As organizations increasingly turn to cloud solutions to enhance efficiency, scalability, and innovation, understanding the costs associated with cloud app development becomes crucial. In this blog, we will walk you through various factors that influence the cost of developing cloud applications, helping you make informed decisions and optimize your investment in the cloud.
Features That Every Cloud App Development Should Have
Flexibility and Scalability
Modifying or scaling your cloud services should be a breeze on the cloud platform. Users should effortlessly add or remove computing, storage, networking, and other resources as needed. Cloud platforms come equipped with automation software to manage dynamic scaling, ensuring users can optimize cloud-hosted workloads and avoid bottlenecks.
Flexibility is also crucial in cloud-based application development. When app demand increases, well-configured cloud platforms automatically allocate more resources to handle the load. Conversely, when demand decreases, services scale back to their normal levels.
Simplicity
Cloud platforms should streamline cloud app development, making it faster and more straightforward. They should simplify architectural decisions and enable users to easily resolve cloud application development challenges. High-quality cloud development platforms facilitate seamless software deployment across various IT environments.
Automation
Managing applications often involves many repetitive tasks. Cloud application development tools are designed for programmatic management, offering support for continuous integration, resource orchestration, and capacity management. These tools reduce operational burdens, allowing IT to meet increasing computing demands.
Pay-per-use Pricing
Most cloud application development platforms offer pay-per-use pricing, which significantly reduces IT costs and boosts efficiency. Users only pay for the services or space they use, with no hidden charges. Often, some space is provided for free. This pricing model allows for optimized resource utilization as the cloud service provider monitors, measures, and reports usage.
Security
Cloud application development platforms employ top-tier security experts who are exceptionally skilled at managing threats, often surpassing the capabilities of most in-house IT teams. Many global financial firms even regard the cloud as a security advantage.
These platforms adhere to standardized security protocols, ensuring that your data remains inaccessible to hackers. Additionally, they help your organization comply with government regulations. In fact, 91 percent of companies that have migrated to the cloud report enhanced compliance post-migration.
Also read: How To Develop A Cloud-based App Step-by-step
The Cost of Cloud App Development
The cost of developing a cloud application can vary significantly, ranging from about $20,000 to over $400,000 according to publicly available sources. This broad range is challenging to narrow down without knowing the details of the project.
To provide some general guidance, we’ll outline a framework for estimating the cost of building a cloud-based solution. The table below considers the average specialist rate in Europe, which is around $30–$150 per hour. The estimated time is based on developing a simple app, such as a Single Page Application (SPA).
Remember, the figures in the cost column will fluctuate depending on the unique time estimates for each project.
| Step | Time estimate | Cost estimate |
| Project planning and scoping | 20 hours | $1,000–$3,000
|
| Requirements gathering and analysis | 20 hours | $1,000–$3,000
|
| Documentation and wireframing | 30 hours | $900–$3,000
|
| Development team | 6–18 weeks | $50–$150/hour per specialist |
| Technology stack | One-time cost | $5,000–$20,000 |
| UI/UX design | 40 hours | $1,200–$4,000 |
| Testing and QA | 40 hours | $800–$3,200 |
| Cloud infrastructure | Monthly cost | $500–$5,000 |
| Post-launch maintenance | 20 hours/month | $1,000–$3,000 (monthly cost) |
| Contingency | 5-20% of total budget | |
| Analytics tools implementation | Monthly cost | $200–$5,000 |
Pricing for Cloud Hosting Services
When developing cloud-based applications, having a reliable cloud hosting solution is crucial. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are leading providers that offer reasonably priced hosting services for various project needs.
Cloud Hosting Services from AWS
Amazon offers one year of free hosting with an AWS account. Afterward, depending on server usage, the monthly cost can be around $30. AWS provides access to over 160 services on a pay-as-you-go basis, including more than sixty services available for free for the first year. These include 750 hours of Amazon EC2 and RDS computing power, 5GB of Amazon S3 storage, 25GB of Amazon DynamoDB storage, and one million free monthly requests for AWS Lambda.
Microsoft Azure Hosting Services
Similar to AWS, Microsoft Azure uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing you to pay only for the resources you use with options for hourly or monthly billing. Azure is generally more affordable than AWS and also offers 12 months of free cloud services. This includes 750 hours of processing space for Windows and Linux virtual machines, 5GB of Blob Storage, 5GB of file storage, 250GB of SQL database space, and 15GB of network bandwidth.
Cloud Hosting Services from Google Cloud
GCP’s pricing model is comparable to AWS and Azure, with a unique pay-per-second payment plan that is cost-effective. GCP offers various advantages and savings based on cloud usage, such as up to 30% savings on long-running workloads with Cloud SQL and Compute Engine. The GCP free tier provides $300 in free credit and access to 20 free products and services, with no upfront fees and the ability to cancel at any time without additional charges.
Work With an Experienced Cloud App Development Partner
With the assistance of app improvement services, businesses across various industries can now develop cloud-based applications. At CMC Global, we specialize in developing cloud applications for companies in numerous industries, guiding our clients in comprehending their enterprise models and optimizing cloud usage for goal maximization.
Using DevOps best practices, we’re ready to support your Cloud app development project, ensuring security and timeliness. Contact us for a free consultation to explore how our software development services can rework your thoughts into fact.
