During your journey of choosing the right app development company , you may have talked certain different developers quoting their different prices . The conversation of cost is the main factor which is going to decide who you are going to choose from while at the same time taking into consideration the quality of work they are providing . Well it is really a difficult conversation , but as per the recent study fixed prices and software development are like oil and water . Lets look at some pitfalls in order to understand why top developers has moved to time and material billing rather than fixed cost of mobile app development .
Also Read : How much does it cost to develop an mobile app ?
Software Is NOT Like Other Industries
You might have a predefined mindset that how your software is gone a look like . You might also end up in planning saying ” If I plan well giving enough timing , I can come up with perfect and precise blueprints of the app . The development team will able to understand your thoughts and will be able to give the application upto your expectation . This is the point where you are going to fall .
Software industry is not like construction industry in which blueprints are pre defined and changes are not likely to be done . App development agency is still the new industry and is still rapidly evolving industry . But after all we all are human , and we have a tendency to get the software as we are getting a car , or building a house in which all the things are already being pre defined .
But wait , in software industry blueprints are rarely been well understood . This is because we don’t know what we exactly want , and if we know what we want we don’t know the technical feasibility behind the same . For instance say , a user sign up in your app have been initially decided to have just used id and password , but later on you have discovered that you want user sign up via Facebook also. This is the real time example of ” Unknown Unknown ” in software . Although developers are expert in their field and can give you suggestions , but neither the developer nor you can predict what you need to change in your journey of app development . This will create hassle for you in case you are willing to go for fixed pricing .
So , Is It Like I Can’t Change Features Within The Fixed Price ?
If you are building a house and you want another floor in it , will your developer will do it for free ? Well obviously not , either they will charge more or cancel the project . As it will be more cost constructive , and no body in the world is going to give you something for free of cost .
Now if we talk about software industry , if you are building a CRM app in which employee need to upload their photos only , and later on it has been decided that they can upload the videos in it , I bet your developers will gone charge more from you .
And if anyone is doing it free of cost at fixed price , they they must be compromising on the quality of the work . Or eventually your developer will loose interest in your work because they are not making the money .
But What If My Feature Don’t Change ? Can I Have A Fixed Price Then ?
You may be able to convenience junior unexperienced developer to give you a fixed price , but I would definitely not work as far as we consider from your project point of view . It is almost impossible to predict complexities that may arise during the app development process . For instance , database structure defining might not be done in a single wile , sometime the situation may arise when you have to define the whole new structure .This is not only the case with the junior developer , but even the senior developers are affected by this scenario .
Good developers might wrap up your project within the time frame of two weeks . But the main demerit of this field is every time you change process or need changes , you will need additional time to address these things in real time without slowing down your project .
It All Come Down To Trust
Fixed prices can do one good thing ” Your financial risk will be limited to your fixed price ” as mutually fixed between you and your developer . But that might not be a viable situation for your developer .This kind of situation is bad for both of the parties . If you are limiting the budget constraint on your developer , then forget about quality work delivering . It is a fact that if you are happily not working together , then actually you are working against each other . So do you really want to work against your developers from day 1 ? Hopefully not !!
We can day the fixed price trend can come later on , once the app development field get some stability say after 10 years we can predict !! The only solution of getting the high end quality software is to go on with flexible price module with the developers that will not only give you quality products , but will also create a worth for the developers . And in case you are going to pay a fixed price just because you have pre defined mindset , then get ready for poorly made products .
Most of the developers works on the basis of mutual trust , and if you can’t trust your developers , then please don’t work with them . Trust can be seen easily by looking at their portfolio and by speaking with their previous and current clients . Find reviews from their clients , a real developer will always make you aware about the change and how it is gone a cost in real time .