Is an Online Booking App Right for Your Business? Find Out How Much it Costs to Build One
Some businesses find that they can benefit from an online booking app, but don’t know if it’s right for them and how much it would cost to build one. To decide whether or not an online booking app is right for your business, ask yourself these questions: How many customers do you have? Do you take appointments during busy hours? Do you already have an appointment booking system in place? If you answered yes to any of these questions, consider building an online booking app to expand your sales and improve your customer experience! Click here to see how much it costs to build one!
Pre-Launch Checklist
If you have ever wanted to build your own online booking app, it can seem like a daunting task. Building apps is hard and building a profitable one is even harder. To help guide you through the process, here are five steps you can take before you launch your first online booking app
- Figure out what features your guests would find most useful
- Estimate how much time it will take to create each feature
- Hire someone if you don’t have the necessary skills or time required for coding, design or project management
- Create an interactive prototype so that prospective users know what they’re getting themselves into when they sign up for your new app
- Figure out what payment model you want to offer and how much that will cost.
Step 1 – Knowing the requirements
So you’re considering building a online booking app and wondering how much does it cost. Before anything else, you need to know the type of app you want. Do you just want one app with multiple functions or do you want a singular, specific function like Facebook pages? Either way, there are many factors that go into building a simple app and more complex ones have more costly requirements.
For example, what type of platform will your mobile booking application be based on? The three main options are iOS, Android, and HTML5. The only real difference between these three is development language (specifically Swift vs Java vs JavaScript) but this also affects costs considerably since they require different skill sets and can’t be cross-compiled across languages. You should weigh which would best suit your needs before determining costs because it may not always make sense to build everything from scratch when using existing platforms could save time and money in the long run.
Step 2 – Creating wireframes
Creating wireframes is the next step in app development and involves sketching out ideas that would be included in the app. This stage can be a great way to brainstorm different features and see what options you have with your existing resources. Wireframes will also help us avoid potential features that may not align with the success of your business, or features that could negatively impact other aspects of your business. For example, if your company has a high customer retention rate, then we might want to consider adding content about how you care for them after they’ve booked their reservation. If on the other hand, customers often cancel their reservations at the last minute without warning, then we might want to consider limiting cancellation penalties or fees. You’ll need to decide which option best suits your company’s needs before proceeding.
Step 3 – Choosing a platform
When it comes to building your online booking app, you’ll have a lot of decisions to make about what features your app will have. That said, one of the most important is which platform to use for hosting your booking engine and customer data. For businesses that host their own websites and apps, this is typically pretty straightforward – but with third-party services like iCloud, Dropbox, Box and Microsoft Live ID available there are many options from which you can choose. However, if you’re not as tech savvy or just don’t want to go through the hassle of managing your data storage yourself, we recommend using Google Drive or Apple’s iCloud service to host your booking engine. You can also use one of these platforms in conjunction with Cloud Computing software like Heroku so that even if something goes wrong on a particular server level (a fault on AWS for example), you won’t lose any data. If you decide to go with Google Drive or iCloud, then you can import existing documents into a spreadsheet format and upload them onto your account.
The downside of this option is that some mobile devices might not be able to access your spreadsheets via the web browser. So if you plan on having people book from their phone, we recommend uploading them as PDFs instead.
Step 4 – Final Steps before launching your online booking app
If you want your app to be as successful as possible, make sure to keep your online booking app updated with new features and improvements. Even if you plan on outsourcing the development of your mobile app, always have a say in its design. Staying engaged will ensure that you are able to maximize the ROI of your investment. Make sure that you’re implementing updates in a timely manner so that users don’t get bored or frustrated with outdated technology. With so many apps vying for attention, customers will easily move on to another option if they feel like they can’t get what they need from your business. Whether it’s improving functionality, introducing new features, or responding to customer feedback—make sure you continue to invest in the future success of your app.
Conclusion
An online booking app could help you gain valuable insights into your business and generate a significant revenue stream. An easy way to find out if this type of tool is right for your business is by using the Estimate My Business Cost Calculator. The calculator will show you how much it would cost for someone else in your industry to build an online booking app with the features that are important to you. It will also show how much time and money you can expect from each of these features, allowing you to prioritize what features matter most to your business. One thing to keep in mind is that building an online booking app isn’t cheap.
