How Much Does It Cost to Make An App Like Instagram?
Instagram, one of the most famous social apps, has more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. And, as per Instagram statistics, more than 25 million businesses use Instagram to promote their services and products. Instagram was introduced as an app that allows users to take pictures and edit them using different filters, but over the years, it has adopted many features such as video sharing, Instagram live broadcast, stories, and so on. Developing an app like Instagram is complicated and challenging as it consists of multiple features and complex functionality.
If creating an app like Instagram crossed your mind, then you must have come across the inevitable question, “how much does it cost to make an app like Instagram?”
The simple answer to this would be: It costs anywhere around $60,000 to $150,000+.
However, estimating the cost of making an app like Instagram is not easy since Instagram uses a complex system of features and functionality.
Cost Breakdown of Instagram’s Core Features
Let’s discuss some of the core features and functionality of Instagram and the costs associated with them:
- Registration and Log in
- Create & Edit Profile
- Photos &Videos Upload
- Stories
- Messaging
- Social Media Connectivity
- Search & Explore
- Geolocation
- Extra Settings & Features
- UX/UI Design
Registration and Log in
For any app, it is important to simplify the process of registration to make it more user-friendly. Instagram allows users to sign up using their mobile numbers, email IDs, or social media accounts (Facebook and Google). Account authorization involves dealing with user data and its security. If you want to build an app like Instagram, it is crucial for you to use a database that ensures the privacy of user data, such as their passwords, email IDs, and other information.
Time & Cost: It takes about 70 hours to develop an account authorization feature like Instagram and costs about $3500 to $6000+, depending on the complexity of the feature and the hourly rate of the developer.
Create & Edit Profile
This option allows users to add their names, numbers, birth-date, and other information to their profile. Profile setup option includes editing personal information and profile picture. It is a basic feature found in almost all social media apps. This feature requires the app to connect with the server.
Time & Cost: This functionality takes around 50 hours to develop and costs between $2000 and $4000.
Photos & Videos Upload
Instagram positioned itself as a “photo-sharing” app, which contributed greatly to its popularity. It is essential for an app like Instagram to have advanced photos and videos sharing options. Instagram allows users to take pictures or make videos using Instagram’s camera or upload an already existing picture/video from the phone’s gallery. It also offers editing and tagging options to the users before they choose to upload their pictures and videos. You can schedule Instagram posts with an Instagram posts scheduler, you can schedule your post before time & get it posted at the best time where you can get maximum reach on your post.
Time & Cost: It takes about 70 to 100 hours to develop this feature and can cost around $2600 to $6500.
Stories
Instagram adopted the feature of stories from Snapchat. Story is a functionality that allows users to share their photos and videos with their friends and family, but it works differently than uploading a picture on Instagram feed. The visibility of pictures and videos added to a story is restricted to 24 hours.
Time & Cost: It takes about 100 to 200 hours to develop this functionality, and it can cost anywhere between $4000 and $12000.
Messaging
One of the most crucial features when it comes to social media apps is the messaging interface. The primary purpose of social media apps is to provide users a channel of communication. In 2018, texting was found to be teenagers’ favorite way of communicating with friends; hence messaging interface plays a significant role in improving user experience. If you want to build an app like Instagram, you need to develop a user-friendly real-time messaging feature. The messaging feature should also include notification alerts for incoming messages. It is important to ensure that this feature runs smoothly without the server getting crashed.
Time & Cost: It will take around 120 hours to develop this feature and cost around $7000.
Social Media Connectivity
For greater visibility, apps need to link with other social media apps. This makes it easy for users to share content on different social media platforms simultaneously. It works by linking the app account ID with the other social media account ID.
Time & Cost: It takes around 8 to 10 hours to develop this feature and costs around $400 to $700.
Search & Explore
Instagram allows users to search for their friends, family, celebrities, products, trending news, and more. It also enables users to join groups based on their interests where they can communicate with like-minded people. Instagram’s search and explore option offers you fresh content based on people you follow and posts you like.
Time & Cost: It can take about 60 hours to develop this feature and cost around $3000 to $4000.
Geolocation
Integration of the geolocation feature in the app allows users to share their location along with their videos or pictures. Instagram uses geolocation to make it easier for users to find friends in their vicinity, ultimately increasing user satisfaction. This feature requires access to third-party APIs.
Time & Cost: The geolocation feature takes about 25 hours to be developed and costs $1000 to $2000.
Extra Settings & Features
Extra settings and features include push notifications settings, account privacy settings, friend-list settings, and so forth. It enhances user experience by offering a personalized experience to the users.
Time & Cost: Extra settings and features may take up to 80 hours to develop and cost anywhere from $5000 to $10000, depending upon the complexity of the feature.
UX/UI Design
Instagram has a user-friendly and minimalistic UI/UX design. The app’s interface is designed in such a way that it is easy to use and simple to navigate. The color theme, logo, and design of the app is exemplary and sets it apart from other social media apps.
Time & Cost: It will take about 50 to 60 hours to design an app like Instagram and cost around $4000 to $8000.
Additional Cost
Apart from the cost of developing these features, there are other costs that you will incur while developing an app. The additional cost of developing an app like Instagram would include the cost of database architecture, app testing, app hosting, app maintenance, and so on. Instagram is the trendiest platform for almost all-sized businesses. Professional Web development companies build an incredible web for Instagram growth services.
Time & Cost: These development aspects typically take up to 150 hours and cost anywhere between $6000 to $12000.
Putting it all together:
The development cost of an app like Instagram mainly depends on the complexity of features and functionality of the app. It also depends on the location and structure of the development team. Development teams typically include project managers, two or more developers, UI/UX designers, architects, and others. The bigger the development team, the higher the app development cost.
If you want your app to have all the features that Instagram has, it will take around 950 to 1200 hours to develop your app. Besides that, you can add additional features like get Instagram likes through which users can improve their credibility by investing money. Multiplying the number of hours with the developers’ hourly rate would give you a rough estimate of the app development cost. An app like Instagram would cost you around $60,000 to $150,000, depending on the hourly rate of the developer and the number of features in the app. However, keep in mind that these are only rough estimates of app development cost. To get a precise cost estimate, discuss your app idea with our consultants and get a free quote.
