What is a stock trading app?
A stock trading application is a web, mobile, or desktop application that enables users to buy and sell stocks on the stock market. Stock trading apps typically include interfaces for viewing real-time stock prices, managing stock portfolios, and analyzing historical price trends for individual stocks.
Stock trading apps often share features with other consumer finance apps, such as banking apps, portfolio management apps, and cryptocurrency trading apps. Popular stock trading applications include Robinhood, Acorns, E*TRADE, and TD Ameritrade.
Examples of stock trading apps built with Crowdbotics:
- An app where customers can go to the app on their phone and receive stock trading signals. For the MVP, users can go on the app, receive a stock trading signal, copy the signal and then navigate to a trading platform like SmartTrader to make the trade.
- A stock trading app like Robinhood. It will actually make trades on stock market.
What is the typical cost to build a stock trading app?
A stock trading app usually costs about $65,000 to build. However, the total cost can be as low as $30,000 or as high as $100,000. A stock trading 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 stock trading app price quotes from Crowdbotics:
How long does it take to build a stock trading app?
A stock trading app usually takes 850 hours to build. However, a stock trading app can be built in as few as 400 hours, or in as many as 1333 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 stock trading apps build with Crowdbotics received the following hourly estimates:
Not seeing what you’re looking for?
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 stock trading application
A stock trading app attracts new users by making it simple for new users to start trading stocks while still providing advanced trading features for sophisticated users. In order to achieve viral growth, a stock trading app must create incentives for users to share the app with each other, such as free stocks in exchange for new user referrals. Trading apps can also increase customer loyalty by providing in-app education about how the stock market works, as well as by offering real-time notifications and free portfolio analysis.
Risks and challenges of building a stock trading application
The security of financial data and the protection of users’ personally identifiable information are paramount concerns for any app used to conduct financial transactions. Check with your legal counsel to determine whether you need to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s Red Flags Rule, which requires that businesses implement reasonable identity theft prevention programs to protect their customers’ personal information, or other applicable regulations.
