No matter what industry you are in ecommerce is the future. With the sector’s growth accelerated like never before over the past year, now in 2021, global ecommerce spending is forecast to hit $4.89 trillion - that’s almost a 400% increase in just seven years. A seemingly limitless market full of your future customers are online - and that’s exactly where you need to be to sell to them.
When it comes to selling anything online, Shopify is the number one platform. It’s easy to use as a merchant, extremely user-friendly for shoppers, boasts responsive and beautiful designs, and can help you to kickstart your sales. The rise of Shopify has matched the boom in online shopping, with a massive 20% of all ecommerce websites powered by Shopify in 2020 - including from world-renowned brands like Nestle, Pepsi, Tesla, and General Electric.
Shopify is very customizable and flexible when it comes to Shopify app development, with many different features and pricing models, and because of this, the costs of building an app on the platform can differ greatly depending on your needs. But, you might be surprised to discover that digitally transforming your business to meet the demands of today’s online-centric customers by building your own custom Shopify app is more than worth the cost depending upon your business model.
Here’s your ultimate guide to the costs to expect when developing a custom Shopify app.
How to Calculate the Cost of Developing Your Shopify App
The cost of building a Shopify app depends on the set of features you want in your online store. The more features that you need, the longer it will take a developer to build which in turn will increase the overall app cost for development.
So, if a basic Shopify app takes 46 hours to build, and the developer charges $75 an hour, you can estimate that it would take $3,500 to build (46 Hours x $75).
These hours will consist of work on App Setup, a Dashboard, Designs, Settings, a Stats Page, AWS Deployment, and QA among other development steps. One of our developers will itemize each parent task mentioned above, come up with an Hours Estimate for each piece of the job, and then calculate the cost of the work accordingly.
How Much Does it Cost to Build a Shopify App?
No matter what industry you are in ecommerce is the future. With the sector’s growth accelerated like never before over the past year, now in 2021, global ecommerce spending is forecast to hit $4.89 trillion - that’s almost a 400% increase in just seven years. A seemingly limitless market full of your future customers are online - and that’s exactly where you need to be to sell to them.
When it comes to selling anything online, Shopify is the number one platform. It’s easy to use as a merchant, extremely user-friendly for shoppers, boasts responsive and beautiful designs, and can help you to kickstart your sales. The rise of Shopify has matched the boom in online shopping, with a massive 20% of all ecommerce websites powered by Shopify in 2020 - including from world-renowned brands like Nestle, Pepsi, Tesla, and General Electric.
Shopify is very customizable and flexible when it comes to Shopify app development, with many different features and pricing models, and because of this, the costs of building an app on the platform can differ greatly depending on your needs. But, you might be surprised to discover that digitally transforming your business to meet the demands of today’s online-centric customers by building your own custom Shopify app is more than worth the cost depending upon your business model.
Here’s your ultimate guide to the costs to expect when developing a custom Shopify app.
How to Calculate the Cost of Developing Your Shopify App
The cost of building a Shopify app depends on the set of features you want in your online store. The more features that you need, the longer it will take a developer to build which in turn will increase the overall app cost for development.
So, if a basic Shopify app takes 46 hours to build, and the developer charges $75 an hour, you can estimate that it would take $3,500 to build (46 Hours x $75).
These hours will consist of work on App Setup, a Dashboard, Designs, Settings, a Stats Page, AWS Deployment, and QA among other development steps. One of our developers will itemize each parent task mentioned above, come up with an Hours Estimate for each piece of the job, and then calculate the cost of the work accordingly.
Business Models & Packages for Shopify App Prices
Though the cost of your Shopify app will generally reflect the time taken to develop it, not all Shopify app development is billed by the hour.
Instead, your developer may offer a Fixed-Price package. Ideal for smaller projects and startups, with this method of pricing you will be quoted a general, fixed price for the entire app development - regardless of the specific number of hours it takes to build. This is a great option for when you have a specific goal, price, and timeline. However, it doesn’t work so well if the scope of your project changes during development or if your project is a larger project with a more complex code-base, API integrations, and requires extensive custom coding.
A Time and Material price, on the other hand, means you will be charged for the specific hours and billing costs the project incurs. This is better suited to long-term or complex builds, where the end goal isn’t clearly defined at the start of the project.
Alternatively, if you have a large-scale Shopify app development need, you could instead pay for a Dedicated Team. Aimed at enterprise-level companies and large brands, this comes with the added advantages of ongoing development and maintenance to the app.
Ready to Discover How a Custom Shopify App can Transform Your Business?
Feel free to book a call below; and we would be happy to meet with you, learn more about your business, and help you to start to map out what you are looking to build.
The Costs of Integrating Shopify’s Most Popular Apps
The beauty of the Shopify platform is that it boasts a wealth of popular public apps which you can integrate into your own store.
Here are some of the most popular apps to integrate, along with their costs.
Shopify POS
Used for: POS
Billing cost: Free plan available, paid is $40 per month
Privvy
Used for: banners, pop-ups, announcement bars
Billing cost: Free plan available, paid is $24 per month
Omnisend
Used for: omnichannel marketing automation
Billing cost: Basic plan is free, a standard plan starts from $16 per month
Facebook Messenger Marketing
Used for: marketing via Facebook Messenger
Billing cost: free
Smile.io
Used for: rewards and loyalty functionality
Billing cost: Free
Doofinder
Used for: plugin for product searches
Billing cost: Free for stores with fewer than 1000 requests
Firepush
Used for: marketing automation
Billing cost: Free for up to 1000 web pushes
HubSpot CRM
Used for: organizing, tracking and nurturing leads
Billing cost: Free, with paid options available
Oberlo
Used for: dropshipping
Billing cost: $4.90 per month