How much does it cost to build a media app?

Standard price for a media app: $30,000

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What is a media app?

A media application is a web, mobile, or desktop application that allows users to create and consume various types of media. For example, a media app could be an online music streaming service like Pandora.

Media apps are similar to most other content apps, such as news apps, education apps, and productivity apps. Popular media applications include Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.

Here are some recent media app examples built with Crowdbotics:

  • An NFT Marketplace for movies. Similar to Netflix where people can scroll through the movie trailers. They submit their parameters to customer to approve, mint and upload their content.

  • A simple video app with subscriptions. Subscriptions will be required to view videos on the app. Videos will be stored on a video storage platform like AmazonPayment processor. Users watch videos through app no 3rd party.

  • Customers pay by interval of time, will continue being charged as time passes on video chat.

What is the typical cost to build a media app?

A media app usually costs $30,000 to build. However, the total cost can be as low as $10,000 or as high as $75,000. A media 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 recent media app price quotes from Crowdbotics:

  • $62,500

  • $12,500

  • $15,000

How long does it take to build a media app?

A media app usually takes 400 hours to build. However, a media app can be built in as few as 133 hours, or in as many as 1,000 hours. The exact timeline mostly depends on how complicated your app is. As a general rule, it will take longer if you require highly custom designs, niche features, or non-standard release platforms.

For example, the most recent media apps built with Crowdbotics received the following hourly estimates:

  • 1,000

  • 200

  • Customers pay by interval of time, will continue being charged as time passes on video chat.

How to successfully grow your media application

A media-based app can grow its user base by providing free content at launch, which helps to attract users while the advertising business model is still being built. In order to achieve viral growth, a media-based app should incentivize users to share their favorite articles and videos with their friends. Media apps should also use custom notifications that engage users in conversations about the latest news stories.

Risks and challenges of building a media application

An app that facilitates the sharing of user-generated content can face significant legal risks associated with copyright compliance, defamation, and the publication or transmission of sensitive personal information. It is recommended that media apps implement an effective mechanism for user-generated content moderation and filtering to prevent the distribution of sensitive personal information or copyrighted material.

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Some of the descriptions on this page were completed with AI assistance. Learn more here.