5 Ways to Reduce Software Development Costs

Are you a business that is hesitant to take up Custom software development because it’s an expensive process? Well, let’s break this ice that Custom software development is not that expensive as you assume. We know, most businesses believe this myth and never take up the development of custom apps. It is definitely a challenging process. Maybe because it is hard for businesses to start everything from scratch especially when it comes to developing an application with the current tsunami of new-edge technologies. It is hard for businesses to cope up with evolving technologies. But there are a few things you can do to reduce the costs of customized software development.

In this blog, we have decided to bring together all the battle-tested methods and tricks that can help businesses build a castle of profits for themselves. Read this blog and know how easy it is for businesses to develop applications without much hassle.

1. Why is Custom Software Development Expensive?

This isn’t 101 of custom software development. But there are experts who have penetrated the market with their tricks and tips that have helped many businesses. In this segment, let’s see what are the pain points for businesses to focus on when they want to develop a simple yet elegant application. Let’s start with a straightforward question: how much does it cost to develop unique solutions?

There is just one correct answer to this question that is debatable because it depends on what needs to be developed.

The cost of your app is determined by a number of factors, including project needs, application features, the size and complexity of your project, and so on. In the later section, we’ll go through these issues in greater depth.

Estimating software costs can be difficult, so let’s focus on project complexity for a bit to get a sense of what we’re talking about.

In terms of their complexity, such initiatives can be categorized into three categories:

1.1 Basic Applications

This means when your needs are simple and you want to create and have little functionality. The development team will have to spend minimal working hours on them like some 500-600 hours. And the application is all set to be launched in the Market. A simple mobile application with a well-defined and limited set of functionality is an example.

1.2 Medium Scale Apps

This type is apps demand minimal to intricate features. The development time required for these applications take around 700-1200 hours to develop. A customer-facing server application or an enterprise app with web and mobile capabilities are examples of such applications. Software costs are expected to be in a range from $75,000 to $150,000 in this situation.

1.3 Fully-Functional Apps

This type of application requires more time in development and is very specific about its needs. This type of application requires more time to invest in development time. The needs of complex applications are different because of the architecture, integrations security, and other reasons. The cost of these applications is reasonably high and this creates a myth that custom apps are expensive.

Examples of such apps are data-driven apps, enterprise software apps that feature complex business logic, social media apps, or any other sophisticated business data or reporting apps.

When considering outsourcing, you must consider more than just lower cost factor. Because lower rates do not always imply lower development expenses. There can be other complications as well such as language hurdles, geolocation, the quality of the education system in that nation, available talent pool and lack of understanding of stages of custom software development, developer maturity, working culture, and overall cultural proximity, including mentality and problem-solving methods, are all factors to consider while ensuring software quality. So. this is the basic example of how the cost is decided for custom software apps. Like it depends on needs and requirements. Now let us understand in what ways can we reduce costs.

2. Ways to Reduce Custom Software Development Costs

The development costs of software solutions are high since it requires a large number of creative individuals to create high-quality software. The software development lifecycle involves multiple Stakeholders like project managers, Testers, software developers. Therefore there are several costs involved in the development process.  With the involvement of so many individuals, the cost bar rises higher for each software project. Custom software necessitates careful planning, research, and a continuous back-and-forth between the team, the client, and the end-users in order to gather meaningful feedback.

This type of software is custom-made to meet your company’s specific needs, processes, workflows, and goals. That is why software development is so expensive. Hence, we need to find ways to reduce software development costs.

2.1 Outsource Your Customize Software

Yes, outsourcing software development is a great way to save money on software. You can hire bespoke software development services at hourly rates that are pretty reasonable and get your project moving quickly. Look for a software development firm with an excellent track record and a lot of experience. When you locate such a firm, you can talk to them about your project needs and recruit developers from them to begin working on your project very immediately. Outsourcing can help you build software products easily at an economical cost.

When you outsource, you save a lot of money because a lot of the staff management, infrastructure, and operational costs are eliminated. You can scale up the hired workforce up or down based on your needs, allowing you to keep costs under control.

2.2 Properly Research Your Requirement

The key to successful development is to stay on budget with your project is to prevent ambiguity in the project description, even at the software estimate level. Establish your project criteria and build a document that you’ll refer to whenever you approach software developers for a bid. You don’t have to have everything sorted out right away. However, write down the most critical details and strive for clarity as you do so.

If your needs of the business are unclear, the requirements may be misread. This has a possibility of resulting in issues such as inadequate functionality, design, and commercial value. A detailed and well-defined project specification will keep the team on track, reduce the overall software development costs, and free up your time to focus on building your company.

2.3 Make Use of the Agile Software Development Approach

Agility in processes sets you different from peers. This clearly means you can take up Agile Software development and tasks gets smoothly streamlines in a row of consecutive events. In the software development lifecycle having an Agile Approach is a great idea. It can help you save money. It entails stakeholder collaboration at all stages of software development, from start to finish. The developer team displays the product to the customer at the end of each stage and improve it based on the customer’s changes and feedback. Changes are made throughout the process in this manner, and the danger of rework is reduced to zero. The software development company has expertise in the software development process as well as performs timely quality assurance testing. This advocates high quality in software development projects and improves overall software development costs.

Many businesses follow the conventional “Waterfall Approach” to software development. It indicates that the customer will see the software product after it has been built, and such products frequently do not meet the customer’s expectations.  This method aids you t develop software projects effortlessly and with reduce software development costs.

2.4 Ensure Continuous Communication

Any thin line communication issues can barricade you from achieving the success you desired for your organization. This will increase your cost estimation and your software development team would have to rework many critical aspects. Hence communication is an important part of any software project Communication is crucial to a project’s success. To keep the team communicating and on track, it’s critical to use communication and collaboration tools. This method also allows the team to see what each individual is working on at any given time.

Years ago, this process was challenging businesses would send their needs to an outsourcing firm on the other side of the world and wait for project updates. This made them a cost-focused company. and easily help them reduce development costs.

But outsourcing has made things easy. Your team can now become a cost-friendly company while simultaneously take access to the expertise of the software development team’s mind. The custom-developed software will be able to perform in all changing environments and criteria. Because we’re all working remotely these days, it feels like we’re all working on projects together.

2.5 Make the QA Team a Part of the Process From the Start

Involving a QA team at the early stages is one of the smartest decisions any business would have made. Because ensuring QA practices aids in the reduction of technical debt and the elimination of system problems and bugs. Engaging a QA team early in the development process also helps to assure application quality and speed to market.

When issues are accumulated and put off until later, it can result in considerable delays (and, of course, higher expenses). When you start resolving possible issues and conflicts early on, you may discover new ways to improve the application’s functions or discover entirely new uses for it.

3. Conclusion

It’s natural to get carried away at the ideation stage of a project. The enthusiastic stakeholders will let their imaginations go wild, and they will frequently come up with some fantastic ideas. Most people, however, cannot afford to do everything. Thus situations go out of hand and businesses suffer. To reduce software development costs, you must choose to outsource. Software outsourcing is an ideal solution for initial cost savings. This is exactly where you can save and invest in other important aspects that contribute to the growth of core business functions. Your software architecture must be definite to boost business sales and reduce cost both concurrently.