Mobile App Consulting: What You’re Really Paying For

Price Tag on a Mobile Application Consultant ( Justifiable or Not)

Many people misconstrue mobile application consulting.

Many Founders feel that the Mobile Application Consultant service is simply “advice”, while many CTOs believe they are making the same mistakes regarding development. Many Executives see a high hourly rate and question why not just build the application?

However, when you consider that mobile applications often fail after they launch (and a few do not), you will find that it is not always due to Poor Engineering (Coding). In fact, Mobile Application Failures are usually caused by Poor Decisions made prior to or around Development; for instance, choosing the wrong Platform, Unclear Scope for your Application, Flawed Architecture, Unrealistic Timelines, and No Post Launch Plan.

Mobile Application Consulting exists to help you avoid those mistakes.

In this article, you will learn what you are really paying for when you hire Mobile Application Consulting Services, how Mobile Application Consultants set their prices, the difference between Mobile Application Consultants who provide you Value compared to those who Charge Overpriced Consulting Fees, and how to evaluate whether or not hiring a Mobile Application Consultant will save you Money in the Future.

What is Mobile Application Consulting?

Essentially, the purpose of a Mobile Application Consultant is to Optimize Your Decisions.

A Mobile Application Consultant assists you in selecting the Correct Technical and Business Decisions BEFORE costly engineering work commits you to irrevocable paths.

Mobile app consulting is generally broken down into 4 layers (product strategy, technical architecture, delivery planning, and risk/cost control) rather than concentrating on how to build. A development agency is more about building,g while a mobile app consultancy emphasises clarity of purpose, feasibility of the project, and long-term viability.

Definitions of Mobile App Consulting Services

The product strategy and validation are where most of the reasons for an application failure begin. A consultant would help answer these questions:

• Who is the real person using the application?
• What is the problem worth solving?
• Which features will contribute to successful launches and which ones will not?
• How do you define success beyond being downloaded?

Typically, the deliverables include:

• Frameworks for prioritising features
• Definition of MVP
• User journey mapping
• Competitive analysis
• Strategy on monetisation and user engagement

When you pay for this service, you are paying to avoid building a quality application only to find out later that it wasn’t a good fit.

Platform & Technology Decisions

One area that is quite costly in mobile development is determining what your stack will be. Mobile app consultants will assist you in determining:

• Native or Cross-Platform Mobile App Development
• iOS-First or Android-First Strategy
• Frameworks (React Native, Flutter, Swift, Kotlin)
• Back-end Architecture & API design
• Third-party SDKs to integrate with

The decisions you will be making will affect the application’s performance, scalability, the maintenance cost for running that application, how flexible you are in hiring, and how long it will take to get it to market. This is why making these decisions at the start can save you 5-10 times the cost when you have to change them later on.

Architecture and Scalability Planning

The majority of applications that grow to a second version or higher rarely fail at that second version; they tend to fail at version ten. Consulting services in this area focus on things like:

• The Architecture of the Back-end to Scale
• Data Modelling
• Security/Compliance Planning
• Performance Benchmarks
• Offline/edge case handling

Having this done properly allows an application to have:

• Less re-work after the application’s success
• No bottlenecks in the Infrastructure
• No security failures or breaches
• No unforeseen cloud-based cost increases

You are paying to ensure that your application is stable in the future as well as being ready to launch now.

To provide affordable and consistent mobile app consulting services, the most common ways to charge for mobile app consulting include: hourly and daily rates (in the range of $100-$250/hour in the U.S. and Western Europe; and $40-$120/hour with offshore/hybrid teams), fixed-scope engagements ($5,000-$25,000 for strategic/architectural audits; and $15,000-$50,000 for end-to-end consulting sprints), and retainer-based consulting (typically $3,000-$15,000/month, and often the best solution to support ongoing product evolution and scaling efforts).

Rather than immediately evaluating how much money it will cost to build an app, evaluate what the consultant can do to save you future costs related to your decisions.

The following is a Paraphrase of “Why Mobile App Consulting Is Typically More Cost-Effective Than It Costs To Hire a Mobile App Consultant,” Which Will Help Prevent You From Making the Most Common Financially Damaging Mistakes Mobile App Consultants Prevent You From Making:

• Creating a feature that your audience doesn’t use.
• Building the most basic platform with limited options for growth.
• Believing that building the “Back-End” is easier than it actually is.
• Not thinking about how to be compliant with the app store before launching your app.
• No planned feedback or tracking.
• Selecting the development team incorrectly.
• All these blunders will eventually cost you six figures.

The cost of hiring a mobile app consulting company is only 5-10% of the total cost of designing, developing, and releasing your mobile app – but a mobile app consultant has the ability to affect 80% of the outcomes you achieve.

Mobile App Consultants Provide Advice On Mobile Application Development

Consultation = Decisions and Strategy.

Development Agency = The development of your project from start to finish.

The goal of a mobile app consulting company is to help you achieve long-term success, whereas a mobile app development company is focused on completing your project.

The scope of work performed by a mobile app consulting company is broader (overall estimates of cost, risk, and technology), while a mobile app development company’s scope of work is specific to features and delivery.

A mobile app consulting company is best used while planning or developing a new app, and is NOT to be used once everything is decided upon.

The best results come from the ability of a mobile app consulting firm to advise on the development process and guide you through it, NOT to take the place of development.

When To Hire A Mobile App Consulting Firm?

Mobile app consulting firms will provide you the most value at the earliest stage of your mobile app development process:

If you are developing a new app;

If you are trying to decide whether to create a native, hybrid, or cross-platform app;

If you previously developed your app and it failed or has stalled;

If your mobile app costs have increased significantly;

If you experience poor performance or scalability problems with your mobile app;

If there is disagreement among the stakeholders of your mobile app regarding the future direction of your mobile app;

If your mobile app has already been initiated for development, the mobile app consulting firm will continue to provide you with value. However, it is less expensive to use the services of a mobile app consulting firm before development has begun, but you will receive greater value from a mobile app consulting firm during the initial stages of your mobile app development cycle.

Mobile App Consulting Red Flags

Consider avoiding any consultant who:

• Sells a generic framework that offers no relevant context.
• Pushes any particular type of technology without first evaluating alternatives.
• Does not address the costs associated with the project.
• Does not include future considerations for the application after launch.
• Has no practical experience in terms of actually delivering a project successfully.

High-value consulting combines business strategy with practical engineering realities.

What To Expect From Mobile App Consulting

To help clarify what mobile app consultants do not provide:

• Full development teams.
• App Store submission process (unless specifically requested at the beginning of the process).
• Ongoing Quality Assurance (QA) testing after submission.
• Marketing services.
• A consultant facilitates the elements/roles needed for execution; they do not replace these components.

Evaluating ROI On Mobile App Consulting?

Ask yourself the following questions:

Were we able to reduce uncertainty regarding project execution?

Were we able to narrow the project scope but maintain project value?

Were we able to avoid rework downstream in the project execution process?

Are there clearer technical requirements from the perspective of development?

Is our application’s development roadmap feasible?

If your answers to all of the above questions are yes, then you have already received a financial return on investment from your mobile app consultant.

Conclusion: What Are You Paying For?

You are not paying for “advice”. Rather, you are paying for:

• The ability to make fewer mistakes.
• Reduce long-term costs.
• Accelerate your learning curve.
• Reduce your technical debt.
• Increase your success potential after launch.

Clarity is the most valuable asset during mobile application development. Mobile application consulting provides the opportunity to gain that clarity before mistakes become permanent!

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