Whatsapp is significantly the most famous real-time messaging app that is available across cross-platform. Whatsapp has emerged in all its glory as of the best-ever chatting mobile app we have so far. The increasing popularity of this chatting app grabbed the attention of many industries. Unlike most startups, this growth was achieved without any marketing. Even with these crazy numbers, Whatsapp is still operating with less than 100 employees.

With Whatsapp amazing effect to the mobile market since 2013, no wonder many dealmakers and vendors are curious about how much it costs to make an app like Whatsapp.

Before starting to know the Estimated cost to make an app like Whatsapp, we should take a closer look at these features. This functionality is the core of an app, and if you wish to develop a messaging app like WhatsApp, these are the building blocks of your cost to invest.

The Most Remarkable Features of Whatsapp App…

Log-in into the Account

Every user has to enter the application by registering his account. As such, one of the easiest methods of signing-in into one’s account is via entering the existing mobile number. Once you provide your mobile number, you get an automatic security code by SMS. This code is sent for the security purpose. Once you are done with verification, it’s time to add the contacts from your phone book list. The bigger the contact list of the user is there are more chances that he would be using your app.

Push Notifications

We are obviously aware that Push Notification plays an important role in sending important information to your customers. The pop-ups carry out this task of sending or receiving messages if the screen is locked. The app developers can look to implement the Google Cloud Messaging for Android and Apple Push Notifications for integrating this feature. You need to invest a number of hours to develop notification including both the client and server-side.

Transferring the Multimedia Files

To sending the text-based messages, the Whatsapp also permits their users to send audio clips, pictures, videos, GIF, memes and short voice messages. If you are willing to build an app like Whatsapp, then you have to offer the same feature in your app which would be required to transferring the multimedia files. However, if you are interested in providing the contact sharing option, then you have to invest some extra time in it.

Sharing of the Location

The Geo-location is one more additional Whatsapp Core Feature that you can look to implement in your messaging app, which would prove more than handy to the users. It would let them share their exact location with their friends. For the Map implementation, Android uses the Google Map Android API service and for the iOS, it’s the Map Kit Framework. The time you need to devote at least 15 hours to build this feature. The total time devoted

The App Settings

Most of the mobile apps have a menu included known as the Settings. Don’t replicate simply from WhatsApp, but show your originality while adjusting the app’s settings. There you will see Profile, Account, Security, and in addition, the setting has a few other features such as adjusting your notifications, data storage, and usage and inviting a friend. You can offer the Help facility so that the user can get more information about the app. To add this feature you need to devote some extra time in it.

An Attractive App Design

In this specific zone, you can showcase your artistry in designing a beautiful and appealing app design with an attractive interface. Play with font styles, background images, colors, and content that gives an edge to your app. An elegant looking app will increase the weight of your app and increase the traffic. As far as time is concerned, you need to invest 50-60 hours for creating the UI/UX designs.

WhatsApp Cost Breakdown

After knowing the required features need to be included to build an app like Whatsapp, now it’s time to take a deeper look at the costs.
Remember, these are estimates of Whatsapp Development Cost only. Costs will ultimately vary based on a wide range of factors like what technology you use, who you hire, and what platform you develop for.

Software Development Team

You can’t build an app this complex on your own, even if you have some coding experience. You’re going to need to assemble a software development team to help you out. These are some of the roles that need to be filled:

Project manager

Web developers

Mobile app developers

Requirement analyst

QA engineers

UI/UX designers

Everyone will have varying rates. The location of your software development team members will also impact the cost per hour. The development costs in the United States could be up to 25 times higher than development costs in India. Rather than hiring each role individually, you could look for an all-in-one solution. Android App Development Companies will probably be your best bet. An agency will already have these defined roles. In addition, they are used to building apps together as a team. Agency costs will vary depending on the size of the company.

Hourly Breakdown

Some of the app features will be more complex than others. We’ll go through some hourly estimates for how long it will take to develop the essential front-end and backend elements.

The values listed above are a rough estimation. Each phase could always be shorter or longer. But I’d say the majority of your messenger app development hours will fall into these ranges.
According to these estimations, it should take you about 570 – 730 hours to make an app like WhatsApp. For our convenience, we’ll take the average of those two figures, which is 650 hours.

Total Cost

Now that you have a rough estimate for how many hours the development process will take, it’s just a matter of doing some simple math.
I took the average rates of the regions we looked at earlier to reach the final costs. All of these calculations are based on 650 hours of development.

USA and Canada: $18 per hour

Western Europe and UK: $18 per hour

Australia: $100 per hour = $18 per hour

Eastern Europe: $18 per hour

India: $12 per hour

We can also look at some of the extremes instead of the averages. For instance, let’s say it takes you the estimated maximum of 650 to 730 hours to develop your app. You decide to go with an agency in the United States that charges $250 per hour. Well, in this scenario, it would cost you $182,500 to build the app.

On the other side, it could take you a low estimate of 570 hours to build your app using a cheap developer overseas at just $12 to $18 per hour. That would cost you much less then the above cost.

Truthfully, none of these extreme scenarios are realistic. First of all, you don’t need to find the most expensive developers in the world. If you did go with a higher-end agency that charges an above-average hourly rate, it likely wouldn’t take them as long to complete the process.

On the other hand, a developer overseas won’t have the capacity to complete your project so quickly. Plus, the quality of your app would suffer if you went this route.

I bring up these extreme examples because I don’t want you to look at these numbers and think you can build an app like WhatsApp for less than $6,000. In the end, based on the global estimates we calculated above, the average cost to build an app like WhatsApp is in between $8000 to $25000.

Wrapping Up

Now, what is the average cost to build a messaging app like Whatsapp, according to you? Well, wrapping up all the above, and stressing again many factors at play, an app like WhatsApp would cost around $8000 to $25000 for one platform at $18 hourly rate. But remember one thing clearly, it’s just estimation cost, and it may vary!

Do you have any query? Ask us! You can also contact Fluper to get information about IT industry. Being the best Android app development firm, our development, management team will assist you best.