When you use the other guys, a ton. When you use Manna Apps, much, much, much less.

Any questions?

Okay, we’ll get into things in more detail…

The Cost of Custom App Development

When you decide that your business is going to offer an app, the first thing you need to do is find a development studio that can tackle the project and tell them what you want the app to do. They’ll disappear for a while, analyze your request, and come up with some numbers.

Then comes the shocker: the price tag.

The average development studio will quote a price somewhere in the range of $50,000 to $150,000 to build a truly custom app. And it will take months of planning, development, and debugging. And that’s where you say, “Thanks, but no thanks. With that amount of money, I could open a second location!”

Where do you go from there?

The Cost-Effective Alternative

Okay. Obviously a custom app built from the ground up isn’t the answer for small businesses (unless your small business is printing counterfeit $100 bills). So, how are all these owners offering their own apps these days? Are there a lot of pizzeria owners that just happen to be software developers in their spare time?

Of course not! They’re buying Manna Apps!

Manna Apps is the world’s most popular solution for small businesses to have an app built. There are no issues, no debugging, and the one-time cost is a tiny, tiny fraction of what it costs to build a custom app by others.

As a result, apps are now within reach for everyone.

Restaurants can offer mobile ordering to customers. Spas can offer remote reservation scheduling. Bands can create an app for fans to connect, listen to sample tracks, and buy merch. The possibilities go on and on, and are as varied as small businesses themselves.

So, what does an app cost? A lot more than you think, and also a lot less. It all depends how you go about it.

Interested? Get started here.

Many small businesses are happily ignoring the need to produce a mobile-optimized website.

But if they knew how much revenue they were losing, they probably wouldn’t be so happy.

Go on, take a guess. How much is the lack of mobile websites costing small businesses each year?

A million?

No. Too small.

A billion? That’s a big number, right?

Nope. Wrong again!

A trillion? It’s not a trillion-dollar loss, is it?

Ding, ding, ding! Yes, it is!

Small businesses lose about a trillion dollars each year by not having mobile-optimized websites. Most of the losses are due to local shoppers having bad experiences on non-optimized websites and avoiding the businesses that give them a hard time online. The data show that mobile searchers tend to be ready to make a purchase and visit a local business, but that bad websites interrupt their trip. If more small businesses had mobile-optimized websites, they would earn more revenue from mobile searchers.

Simple, right?

Well, that’s only the beginning of the benefits that mobile technology can bring to a small business. Here are a few other major benefits that have more small businesses going mobile every day:

Efficient mobile payments

Plugging sales into desktop software, generating invoices, mailing them out, chasing delayed payments, and all the clunky processes of yesteryear can be eliminated for many small businesses, now that mobile payments are fully developed. With a Square card reader, anyone can take a credit card payment through their mobile device. And with PayPal, anyone can send an electronic invoice instantaneously from any location. Mobile technology is making payments incredibly efficient.

Remote-accessible, cloud-based operations

Why download and manage your own IT solutions when cloud-based providers have developed such excellent solutions? Of course, for some businesses, a custom-tailored program is important. But for the majority of small businesses, apps that can be used on any mobile device will work just fine.

Once operations are mobile, business can be conducted and managed any time, any place. Mobile frees everything up and removes needless limitations on your business.

Customer-friendly mobile apps

More and more, when a customer is a fan of a business, they’re coming to expect to be able to download its app. Apps let customers learn of new specials, deals, and events, help them connect with other customers in fan communities, allow them to submit mobile orders, and lots more.

Years ago, a fan of a business would sign up for a mailing list. Nowadays, they want much richer connections. And if your willing, give your customers a business app to them, you’ll be handsomely rewarded.

Small businesses are always looking for ways to grow, but one tool that many businesses overlook is surprisingly cost-effective: a mobile app!

Many small businesses avoid mobile apps, however, because they imagine that they’re expensive, difficult to manage, or that people won’t use them.

But the actual small buisness app experience is quite different. Let’s discuss each myth in turn:

Myth 1 – Mobile apps are expensive

If you use a development firm, this myth will come true. In fact, making a custom app can cost $50,000 or more! But with Manna Apps, anyone can afford a mobile app. For a low monthly fee, you can have a mobile website and apps on both the iOS and Android platforms.

And you can build it yourself in minutes, instead of months. With our step-by-step app builder, mobile apps aren’t hard to make and they definitely aren’t expensive.

Myth 2 – Mobile apps are difficult to manage

You don’t have to have any specialized knowledge to manage a Manna App. Instead, you can make changes easily at your dashboard. You can add features, remove them, check out analytics, and more.

No IT gurus needed. If you have a question, however, you can always contact customer support and get an answer night ot day.

Myth 3 – No one will use your mobile app

Mobile apps are more popular than ever. With the average person’s mobile time per day steadily increasing, your app can expect to earn a good amount of users and gain strength over time. It will need a bit of promotional help, of course, but even a simple line about your new app in your ads and mailers can give it the push it needs.

What can I do once my app is out?

Once your app is out, you can use it to grow your business in a variety of ways. First, you can take sales directly through your mobile app. But if you need to drive activity and revenue, you can use push notifications to send messages to your user base and create demand.

You can also create a mobile loyalty program to reward frequent shoppers. And with loads of other features, the only real limit on how you can use your app to grow your business is your imagination!