4 reasons you need post-launch maintenance
To keep up with newly released platforms and win a battle for users’ attention, your app has to stay up-to-date. The best way to maintain apps and keep them relevant is to release updates after launch. Let’s talk about 4 reasons why post-launch support is a must.
1. App marketplaces change the guidelines for approval
Both AppStore and Google Play constantly update their requirements to keep the platforms safe and engaging for users. They have a team of developers and a special algorithm to review and evaluate every published app. You will get a notification if the stores think you need to fix some bugs and improve the performance of your app.
AppStore will give you 30 days to update your app. If you ignore the warning or miss the deadline, they have the right to temporarily remove your app from the marketplace.
Marketplaces openly publish requirements for apps
To make sure your current app stays up-to-date, AppStore recommends checking the new review requirements as they are published, and making sure you comply.
2. Bugs occur
After the release, bugs can be found both externally and internally. Firstly, customers can always submit a bug report. Secondly, as a part of post-launch maintenance, app development companies run diagnostics and solve issues from the backlog.
Even if the mobile app development process was flawless, post-release bugs can still pop up. QA engineers discover and prioritize potential errors based on budget, time, and expected use. Bugs that break key functionality are labeled as critical and fixed as soon as possible.
Critical issues stop users from finishing their journey, for example, placing an order, submitting a payment, or even opening the app. The rest of the errors go to the backlog and get processed on a rolling basis.
Facebook has a window where users can report a problem
3. Decided to scale up and add new features
There can be multiple scenarios. For example, you have a startup idea, want to release it as soon as possible and test it out with real-world customers. That is why app development companies always recommend starting with an MVP — a first fully-functioning version of your app with a limited number of must-have features.
After the release, you can collect the feedback and add nice-to-have features, expanding your mobile solution and improving customers’ experience.
Another scenario is when the number of users is rapidly increasing. For example, you prepared for around 10,000 new customers per month but all of a sudden, the marketing succeeds, and you get one million users wanting to sign up. To support maintenance and growth, the development team will check the server power, security protocols, and databases.
4. Last update date
The reason why you need to maintain apps post-release is the last update date. Marketplaces like AppStore or Google Play show when the recent version was released — if it was too long ago, a user can think the app is no longer supported and walk away.
A crypto wallet Zerion releases updates almost every month
Four benefits of mobile app maintenance
Unlike release, the perks of mobile app maintenance seem hard to distinguish at first glance. However, maintenance brings obvious benefits for app performance and user feedback.
Based on the points we’ve mentioned above, let’s sort out how post-release support pays off.
Reduced uninstalls
Figures show that 53% of users will delete applications within a month. Reasons differ, the most common being the following:
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- onboarding and registration frustrates app users;
- overwhelming push notifications;
- poor usability and UX;
- technical issues.
Proper mobile app maintenance mitigates such problems. After the release you gather user feedback and find the points for growth. The mobile app development team fixes bugs and releases updates. As a result, post-release support leverages user loyalty.
Stronger brand image
When people see how much you care for their convenience and needs, your reputation grows stronger. Maintaining an app is like raising a kid. You’ve given it life, but then it needs nurturing and care, to grow into a respectable adult product.
Increased revenue
Application downtime leads to time and business losses. Sales fall, bringing financial risks. The maintenance costs are, by comparison, the easier thing to bear. For one thing, support minimizes the damage to your budget.
While mobile app maintenance focuses on leveraging UI/UX, the interface gets more appealing and convenient for the audience. Flawless product design enhances retention rate and in-app purchases, as a result increasing potential ad revenue.
Higher ranking in stores
Regular bug fixing and releases of updates have a positive impact on the ranking on AppStore and Google Play. These platforms consider post-release support activity when ranking apps. This is a sign of the commitment of a mobile app development team.
How much does it cost to maintain an app?
The general rule is that a year of post-launch services costs around 20% of the initial price of the app development. For example, if it cost $50,000 to develop your app, we suggest you save about $10,000 to support it.
Below, we provide a table with the approximate annual cost for some of the common services.
| Service | Average cost |
| Fixing bugs | $1,000–$10,000 |
| Updating app | $5,000–$25,000 |
| Updating security protocols | $1,000–$10,000 |
| Maintaining server | $3,000–$15,000 |
| Upgrading third-party libraries | $1,000–$5,000 |
| Analytics | $1,000–$5,000 |
Now, let’s take a look at how app maintenance costs can vary by region so you can find the best suitable option.
| Region | Average hourly rate |
| USA, Canada | $100–$200 |
| UK, Germany, France | $70–$150 |
| Ukraine, Poland, Romania | $30–$70 |
| India, Vietnam, Philippines | $20–$50 |
| Brazil, Argentina, Colombia | $30–$70 |
| South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt | $20–$60 |
North American countries tend to have the highest costs due to higher labor costs. However, they usually provide a high level of service. If you want to save money, you can consider countries in Eastern Europe or Asia. They are experienced in development and offer a good balance between cost and quality.
What factors affect the app maintenance costs?
In addition to the location of the development team and the types of services needed, the total cost of the maintenance depends on a number of other factors: app complexity, number of platforms supported, number of hours required, and number of specialists involved. Let’s go over them in more detail.
App complexity
The more complex the application is, the more frequent and extensive the maintenance will be. These can majorly influence the app complexity:
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- Feature set (real-time data processing, payment systems, AI, AR)
- Custom functionality (advanced algorithms, complex user interface)
- Architecture and backend (microservices integration, cloud computing, proprietary servers)
- API integration (payment gateways, social media login, geolocation services)
- Scalability
Number of platforms
Each platform has its own technical requirements, so maintaining an app on multiple platforms can significantly increase the costs.
For example, iOS and Android have different programming languages and app store guidelines. Therefore, they require separate updates and patches. While cross-platform apps share a common code base, which reduces development costs, they can still be more complex to maintain due to some platform-specific features.
Hours required
The number of hours required can vary, depending on what you want to do.
Basic mobile app maintenance tasks, such as bug fixes and security updates, require 5–10 hours per month, whereas routine maintenance can take 10–50 hours. As for updates, major changes can take even 100-200 hours or more.
Number of specialists
Different types of maintenance require different areas of expertise. Here’s a list of people you may need and what they do:
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- Frontend and backend developers — make updates, fix bugs, and implement features
- UI/UX designers — redesign or update UI, improve UX
- QA engineers — test the app after updates and before releases
- DevOps — manage server maintenance and cloud services
Some specialists can take up a larger portion of the app maintenance costs. DevOps and QA engineers tend to have higher rates than other experts because of the importance of their work.
A simple application may require a team of 2–3 people, for example, frontend and backend developers, and a QA engineer. Medium-sized projects typically involve 5-7 people. For complex projects — more than 10 people.
Types of mobile app maintenance services
Maintenance is a word with a broad meaning. It comprises bug fixing, design iterations, integrations and so on. In mobile app development we subdivide post-release services into four groups based on the support activities.
| Type of maintenance | What it covers |
| Corrective maintenance | Regular bug fixing, dealing with flaws and defects in app’s code and design |
| Preventive maintenance | On-and-off revision of the product codebase to anticipate possible failures |
| Adaptive maintenance | Adaptation of product tech features and design to the changing trends and guidelines |
| Emergency maintenance | Instant intervention for tackling critical bugs |
| Perfective maintenance | Releasing updates to leverage user experience and improve product interface |
Corrective maintenance
Corrective maintenance focuses on minor faults that don’t impact the overall user experience. The QA engineer observes app performance, checks if the interface has any problems or points of growth and files reports. Frontend- and backend developers fix bugs and send the report for an iterated check.
Preventive maintenance
This is when you eliminate defects before they occur. As part of preventive mobile app maintenance, developers restructure the codebase, revise documentation and enhance security. All these activities can slip by unnoticed for app users, but prevention is crucial for anticipating downtimes.
Adaptive maintenance
Google Play and AppStore roll out regular updates of their guidelines. AppStore guideline policy comprises requirements for safety, performance, business, design and legal matters. Whether you support cross-platform apps or native apps, the product has to meet the standards.
The goal of adaptive maintenance is to tune the software for the stores. The mobile app development team revises the requirements and releases new iterations to keep the product available for app users.
Emergency Maintenance
Applications crash. Sometimes this can be a server error, sometimes an unpredictable overload, sometimes a bug with push notifications. Downtime means losses that are a lot harder to bear than maintenance costs.
When maintaining an app, you need developers capable of coming to the rescue. Those who can do a hotfix and bring the software back to life. All these tasks can be covered as part of emergency support.
Perfective maintenance
Support is not all about dealing with issues. Development and upgrading remain an inevitable part too. In the course of perfective maintenance developers add new features, integrate services for user convenience, implement trending technologies like AI or chatbots.
Both users and product owners benefit from perfecting UI/UX design. Here maintenance services include redesign of some parts or elements of the interface, changing banners, fleshing out the existing design. For the audience, all these alterations indicate developer’s commitment while the developers themselves get recognition from users and stores.
In the course of your post-release support, you are going to combine all these types. Revise the legacy to steer clear from unpredictable crashes, correct UI/UX flaws, hotfix emergent issues and adapt the product to AppStore requirements. App maintenance cost depends on the goal or specific task.
Tips on how to minimize your app maintenance costs
Mobile app maintenance services seldom come cheap, seeing as you need an IT team to run the process. However, there are ways to make your money work as efficiently as possible. Here’s a checklist to help you cut app maintenance costs.
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- Outsource post-release support. In the US, it’s 63% cheaper to partner with a vendor than to hire an in-house mobile app development team.
- Make it regular. On-and-off support activities and timely bug fixes mitigate emergency risks.
- Use agile project management. Agile teams deliver products in sprints and cut app maintenance costs by releasing function by function.
- Plan the development cycle in advance. Create a roadmap beforehand to map out the development of the application.
- Prioritize features. Say, using the MoSCoW method or other prioritization techniques.
- Choose cloud-based hostings. Cloud solutions offer more space for data storage and reliability in cases of overload.
- Ensure customer support. Gather feedback and let your audience get in touch to share their thoughts and complaints.
- Don’t underestimate minor things. Even some supposedly slightest bug in push notifications can compromise reputation.
- Make proper testing a must. This helps address issues and tackle them faster.
- Track trends. You can cut app maintenance costs by making small alterations in the interface instead of going through a complete redesign process.
- Keep the docs clean and up-to-date. Don’t be careless with technical documentation as it helps coders fix things with little hassle.
- Update regularly. Small updates save an entrepreneur’s budget in the long run.
If you haven’t released a product but want to build cost-efficiently for the future, go for a cross-platform MVP. Compared to native apps, cross-platform applications are rolled out for AppStore and Google Play simultaneously. This approach reduces app maintenance costs, as you need just one team to render post-release services.
How often should you update your app?
As we discussed before, mobile apps are the most reputable when they are relevant and updated regularly. There is no universal answer to how often you should update apps and add new versions: some mobile applications release updates every week, while others — every two months.
The right timeline depends on your goals and apps’ functionality. Keep in mind that the frequency of updates can affect the mobile app maintenance cost, so the best way is to schedule it with your development team while considering your budget.
Generally, we recommend releasing 1-2 regular updates per month, fixing bugs, adding new features, and improving performance.
Final thoughts
Overall, post-release app development is a must for startups who want to stay on top of things and keep users engaged by constantly improving their experience and adding trendy and thrilling features to the solution.
In the article, we discussed why all mobile apps need maintenance after the launch, discussed mobile app maintenance cost, and covered what influences it.
About us
Purrweb is a UI/UX, web, and mobile app development company. We build robust and good-quality MVPs from scratch, with a focus on usability and UI/UX design.
