How Much Will It Cost To Develop A Mobile Application Like Spotify?

From a small startup company founded in the year 2008 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon to a big giant in the world of online digital music, Spotify has lived a truly remarkable journey. There are more than a hundred million active monthly subscribers on the Spotify app, now making it the king of all music apps.

The app was actually built in order to cope up with the increasing problem of piracy in the music industry. Little did the developers know that from a small startup project, the app will become part of the daily lives of billions of people. In the very first year of its launch, the company had to face a big loss of almost $4.4 million. Despite the loss, the founders did not lose hope and launched the app on the Apple platform. This helped the app earn some recognition, and in 2011, the company got a big investment of $100 million. They used a major part of the investment in research and development of the app. Many modules were updated, and ever since, the company is growing in all its aspects.

Spotify is an app that is used by millions of people to listen to music and songs. This music streaming app is available in almost 60 countries and has a song library of more than 30 million songs from artists around the globe. Unlike the old offline music apps, Spotify can be used to listen to music online. The app also offers you some more features, and creating your playlist is amongst one of those.

There are two kinds of users on Spotify, one is the free subscribers that can listen to music online but can not download it for playing when offline. The other one is the paid subscribers who get a lot more features than the free users. There are no advertisements in the paid mode, and the music can be downloaded for playing it offline.

In the year 2019, the revenue of the music streaming app, Spotify touched the mark of 7.44 billion dollars. This is a massive amount and to generate such big profits, the company has designed its business model in such a way that with lesser investments, they make big earnings. The 3 major ways through which Spotify earn money are:

Apart from providing music service to the users, there are a plethora of in-app advertisements that are played on the app. These ads played on the app give a hefty amount of money to the app company. Although advertisements are only shown to the users using the free app, but still, the company manages to earn big chunks of money through the ads played on the app.

The app has a premium version that costs you a price of $10 a month in the US region. Having paid membership is beneficial for users as they get the option of listening to offline music. Also, ads can be irritating in some scenarios, so in the paid version of the app, there are no ads. A major population of the Spotify uses the premium version of the app.

The family version of the Spotify app is quite similar to that of the premium version. You get all the same benefits in the family version as the premium version. The only difference in this package is that you can add up to 6 family members on one account under this plan. This reduces the cost for all family members collectively to a great extent. The plan rate for the family version is $15 in the US.

When developing an app, the most important aspect is to add some unique and some basic, easy to use features in the app. Although, having multiple features on the app increases the cost of the development of the app, but it is those features only that makes the app’s recognition in the market. So firstly, let us unleash some of the core features that are a must for a music streaming application like Spotify.

The basic feature is to add a sign-up and sign-in registration page for every user who visits the app. This helps in adding a user to your company’s database. While making a new app like Spotify, it is best to add social logins in your app so that the user can get an easy registration process and at the same time, the app gets a promotion on the social media page of the user.

Music Streaming feature helps you to play the music on the screen of your phone. The features that should be included in it are Play, Pause, Progression Bar for rewinding and fast-forwarding, Previous and Next Song Buttons, etc. The music streaming feature is directly linked with the cloud and there is no requirement of downloading the song if playing through online streaming.

Having a push notification helps the user to stay updated and have an active engagement with the app. Using the push notification, the app can notify you of ongoing live events, or launch of a new song from your favorite artists. Having the feature of push notification is an essential feature for any music streaming application.

A search bar in the app helps the user to find any song, artist, album, etc. This feature is highly required in a music app that streams songs online. So make sure to add the search bar in your app.

There isn't a need to limit yourself to listening to the music on the app. Using the sharing feature, you can post the song you are listening to on your social media and create a community with people of the same taste. Apart from creating a music community, this feature gives the advantage of making the app popular among masses in social media.

No music app can be successful without adding the functionality of a playlist. Having a playlist is necessary on a music streaming app so that the users can add songs to the playlist and use it to listen to their favorite songs when wish to.

Offline Mode is another essential feature that needs to be included in the app. There are several times when we do not have a WIFI or mobile internet such as when traveling on a plane. So it is important to add the offline mode so that the users can download their favorite songs on their hard drive through the app and listen to it whenever required.

Developing an app like Spotify isn’t a simple process and requires a good investment amount and deep analytical research. The cost of developing the app is majorly dependant on the number of features you are planning to put in the application. More features amount to more money on the development scale. The following process is followed while developing a music stream app.

Thorough research is to be done before you jump on to making conclusions about the app. You need to study what is the demand of the users, who is your target audience and most important thing, what can be a unique feature in your app that other apps of the same genre lack so that it can gain popularity.

In your research, you need to have full knowledge of the process of development, and the estimation cost required to build the app which we will unfold later in the article.

The platform for which you are willing to develop the app will be a major deciding factor in the development process of the app. It requires a different set of tools and expertise to develop the app on both Android and iOS platforms. Depending on the target users, you can decide on which platform you want to develop the app. Initially, the app can be launched on one platform and when it gets some recognition in the market the app can be developed for the corresponding platform.

Once you are all through with your research and have a clear picture in mind on how to develop the app, then you can go ahead and hire some professional developers for building the app.

The development procedure of the app is complex and requires a good amount of time. To develop the app, firstly a design is prepared by the designer. If finalized, then a prototype for the app will be made to get feedback on it. Once approved, then the actual procedure of the app development starts.

To develop the app, there are several technologies and tools required. Following are the technologies that can be used to develop a music streaming app

The cost of development depends on the number of features that are being added to the app. To calculate the cost for the development, the estimation cost can be calculated by the given formula:

Cost of the Application = Time Taken for the Development * Hourly Price of the Developer

The time may vary depending on the features you wish to add to your app. The table given below depicts the time taken for designing and developing the core features of the app.

Picking a developer can play a major role in the development cost of your app. There are developers in every part of the world and their costs depend on the regions they are located. If you hire a developer from the US region, the hourly rates will be the most expensive. A developer based in the US costs anywhere between $150-$250 per hour. Hiring a developer from Western Europe may cost a little lesser and the cost will be between $100-$180 per hour.

The cheapest developers you may find are from India or Ukraine. India has thousands of Android and iOS developers in their country and picking a developer from the Indian market can be highly profitable and cost-effective if you are running short on budget. A developer in India only charges an amount of $20-$40 per hour.

Building a music stream app can be rewarding, provided you follow all the steps from research to the final development in the appropriate way. More the research you will do to understand the requirement of the user, the better app you will be able to develop. So take your time, study all if and buts of the project, make a clear picture in your mind and go like a Pro. If you’ve made the decision, we recommend getting in touch with us. We are pioneers in development of successful streaming application. Good Luck!