Financial Plan for University Mobile Application Development Project

This report presents a comprehensive financial plan for the development and maintenance of a university mobile application. It begins with a detailed cost analysis, considering preplanning, research, prototyping, testing, and launching phases. The report explores costs associated with hiring mobile developers, research methods, and advertisement strategies. It then delves into annual maintenance costs, including developer fees for both iOS and Android platforms, and proposes a monthly subscription fee model to cover these expenses. The financial plan provides a breakdown of development and maintenance costs for both Android and iOS applications, referencing industry benchmarks and comparing costs to similar university applications. The report also outlines the total investment needed and provides a justification for the proposed financial strategy.

FINACIAL PLAN FOR A UNIVERSITY MOBILE APPLICATION
This is a financial proposal for implementing a university mobile application, the application is
meant to integrate all the university components. In order for the application to be developed
successfully, the following must be met. The question questions that need to be answered in this
section include the following.
How much investment do you require to build this app. Provide Justification?
In order to answer the question, the proposal will be divided into several processes so as to give a
comprehensive cost analysis.
a. Preplanning and research
In this state, the university is to gather the entire requirement needed to develop the application.
In order to cut on the cost, it is best for the university to seek outside personnel to develop the
mobile application. Some of the prominent mobile developers include:
Name of the
company
Minimum cost of
a project
Average cost per
her
Willow tree
Mobile
innovation
agency
$50,000 $150 -$199 / hr.
Raizlabs right
point company
(changing the
world through
greatest
software)
$50,000 $150-$199 / hr.
Hedgehog lab
(global App
$100,000 $ 100-$149 / hr.

developer )
ZCO $10,000 $25-$49 / hr.
Considering that the development of the application may take twelve to sixteen weeks, I propose
that the university should employ services form companies that will charge an average dollar
amount of not more the $199 per hour.
Research- the university can use questionnaires to gather information on the preferences that its
students may prefer. Interviewing can also be used. This process will use local resources thus
will not cost the institution.
b. Prototyping
In this phase all the costs of designing and developing the application will be meet to by the
personnel that are deployed to develop the application (Boer, 2009). The prototypes will be
evaluated by a selected group of people who are the end users and also the board of committees
that are supervising the process.
The board must comprise of at least two system analysts who will evaluate the system. The
average pay for the analyst is $39.58 per hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
c. Testing the mobile application
This will involve selecting a few students to give their concerns and vet the already developed
system. The process will also involve collecting feedbacks from the users. The cost evaluation of
this process is non-monetary since the implementations will be covered by the company that was
earlier deployed to carry out the development of the application.
The selected students will be from a voluntary process thus the student will not require a
payment for their services.
d. Launch of the application
After testing the application and it is fully satisfactory the product is launched to the public to be
used by the students. The launching process will need advertisement. The cost of advertisement

will be insignificant; adverts will ensure that all students can be aware of the application
(Matano, 2016).
The cost of awareness and advertising the application will be insignificant since the institution
has an information system. These may include advertising the application on the university
website and also on the notice board of the institution.
What is the annual maintenance cost for your app?
In order for the mobile application to be published on app store for the IOS application, there is
need to pay a fee of $99 which is the annual developer fee (Zimmerer and Scarboroug, 2015). It
the application is of type android, the cost of publishing it in the Google play store is $25 which
is a one-time developer fee.
In the cases where a good relation is built between the developers of the system, there is a higher
likelihood that the university will employ their services in the maintenance of the application.
The cost of maintenance is 15 % or 20 % of the total cost of original cost of development.
In this case the total development fee is:
12 x $ 100 = $ 1200 per day
Working hours are 5 days in a week thus the average pay per week is
(12 X 5) X $ 100 per hours= $ 6000 per week
If the development takes 15 weeks, the total cost of development will be=
$ 6000 X 15 = $ 90,000.
The cost of maintenance three times in a year will be=
3 (15%-20%) of $ 90,000= $ 40500 - $ 54000
Assume that you are going to cover the maintenance cost with subscription fee, suggest a
monthly subscription fee.

In order for the maintenance cost to be catered for, the users of the system must subscribe at a fee
that will ensure there are funds for the operation. Since the maintenance fee is between $ 40500
and $ 54000.
The monthly subscription fee will be
$ 40500 = $ 3375 per month
12 months
This monthly subscription fee will be determined by the users of the application. In the case
where there are more than 2,000 but less than 4,000 downloads, then the monthly subscription
fee will be
$ 3375 = $ 1.6875
2,000
The amount $1.6875 will be the lower limit of the monthly subscription fee if the number of
download may be lower than 2000. If the number of downloads is above 4000, then the
subscription fee will be
$3375 = $0.84375
4000
Thus the monthly subscription fee will be $0.84 so as to fully satisfy the maintenance cost of the
mobile application.
The total cost that will be incurred for the development and maintenance of the mobile
application will be:
For an android application
Development fee=$ 90,000
Maintenance fee= $ 40,500
Launching on Google play store= $ 25

Total amount is equated to $ 130,125
For an IOS application
Development fee=$ 90,000
Maintenance fee= $ 40,500
Launching on App store= $ 99 per annum
The total cost per year is equated to $ 130,599
According to the top ten app development agencies i.e. Konstant infosolutions, Intellectsoft,
willow tree, Dom & Tom, Fueled and Appster , it is equated that the total cost for developing a
middle level application will be between $100,000 to $500,000.
Famous app that was compared to it includes: Maine Maritime Academy, Indiana State
University, Rhode Island School of Design, Texas A&M, University of Notre Dame.

References
Boer, F.P., 2009. The Valuation of Technology: Business and Financial Issues in R&D
(Operations Management Series). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Matano, F.A., 2016. Strategic Planning in the Banking Sector: A Case of Co-Operative
Bank (Doctoral dissertation, United States International University-Africa).
Zimmerer, T.W. and Scarboroug, N.M., 2015. Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business
management. Prentice-Hall.