What is a Clover app?
A clover app is a mobile application that facilitates making purchases at brick-and-mortar retail stores. Clover apps allow users to pay for products using their smartphones and may also provide access to coupons, product information, and other store data. In some cases, the app will include features that are specific to each retailer (such as a barcode scanner) or an electronic version of traditional store rewards cards.
Clover apps are often compared to other consumer finance apps because they’re used to organize day-to-day financial transactions. Some of the most popular clover apps include Mint, Acorns, and Robinhood.
Examples of Clover apps built with Crowdbotics:
- A Clover marketplace app for a credit card processor.
What is the typical cost to build a Clover app?
A Clover app usually costs about $37,500 to build. However, the total cost can be as low as $25,000 or as high as $50,000. A Clover app with a low number of features (also known as a minimum viable product, or MVP) will be more affordable than an app that includes all intended functionality.
For example, here are some previous Clover app price quotes from Crowdbotics:
How long does it take to build a Clover app?
A Clover app usually takes 220 hours to build. However, a Clover app can be built in as few as 220 hours, or in as many as 220 hours. The exact timeline mostly depends on how complicated your specific app is. As a general rule, it will take longer if you require highly custom designs, niche features, complex logic, or non-standard release platforms.
For example, some previous Clover apps build with Crowdbotics received the following hourly estimates:
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Crowdbotics has quoted and built hundreds of applications for teams of all sizes. Browse our historical estimates by industry and app type to understand possible costs and considerations.
How to successfully grow your Clover application
A Clover POS integration app must be able to demonstrate that it is the best POS system for a specific industry. Connected apps can grow by offering new features that are unavailable on other platforms, which requires a strong understanding of the user’s business and needs. For example, an employee scheduling app for restaurants should offer features like shift swapping, rescheduling, and overtime pay tracking.
Risks and challenges of building a Clover application
Clover is a mobile point-of-sale app for small businesses. It faces risks that are similar to those faced by any other mobile point-of-sale app, including under-capitalization and the storage of sensitive financial information. It is recommended that you work with legal counsel to determine whether your application is subject to standard point-of-sale regulation. You will likely need to build logic within your app to ensure that it meets capitalization standards regardless of user behavior, and it is often recommended to leverage secure third-party payment processing APIs for transferring money.
