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Blog Summary:
Development cost is one of the common concerns for those seeking to build an app like TikTok. If you are one of them, you have come to the right place to explore the related details. In this post, we provide the necessary information for developing an app like TikTok, including factors that directly impact the cost, types of apps, and their associated development cost. Let’s start reading the entire blog to explore more.
Table of Content
Many apps have become immensely popular for transforming the way people entertain themselves – TikTok is one of those. The app has taken the entire world by storm with a vast number of growing users.
According to Business of Apps, the TikTok app achieved 1.6 billion active users and earned $23 billion in revenue by 2024. Being a short-video app, it has redefined the way users engage online.
Due to its higher level of engagement and audience, TikTok has become very successful and thus attracts those looking for innovative business ideas.
To adopt this business model, you first need to build a similar app and understand the cost to build an app like TikTok. This is an important question that comes to mind when considering the development of an app like TikTok.
You need to understand that the development cost similar app to the TikTok app is not constant. Instead, it relies on numerous factors, such as the platform, developers’ location, tech stack, and more. We will discuss the development cost in detail, covering all these points, and provide additional information on this topic.
TikTok’s popularity continues to grow, despite the presence of numerous stiff competitors. To verify the fact, let’s explore some impressive stats about this app;
TikTok has gained popularity for offering short-form video content and is considered to be the future of digital engagement. By leveraging the advanced recommendation algorithms of this platform, even new creators find the possibility to gain fast exposure. It helps TikTok establish a new benchmark in terms of user retention and monetization potential.
So, those seeking to access this market become entitled to avail of advantages such as highly engaged viewers. Apart from this, it also offers numerous revenue-earning opportunities, including fast brand visibility, ads, in-app purchases, and more.
Therefore, creating an app like TikTok allows you to reap many other advantages, like attracting a younger audience, catering to a trend-driven audience, and more. In other words, investing in TikTok like app development gives you a wonderful opportunity to tap into its skyrocketing market size.
Proper maintenance of an app like TikTok is quite essential to ensure it functions flawlessly and delivers outstanding performance. Meanwhile, it requires expenses for regular updates, bug fixes, cloud infrastructure, and many other things. Let’s understand it briefly through the following table.
| Maintenance Element | Estimated Annual Cost |
|---|---|
| Server and Cloud Infrastructure | $15000 to $60,000 |
| Regular Updates and Feature Enhancements | $10,000 to $50,000 |
| Bug Fixes and Performance Optimization | $10,000 to $30,000 |
| Security Monitoring and Compliance | $5,000 to $25,000 |
As we have already discussed, several factors directly impact the cost of TikTok app development, ranging from team location to technology stack. We will describe all these factors in-depth to help you understand the costs associated with TikTok:
Selecting a platform for app development can be an expensive endeavor. Whether you select the iOS or Android platform for your app, it will either increase or decrease your development cost.
For instance, if you decide to go with a single platform (either iOS or Android) for native app development, it can be cost-effective compared to targeting both platforms.
Meanwhile, it reduces your audience. Whether it’s React Native or Flutter, these frameworks enable the simultaneous implementation of iOS and Android. It minimizes both cost and time.
A native app is a good choice for improved performance when handling heavy video processing. Meanwhile, cross-platform is the right choice for MVPs, especially when you have a limited budget.
Whether it’s appealing animation, fast navigation, or lower user friction, an intuitive and addictive design is a key attraction for the TikTok app. A well-designed UI/UX includes many important factors like custom animation, easy-to-use video-making tools, and personalized feeds with AI-based layouts. Custom animation enables users to swipe between different videos.
Design complexity can significantly impact the overall development cost. When you craft a basic app, the cost ranges between $5,000 and $10,000. Meanwhile, when you opt for smooth transitions and micro-animation, the cost can even increase up to $25,000.
The location of the company decides the development charges for your projects. For instance, if you hire developers from the US or Europe, they charge more, especially compared to developers from India and other South Asian countries. Look into the detailed information below:
| Regions (Developers’ Hiring Locations) | Cost (Hourly) |
|---|---|
| US or Canada | $100 to $150 |
| Europe (Western | $80 to $120 |
| Europe (Eastern) | $50 to $100 |
| India and Southeast Asia | $25 to $50 |
When you outsource your app development project to regions with lower development costs, it helps you minimize your overall development expenses. And the good thing is that you don’t need to sacrifice the quality of your final product.
Creating an app like TikTok requires a full-fledged team comprising various professionals, including project managers, designers, developers, QA engineers, DevOps engineers, and AI specialists.
You always need to consider the fact that a larger team often increases costs but may indeed ensure faster delivery. On the other hand, a small team is capable of handling even a basic MVP. Meanwhile, full-featured apps require more specialists for higher scalability and performance.
Whether it’s frameworks or development tools, the choice between them relies on numerous factors such as scalability, speed, and cost. App developers utilize a range of tools and frameworks for various purposes when developing an app like TikTok. Let’s explore:
| Purposes | Frameworks |
|---|---|
| Video Processing | AWS Elastic Transcoder, FFmpeg |
| Frontend Frameworks | Flutter, React Native, Swift, Kotlin |
| Backend Frameworks | Django, Node.js, Laravel |
| Cloud Services | Google Cloud, AWS, Azure |
The app development cost increases further due to licensing fees for SDKs or various tools, especially those that offer music integration or real-time video capabilities.
Once launched successfully, your app requires ongoing maintenance to ensure improved performance and robust security. It includes several important things;
Maintenance costs increase the entire app development cost by approximately 10-20% of the overall initial development budget on an annual basis. This makes it a significant factor in ownership costs.
A powerful tech stack enables your app to handle multiple videos without lag. We are all aware that app development requires the use of various technologies. Some of them include;
| For Development | Technologies |
|---|---|
| Frontend | iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter |
| Backend | Python, Node.js |
| Database | MongoDB, PostgreSQL |
| Cloud Storage | Google Cloud Storage, AWS S3 |
| CDN | AWS CloudFront, Cloudflare |
Leveraging cutting-edge tech stacks with modern AI capabilities indeed increases the overall development cost. It also boosts both customer engagement and retention.
Features have a heavy impact on the overall cost of developing an app like TikTok. The following are must-have features for any similar app;
When you integrate a large number of features into your app, it increases the overall development time and thus the cost. The development of a basic MVP app requires only limited features, which means it requires less development time and cost.
Developing a full-fledged app with next-generation features and live streaming capabilities requires significantly more development time and can cost upwards of $250,000.
From concept to launch, we’ll guide you through every step of building a TikTok-like app—covering design, features, and cost breakdown.
Building an app like TikTok is much more than just performing coding work. It directly relates to delivering an outstanding user experience. Developers carry out the entire process in multiple steps, which are as follows. Going through these steps helps you understand how to create an app like TikTok:
Before you finally step into the development process, you need to be familiar with who you are building the app for. In other words, you should always define your target audience by focusing on several important factors such as location, age group, interests, language preferences, and more.
The next important thing to focus on is the type of content your app should include. Don’t forget to analyze your competitors in-depth. Your competitors will be none other than TikTok itself, as well as YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and others. It indeed helps you discover gaps and opportunities.
The next step involves selecting the appropriate platform, which determines both the reach and success of your app. First, define your target locations and then determine the right platform for your app development.
For instance, when targeting an audience from countries such as the UK, USA, and Australia, you can opt for the iOS platform. On the other hand, Android is the best option for a wider reach globally, especially in various emerging markets.
Moreover, if you harness the potential advantage of both iOS and Android, you can opt for cross-platform app development. And can leverage frameworks like React Native and Flutter, etc.
Monetization is one of the core purposes of app building. Therefore, you should never leave any stone unturned when selecting the best monetization model. It’s crucial to decide how much your app earns. The following are some important ways of app monetization you can consider to earn money from your app;
Ensure your selected monetization strategy aligns better with the audience’s willingness to pay and the type of content they consume.
After completing all necessary preparations, you need to select the best development partner. Ensure that your development partner is professional and can do justice to your project.
When selecting them, always consider their overall experience in creating social networking or video-based apps. Don’t forget to check their overall expertise in designing, backend/frontend, QA, and DevOps.
Quality assurance is something that matters the most before you make your app live. QA professionals conduct a variety of tests, including performance testing, functional testing, security testing, and device compatibility testing.
It’s a highly important stage that causes crashes, bugs, and user drop-offs. These often lead to far more cost, especially when compared to resolving after launching the app.
After completion of the app testing, you can do the following important things;
Launching is the final step of your app development. After launching it successfully, you need to examine various factors, including engagement metrics, user retention, feature usage, revenue trends, and more.
You can leverage user analytics tools to resolve various underperforming areas, refine features, and introduce several new updates according to real user behavior. It’s a continuous improvement approach that improves both ROI and user satisfaction.
Regarding the cost to build an app like TikTok, it depends extensively on the features, scope, and technology stack you select. Let’s have a complete look at common development tiers:
As we mentioned, a basic app similar to MVP style includes only necessary features such as video upload, user registration, simple editing tools, a basic feed, and more.
Its development time generally ranges from 3 to 5 months, and the estimated development cost ranges from $50,000 to $70,000. It’s the right option for a startup to test market demand before scaling.
This type of app offers features such as AI-based recommendations, advanced video editing capabilities, push notifications, music library integration, and an enhanced UI/UX. The overall development time ranges from 6 to 8 months.
Its estimated cost ranges from $70,000 to $120,000. It’s a perfect choice for those seeking to compete directly with established short-video apps while offering a manageable cost.
When creating a high-end version of an app, you need to include nearly every feature that TikTok offers. These features include in-app purchase, AR filters, multilingual support, influencer tools, and more.
The development time for this app ranges from 9 to 12 months, and the cost can exceed $150,000. This app is an ideal option for large-scale launches and targeting users worldwide, with higher scalability and performance requirements.
Apart from the actual development cost, you also need to consider some additional costs. These are as follows;
Moon Technolabs boasts over a decade of experience in the app development industry and emerges as a reliable partner for TikTok-like apps. We have the capability of delivering performance-driven solutions.
Our team has earned enormous specialization in blending expertise in AI-driven recommendations, video-centric platforms, scalable cloud infrastructure, and more.
We provide end-to-end app development services, from concept to app launch.
We leverage cutting-edge technologies and integrate advanced features to ensure your app is future-proof and engaging. Whether it’s transparent communication, competitive pricing, or a proven track record, we are an ideal choice for a TikTok-like app for various reasons.
Get a detailed breakdown of the cost to build app like TikTok, with expert insights from Moon Technolabs to create your own viral video platform.
You may have already understood now how much it costs to build a social media app. Building a popular app like TikTok requires much more than just an idea.
It requires a perfect combination of creativity, technology, and strategic budgeting. However, before you embark on the app development process completely, it’s advisable to obtain a correct cost estimation.
This blog has already explained all those factors. Meanwhile, you can contact us to understand all these factors and receive a precise cost estimate for your project, allowing you to prepare your budget accordingly.
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Jayanti Katariya is the CEO of Moon Technolabs, a fast-growing IT solutions provider, with 18+ years of experience in the industry. Passionate about developing creative apps from a young age, he pursued an engineering degree to further this interest. Under his leadership, Moon Technolabs has helped numerous brands establish their online presence and he has also launched an invoicing software that assists businesses to streamline their financial operations.
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