Cost of Mobile App Maintenance & Why It’s Important

Mobile apps are taking the world by storm and becoming integral to business growth. From gaming apps to shopping apps, finance, and more, app stores are abundant with applications for diverse categories. As Thomas Husson, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, said,

“Mobile is not only a digital hub but the bridge to the physical world. That’s why it will affect more than just your digital operations; it will transform your entire business.”

That said, mobile app maintenance is vital to ensure optimum performance at all times. The decrease in speed or glitches disrupt the user experience, which ultimately leads to a few app downloads, more uninstalls, and low user retention rate; thus, affecting your overall business.

Here’s an insight into the importance of mobile app maintenance services, their cost, and the factors that influence it:

Importance of Maintaining & Updating Apps

App development doesn’t end with the launch of your app. The next phase is investing in long-term mobile app maintenance services.

According to statistics, while new apps in app stores are increasing, some are removed as they grow outdated. Thus, mobile app maintenance is crucial to ensure your app can keep up with the latest, future-proof apps and doesn’t become obsolete.
That said, here are a few more reasons for why you need to maintain and updates apps:

Better User Experience

User experience is a significant factor that influences your number of app downloads and uninstalls. It also offers several other benefits, including:

• A long-term relationship with the audience

• Customer loyalty.

• Increase in user retention rate.

• Excellent reviews and positive feedback.

So, investing in mobile app maintenance services to maintain or upgrade the user experience goes a long way in aiding your company’s growth.

Reduced Uninstalls

While you design apps keeping your business goals in mind, it’s your audience that will ultimately use the app. Thus, the app must reflect their likes and dislikes as well.

Millennial users are incredibly aware of what makes a good app, its functionality, and the benefits it offers. So, if something doesn’t align with their expectations, they are likely to uninstall it, which can be more damaging than fewer downloads.

Monitoring market preferences and regularly updating the app can help ensure that your app always meets your users’ expectations.

Aside from your users, app stores also have a strict quality control policy that enables them to delete applications not up to par with the standards. Meaning, if there is a drop in your app ratings, then platforms conduct a quality check and may remove your app from their respective app stores.

Increased ROI

By working on the user experience, maintaining and updating the app, not only do you reduce uninstalls, but also watch your ROI rise steadily. From boosting user acquisition and downloads to high retention rate, increase in engagement, as well as a rise in financial benefits, you can see a positive return on investment.

Security from Cyber Threats

Advancing digitization also means an increase in cybercrimes. App developers ensure app security during development, but hackers are always looking for loopholes to leverage and steal users’ personal and financial data.

That said, regular mobile app maintenance helps in updating apps with the latest security protocols, ensuring there are no breaches to exploit.

Limited Downtimes and Revenue Losses

App crash leads to downtimes, while developers fix the issues, and the app can run again. But that minute window, when the app is down, leads to a substantial loss in revenue. Companies like Blackberry, Bank of America Online Banking, and Amazon Web Services, for example, endured heavy financial losses due to downtime.

Scheduled mobile app maintenance can be exceptionally beneficial in limiting downtimes and reducing monetary losses.

How Much Does It Cost to Maintain an App?

Now that you understand how maintenance and update benefit your ROI and elevate your business let’s look into app maintenance costs.

As app features influence the price of development, the costs of maintaining an app also depend on the type of work it needs. Meaning, mobile app maintenance incurs additional expenses, which may put the total significantly higher than the development cost in the first year after launch.

Furthermore, hybrid or native apps, as well as the operating system, also influence your app maintenance costs.

With that in mind, here’s a breakdown of how much does app maintenance costs:

Hosting

Server and app hosting prices constitute a massive percentage of app maintenance costs. Plus, your choice of the server also influences hosting rates.

App hosting servers range in prices from $70 to $320 per month, depending on the content, number of active users, and projected growth. That said, multiple hosting options exist, including cloud-based servers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS.) Cloud servers are also less expensive with a lower server maintenance cost than other types.

Additionally, server resources depend on the type of app data you require. For example, video or audio needs more disk space, server CPU, and memory than text-based or static data types. Thus, the more extensive data your app requires, the more server space you need, and the higher the total cost of app hosting.

Analytics

Another parameter to check out that will influence app maintenance costs is its analytics. Bug crashes and glitches in performance, for example, are metrics you need to monitor and analyze to understand what improvements your app needs.

Plenty of free analytical tools exist that can help in monitoring and decision-making, but advanced tools offer more details. Google Analytics, for example, can provide critical insight on market trends and user behavior, as well as competitor analysis.

Your choice of analytical tool depends on your business goals, so consider the pros and cons before choosing. The time spent monitoring the analytics is also a factor that influences how much does app maintenance costs.

Bug Fixing & Updates

With regular mobile app maintenance, you can track and fix bugs as quickly as they form. Conversely, if you need an update, instead of simple bug fixes, then the cost may vary, depending on several factors.

For example, removing coding errors that were causing bugs or app crash may cost around $50. But if you want to add new features to upgrade app function, then the time and maintenance charges will range between a few weeks to a month and $1000-$2000, respectively.

That said, the final costs of maintaining an app depends on its size and type of functionality changes.

Third-Party

Aside from updating app features and bug fixes, mobile app maintenance costs may also depend on any third-party, licensed technology in your app. In that case, your total expense will include the monthly payment to third-party providers.

Customer Support

Give users an option to voice their concerns and opinions on app performance. Their reviews will help in identifying where your app needs improvement and any problems that arise in its functioning. You can also hire customer support staff to respond to every complaint or review.

That said, customer support may be an ongoing investment, but it can have immense benefits for maintaining app user experience and performance, leading to positive reviews.

Invest in Mobile App Maintenance Services to Keep Your App Up-to-Date

In a nutshell, the more feature-rich your application, the higher the app maintenance costs you will have. The total expenses depend on several factors, including the type of app and the maintenance it needs.

I hope the blog helps in understanding how much does it cost to maintain an app and why you need it.

That said, if you need assistance with app maintenance or calculating the cost, give us a ring, and our experts will help you out.