter developers
- 1 Backend developer
- 1 QA tester
Consider How You Want to Hire The Developers
When looking to build an educational app with some innovative features, you cannot just take development quality for granted, and this is why you always need to give priority to quality and skills over cost.
The cost to build an educational app can rise exponentially without offering you many options regarding skills when you restrict your search within your region. This is why outsourcing is popular, as it can allow you to hire skilled developers from over the globe while taking on board the best-priced developers.
Key Cost Factors
The next thing that app makers looking to build an educational app need to consider is the cost factor variables and how they can control them for budgeting without compromising on quality. The cost to build an educational app broadly varies based on the following factors.
App Complexity & Size
The cost to build an educational app depends upon the app’s size and complexity; hence, you need to consider it with priority. A simple app will always cost less, but just for simplicity, you cannot sacrifice the learner experience and the key objective of the app; hence you need to have a balanced approach here.
The OS Specifications
The app’s operating system specifications must also impact the development cost significantly. When looking to build an educational app for both iOS and Android, meeting the platform-specific requirements can be challenging, and this is one area that can increase the development hours and corresponding cost.
Chosen Tech Stack
The cost of building an educational app can significantly vary based on the technology stack. Some modular technologies that allow you to build the app incrementally instead of developing it from the ground up can greatly benefit app projects regarding cost reduction. Both Flutter and React Native are good cross-platform tech stack options with ample scope for customization and modular development.
When you are looking to build an educational app with a strong performance, you need to prioritize backend development. Both Node.Js and Express.js are quality backend frameworks and great for MVP projects. As for database technologies, PostgreSQL and MongoDB are the two best choices for relational and non-relational databases. Cloud support is crucial for educational apps, but AWS is still the best choice with its budget-saving pay-as-you-use pricing.
Summing It Up
You now have a fairly awful idea of the cost of building an educational app. But to have a more precise idea of the development cost, you need to figure out all the above options and preferably build a prototype for a comprehensive vision. Last but not least, you should always keep cost at the far end of considerations while user experience and performance should top the list.
Author Bio
Juned Ghanchi is the CEO of IndianAppDevelopers, a top mobile app development company in India with a global presence in the USA. He explores all things in the software industry and oversees company growth as CEO.
