The Cost of App Building an App: No-Code vs Hiring a Developer

When it comes to building an app whether it’s for a start up, a business process or a personal project cost is usually one of the main decision making factors. Two main paths stand out: paying for developers to code in the traditional way or using a no-code framework to do it yourself. Though Traditional development provides flexibility and control, no-code platforms promise speed and affordability. But how are they actually compared on the ground of the cost? Let’s break it down.

Traditional Development Costs

Getting developers to work on such an application, developed from scratch, can be costly. Costs differ, depending on whether you hire freelancers, a company or develop an in-house team. Here’s a rough breakdown:

• Freelancers: Depends on region and skill level $ 20 – $ 150 / hour.
• Agencies: $10,000 to $100,000+ for a full-fledged app.
• In-house team: Ongoing expenses for salaries, infrastructural facility, and tools.

Other costs involved include UI / UX design, backend development, maintenance, updates, third party installations. It is often justified by the ability to develop a fully customized and scalable product that has a certain set of security or performance requirements.

No-Code Development Costs (Platform Fees, Plugins etc.)

No-code platforms substantially decrease initial cost saving you from the need for hiring a developer. However, they’re not entirely free. Here’s what to expect:

• Platform subscriptions: Price range from $15/month to $200/month and more based on features, and user limits.
• Plugins or extensions: Some are free; others a range from from $5 to $50 / month.
• Custom integrations: May need third-party tools such as Zapier or Make with their own pricing tiers.
• Templates: Pre built app templates are convenient since they save you time but they translate to one-time or subscription charges.

In general you could build and deploy no-code app with price between $50 and 500 dollars depending on complexity and features.

Comparing Speed and Time Investment

No-code platforms succeed in speed. Those built with traditional development with 3–6 months could sometimes be created with no-code in just a few days or weeks. The visual nature and the pre built components drastically reduce time to launch.

Traditional development consumes much time as compared to rapid application development as there are the process of coding, testing, debugging and review cycles, but it has long-term flexibility for complex systems.

If time-to-market is essential no-code is the quicker, more nimble approach.

Which Option Makes More Financial Sense?

Some costs to look out for are not exposed in the financial statements or news reports.

Whatever path you will take, you should bear in mind some hidden expenses:

• Maintenance: Traditional apps do need dev support in future. Updates are usually handled by no-code platforms although only some custom changes are possible.
• Scaling: As more users join your system no-code plans can turn out expensive or constrained in terms of performance.
• Vendor lock-in: Through no-code, you’re usually stuck to the one platform’s infrastructure and restrictions.
• Learning curve: Less difficult (than coding), no-code still takes time to learn and mess around with-even for more complex workflows.

There are some costs to watch out for; which do not come up in the financial statements or news reports.

ROI: Which option has better financial logic?

If your application is simple or your MVP is a way of testing an idea, no code offers higher return on investment. You get to test your idea with no great financial risk. In the converse case, if you’re creating a long term, enterprise level product with a lot of core custom features, it will likely be more beneficial to spend on traditional development in the long term.

Also, savings from no-code can be used for the purposes such as market, testing, improvement of the user-experience which also can increase overall ROI.

Conclusion

The difference between no-code and traditional development is attributed to your goals, budget, and timeline. No-code platforms such as Tentoro have an affordable, fast, and powerful option to bring ideas into reality particularly to startups, entrepreneurs and non-technical teams. No-code is a wise investment for projects with low to moderate requirements in complexity where the cost saving and speed benefits are significant. But if you want sophisticated customization and long-term scalability from day one, hiring a developer is still the way to go.

With Tentoro’s Gen AI-powered platform form designer, workflow builder, and business rule engine building apps without code has never been more possible and profitable.