WhatsApp has emerged in all its glory as the best-ever messaging mobile app we have so far. Today, chatting with friends, sharing videos, images, GIFs, voice and video calling with family cost us little or nothing. The messaging app boasts around 1 billion daily active users, as announced by Facebook (acquired WhatsApp in 2014) early this year.
To roll out an app like WhatsApp, all you need is a good idea and a terse implementation of how you’ve thought your app to behave. If you want to build a WhatsApp clone, you’re lucky to have landed here. Our Indian app developers at Konstant will happily help you to proceed with your chat app business idea. We’ll be your engineers for the project to take you through this techy wave finally arriving at the most delightful results.
A Synopsis of the App
Let’s be honest to each other. If you’re looking for an exact clone of WhatsApp, you have to have big bucks. We can’t stow away from the reality. Developing an app like WhatsApp isn’t a cakewalk- neither in terms of development, nor investments.
As a utility, you’re focused to build features that will be used by over a billion users across the world. Hence, your preparation has to be rock solid. Consequently, the app has to be secure and reliable, giving a sense of privacy to users to talk about anything with their personal contacts. Just like WhatsApp does it by connecting directly to a user’s phone number that can’t be duplicated, so no worries of losing the password lost or any identity theft.
The purpose behind introducing WhatsApp was that if you were going to a meeting or to the gym or you’re driving or had a low-battery power, you could tell your contacts the current situation an avoid receiving countless calls. Your contacts will at least know what’s going on with you. And this is why its WhatsApp- derived form ‘what’s up.’
Salient Features of a Modern Chat App
While it has proved to be an evolution of instant messaging app sector, WhatsApp is loved for the various features it entails. Besides being a free messenger app, WhatsApp has been experimenting with breakthrough technologies like bots and artificial intelligence. They are also trying their hands-on offering enterprise-level communication and brand management for businesses and E-commerce through WhatsApp group chat features.
A full-service chat application will consist of the following key features:
- VoIP phone calls
- Video chats
- Group calls
- End-to-end chat encryption
- Cloud services sync
- Support for multimedia file transfer and various data formats (video, image, gifs, voice note, animation, files, documents, contact, location)
- Self-destructing messages
- Geolocation Integration
- Calendar synchronization
- Multiplatform chatting
- In-app purchases
The cost to develop an app with such features will cost you around $50,000- $60,000. This is a ballpark figure and may vary based on the feature list you decide to be embedded in the app. While we are committed to delivering the app at the time and the cost as promised, there can be differences if you demand any scope change during the project development. For instance, if you opt for a chat app like WhatsApp was in its initial days, this quote will reduce to around $30k, but you keep upgrading the feature list, the cost may go beyond $60k.
Above and beyond the app’s features, the cost of development is calculated by the time spent on the various processes that are covered under an agile project management. For a chatting app, it’ll be like:
- UI/UX Design: up to 300 hours
- Code development: Around 900 hours
- Plus, 20% of Quality Testing and 10% of Project Management
Considering your business idea, we won’t suggest you develop a traditional version of WhatsApp but will definitely help you in building a modern app that’ll be uniquely identified by your users and grow the user base by leaps and bounds.
How to Monetize
We hope you know how a free app like WhatsApp is monetizing. If not, then we must tell you that their massive user base is their source of minting money. So, for your app to flourish, first focus on amassing users from all over the globe. Make them addicted to your app, and then it’s all about the user data that you can cash in.
Key Takeaway
This is the best market and best time to create a clone of WhatsApp. It will help you gain a respectable market share. All you need to do is work on these important criteria:
- Choose a native mobile platform to build the app- Android or iOS or both
- Define the feature list
- Decide on your budget
- Choose a top offshore development company India – as India offers the most cost-effective development- that will cater to your requirements, timelines and budget.
- Discuss your idea with them. You can contact us at sales@konstantinfo.com. Our experts will get back to you.
But you’re not done here. You can relax as far as the technical team works on the project, but don’t forget it’s your project, your business. You need to keep digging to make it the most meaningful and customer-centric app. Stay connected with the developers and Project Manager and take updates on KPIs. Only then, your own chatting app like WhatsApp can come to fruition.