How Much Does App Maintenance Cost?

Explore app maintenance cost incurred on an application + other nuances for an end-to-end understanding.

The cost of maintaining an app depends on your goals, and it can go as high as 15% to 20% of your app development budget. That too, annually!

For an app that is built for $100,000, the approximate app maintenance cost can be $15,000 to $20,000 per annum. It might sound high, but here’s the fact: app development trends aren’t slowing down. So, app maintenance strategies aren’t just minor tweaks; the process may include multiple periodic upgrades.

That’s also the secret sauce of keeping your app profitable, having enough funds in reserve to ensure it doesn’t halt or slow down the maintenance process. Any glitch that takes more than a second to resolve drowns your revenue. You don’t want that.

Moving ahead, we will give you a breakdown of the maintenance cost of an app. If you’re planning a budget, you might want to consider sticking around until the end of this blog.

Let’s begin.

Factors Influencing the Maintenance Cost of an App

Tons of factors contribute to final maintenance costs.

These factors influence complexity, design, and tech requirements.

Here’s a detailed synopsis of some crucial factors.

1. App Complexity

The more features you integrate, the more complicated an app becomes, increasing the time and money spent on app maintenance. User experience can also greatly contribute to the overall complexity of maintaining an app. 

Complexity is driven by strategies like the gamification of the app, its visuals, features, and more.

2. Team Location

If you choose to hire the folks internally, you will have to pay the maintenance experts a salary, employee benefits, and more.

Beyond that, the infrastructure to support a team will demand money.

Here’s the kind of salary you can expect to pay when you hire app developers.

Note: These salaries can vary depending on the kinds of perks folks receive, the kinds of taxes they pay, etc. Take your location as the major factor determining the salary you have to pay to app developers.

Alternatively, you can outsource.

If you do, the price of outsourcing varies with countries and regions. For instance, in India, you can find companies charging between $25-$100 per hour. However, in the US, the price is ideally between $100-$300 per hour.

3. Service Scope

The kind of services required in an app maintenance strategy can take the cost from one point to another. Some important maintenance services can be 24/7 support, compliance updates, emergency fixes, etc., aside from basic monitoring.

4. User Base

Large user volumes demand more robust maintenance due to larger varieties of devices or operating systems to deal with. In a case like that, maintenance can be more often required as devices evolve. That is where the whole cost gets impacted.

5. App Maintenance Components

The maintenance cost of an app is influenced by the components of the maintenance process. Some elements can be bug fixes, OS updates and upgrades, server and hosting costs, security and compliance, etc.

Therefore, it’s critical to analyze these components that have been an essential part of your app development process to get closer to the app maintenance estimation.

How Much Does App Maintenance Cost?

Now that we have an idea of the influencing factors that drive the app maintenance cost from one point to another, we can get a tentative estimation.

Annual vs. Monthly App Maintenance Costs

Note: These tentatives are mainly for an app that would cost $100,000 in development. Each cost has taken factors like hourly salaries of folks working on the projects, taxes, etc., into account.

Tips to Reduce Overall App Maintenance Costs

It is possible to trim down the cost of app maintenance if you do it right.

Use these tips to prepare an effective maintenance budget and trim down smartly wherever required.

Let’s have a look!

Outsource to Expert Companies

It can be hard to juggle multiple projects yourself. The solution is to outsource.

However, while outsourcing, compare app development companies well to ensure the firm you are outsourcing to align with your project and the budget you have for its development.

Here are some of the companies you can outsource to, along with how much they cost hourly.

But beyond these names, there are tons of app development companies in India, the USA, the UK, etc, where you can outsource your project.

If Outsourcing, Pick the Right Pricing Model

Your pricing model will impact the cost to maintain an app. 

So, carefully plan it.

Learn about factors that influence the overall app development cost, not just the maintenance budget. To ease the process, here’s an informative synopsis of maintenance pricing models.

We are discussing this section based on the assumption above: the initial app development cost was $100,000.

1. Fixed Price Model

In a fixed price model, there is a fixed amount agreed upon upfront between the client and the app development company. This fixed price could be the app maintenance cost for an entire year or a month.

This type of charging model is used for short-term projects or apps that have predictable or stable maintenance requirements. 

For instance, basic support for a mature app that caters to approximately five hundred thousand users will require an annual maintenance cost between $14,400 and $19,200.

2. Time and Materials (T&M) Model

This charging model entails billing based on actual hours spent on maintenance work. The rates for it vary with region and expertise which usually lies between $100 - $250 per hour in North America.

This charging model is ideally used in long-term and complex projects where the needs of maintenance constantly evolve. For instance, adaptive updates for an OS or feature enhancements.

3. Pay-Per-Unit Model

Companies that use this charging model, charge on specific units of service. For instance, the number of bugs resolved. The company and the client can decide to fix charges for each resolution. This model is best used during sporadic maintenance needs.

4. Subscription or Retainer Model

These retainers are monthly or quarterly.

In this charging model, the mobile app development vendor delivers a bundle of maintenance services. For example: ongoing monitoring, updates, and a set number of support hours.

Ideally, the app maintenance cost per month for these retainers lies between $9,000 and $19,200, depending on the complexity of the operations. 

This charging model is best for clients who require consistent and proactive maintenance.

5. Performance-Based Model

Here, the cost to maintain an app is tied to outcomes and key performance indicators (KPIs). 

For example, uptime, response time to issues, user satisfaction, etc. This charging model also uses bonuses and penalties that may apply based on performance.

It is best for apps where reliability and user experience are critical. For instance, e-commerce or customer-facing platforms. 

6. Incentive-Based Model

As the name suggests, the cost of app maintenance in this charging model is incentivized. A base rate is used over which incentives are provided for exceeding expectations upon clearing milestones.

For instance, completing an update ahead of time or achieving higher user retention. This charging model is best where exceptional performance is desired.

7. Profit-Sharing Model

This charging model shares a percentage of app profits in addition to or instead of a fixed fee. The model is great for startups or apps that have a high potential for growth in the future.

The great thing about this model is that it aligns vendor and client interests for the long term while lowering upfront costs.

8. Mixed-Mode Model

The charging model combines elements of other models. For example, a fixed model + time and material model. 

This translates to prices like $8,000 per month + support of $50 per hour for extras. The charging model is great for apps that have a mix of predictability and variable requirements.

Final Thoughts

Creating an application is one thing, while maintaining it is another. These two are important facets that determine the longevity of your application in the market. However, once an app is developed, the major role in sustaining longevity relies on effective app maintenance, which requires cost.

With this editorial, our aim was to get an overall answer to, “How much does app maintenance cost?.”

For this, we tried to showcase the different angles around this topic, including the cost (through estimation). Beyond all that, hopefully, you found the answer you’re looking for.