How Much Does It Cost To Build An Info App?

The start of 2020 has been an unexpected year so far, no one would have thought the global economy would have collapsed because of the COVID-19. Many businesses have closed or are facing bankruptcy as a result of lockdown measures put in place by governments as to prevent further spread of the virus. To date, the reported mortality rate from the virus is 7%. Based on statistics, those who are most at risk of serious infection are people with compromised immune systems, the elderly, and people with chronic medical conditions.

Unlike the SARS virus, the virus carrier of COVID-19 may spread the virus without having any symptoms, which makes it difficult for the government to trace and combat the virus effectively. As the number of infections rose rapidly, the Australian Government moved to commence lockdown to stop community spread.

A controversial software application for COVID-19 was created to keep the public informed. It has raised questions among the community as the Federal government reportedly spent $1.85 million on the software application to function as an official source of government information app on the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 info mobile application was developed in two weeks and has now been downloaded more than 4 million times.

Lateral has since received many enquiries about the actual cost of developing an app so we thought this was a good example to look at. We have investigated further and analysed the functionality of the COVID-19 mobile info application.

In collaboration with the Federal government, the COVID-19 info application has been developed by the Australian technology company - Delv. The Department of Health and the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has worked with the company to deliver the mobile application It acts as a single source of information about the virus for all citizens during the crisis. The app is available for both Android and IOS users, it will be continually updated throughout the pandemic with new features and functionality. Key functions of the mobile application include government news, resources, a symptom checker, self-isolation register, key contact information and more. The mobile application will continue to be updated as required while the pandemic is still impacting everyday life.

Delv was contracted to build the software within a 2-week timeframe and provide 6 months of ongoing support of the COVID-19 software application. From our understanding, the scope of works of the software application included analysis, UX design, development, testing, project management, hosting costs, and an ongoing service level agreement (SLA).

Lateral estimates with a team of 8 consisting of analysts, developers, testers, and project managers the software could be delivered within 2 weeks for an approximate cost of $120,000. And the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for support per month would be approximately AUD$7,000 per month. The content changes would be performed internally via an admin website.

In summary the cost of developing the software and providing ongoing support for the mobile platform would be much less than what the Department of Health paid for the Information app.

The cost of developing software applications will vary greatly depending on the scope of works and the complexity of the project. Here are the 8 things to consider before building a software application. Get in touch with us today to request a quote.