Expense of an App

Since I’m going to create an app for my class project, I wanted to do a bit of research on how this process might work and what the cost would be to submit an app to the different app stores. It seems you don’t have to be a programmer to make an app anymore.

There are lots of free online sites that will allow you to create an app for free. According to Roger Cheng, using the app creator tool is intuitive and much like creating a Wordpress, website or other simple online creation tool (“How to build your own app for free”).  

For a time, the app and mobile website tool Conduit was allowing people to create and submit apps for free.  However it seems that deal has passed and you can now do the basic app and submit on your own; pay $39 a month for the Gold plan or pay $99 a month for the Platinum plan.  It seems to be a good deal since it creates both a mobile website and app and will submit your app to multiple platforms for you.

It turns out submitting your own app can be relatively expensive. Apple charges a one-time fee of $99 to submit apps on their mobile store (How to develop a simple Iphone app and submit it to Itunes). It costs $25 dollars to submit an app on the android store (How to submit an app to the Android market). This can get relatively expensive for a small business or non-profit, especially to put an app on multiple platforms.

It still seems like creating an app would be a good investment for most businesses. It is just important to consider that the upfront cost can be expensive for smaller businesses.