Hey, this is the Daily Overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps!
Now today I wanna talk about how much app developers charge!
Whenever we quote on a project, we always get two responses, as you would expect.
We either get "that's really reasonable, that sounds great, let's go ahead with it" or we
get "that's a bit out of our budget, we can't afford it right now, but thanks anyway".
So the first one is great because it means that we can start on the project, although
occasionally they'll say something like "that's actually a lot cheaper than we got from other
places", in which case I don't wanna hear that.
I should say don't tell me that, if I ever quote for you, don't ever tell me that it's
too low, because then it gets my ego!
But the other side is it's too expensive, which is something I completely understand.
A lot of the time, we don't know what to charge because we don't know the scope of the project
and everything.
We don't use any preset bit of code so we hand over the code to them completely, so
a lot of times it's written completely from scratch.
Typically though, and I never like to say this in videos before, usually if it's less
than 4000, we won't even do it, but we'll still quote on it and say that it will probably
cost you this, but we're not able to do it, just because it's not worth the time and the
effort.
Usually we try to stick in that 4-10K range.
And I know other developers do a lot less, this is one of the reasons why I never talk
about it.
And I was talking to a client the other day, he said that he was talking to another company
and they wouldn't do anything for less than 20K, which made me feel a bit better.
One of the things - when somebody comes to me and says "I'm sorry, that's a bit too expensive",
I always encourage them to go and talk to other app developers, because one thing is,
we don't know how much other developers will charge.
When we quote on a project, we do a ballpark estimate, especially having the least amount
of data to begin with, before we do all the requirements gathering we have to make assumptions
based on that.
A lot of times it's based on previous experience with projects.
So I've had developers quote on things where they've got it completely wrong.
I've had developers quote where it's been way too low and I've had them quote when it's
been too high!
For example, I had one recently which gave me a quote, went to a developer for a project
that came through, and I thought "let's give these guys a try, here's the thing, this is
all it is", put everything into technical language so they can understand it and they
said it would be 3-5 weeks of development.
I did the thing in half a day!
It was completely ridiculous, they were so off, it was incredible how off they were!
And I've also had developers who say this will take 5 days, and then they're working
20 days on it, in which case the margin has to be able to cater for if they get that wrong.
This is one of the things that over time all the projects that we work on, we start to
get better at quoting.
And you start realising the different things that clients are gonna come back with, different
types of changes that they're gonna want late in the game and all that kind of stuff, getting
them used to the mentality of not making scope creep changes early on and everything like
that.
So for us, we usually start everything off from an estimate based on how much time it's
gonna take and then we'll do it based on that, but other developers charge different things.
So if you're gonna hire a developer, I would encourage you to at least go to three different
ones.
Go to three different developers and get quotes.
And I tell that to people who contact me too!
I don't know what other developers charge.
I don't wanna kill your dreams because I came up with a quote that might be a little bit
too high, but it's always something there.
I know that whenever I'm not committed to how much development actually costs, a lot
of people get angry with me for that.
Like I said, it's usually 6-10K if, it's a big project it will be a lot more and all
that stuff, but we try to stick to that ballpark range.
And as the company grows, the costs grow and everything like that, advertising grows and
that might have to change.
It's one of the reasons why I don't wanna go on record for that kind of stuff!
So anyway, I just hope that helps.
If you're thinking about getting an app developed, always talk to more than one developer.
Like people talk to me, talk to other ones too!
Just to get an idea what it is.
Hopefully they'll quote more than I did, but they might quote less.
And it depends on your trust in their experience and everything.
By the way, you can always find someone who will do it way cheaper.
You can always go on upwork and find the lowest bidder, but if you don't know what you're
looking for it's like a whole host of problems that you're starting to bring.
Anyway, hopefully that helps a little bit today, let me know what you guys think in
terms of quoting.
Quoting is like the most difficult thing to do in terms of software development, but you
have to give a price.
You have to be able to do that as an app developer.
So anyway, that's it for today, i'll talk to you guys tomorrow!