Making people amazed by an incredible level of immersion and surprising capabilities to apply for business or entertainment purposes, virtual reality once disrupted everything we knew about software engineering.
Nowadays, most competitive companies from any industry are using VR apps for commercial or internal development purposes. Thus, starting your own project on virtual reality application development is a common strategy for those entrepreneurs targeted at business growth.
Yet, it’s better to know how much a professional VR app development company can charge you for project execution right off the bat. So, you are welcome to find out the average cost for VR app development and what factors affect the price.
An Average Cost of Virtual Reality App Development
According to recent estimations on https://program-ace.com/, virtual reality app (e.g., VR training) development costs around $40k-180k on average. This cost is relevant for a regular application based on standard mechanics, with no specific needs included and a fine graphics level.
At the same time, the creation of an outstanding application can reach millions of dollars. Eventually, these numbers are dynamic and change depending on many aspects. This means that you can affect the final price if you know exactly what factors shape it and where you can cut some costs.
5 Factors Forming the VR App Development Price
Usually, 5 aspects of virtual reality app creation form a project’s final price. Luckily, your actions and decisions can affect each of them, so it’s in your power to get the cost lower or higher.
1. Project Scale
Depending on your business goals, you can build a relevant project concept that will define the overall scope of work and resources spent. In this case, one thing that’s important to remember is that more isn’t always better.
For example, if you want to build a VR training program for your employees, there’s usually no need to include every single possible scenario in an app. Instead, focus on cases that are relevant to the most challenging workplace processes and those directly affecting your team’s productivity or your company’s profit. Thus, your project will be done faster and with fewer resources spent, which means a lower final price.
2. Timeframe
The sooner, the better is another principle that isn’t always working with VR app development. First and foremost, you need to do some business analytics and define the perfect time to launch your new product. During the release strategy development, it’s also vital to consider the realism of chosen deadlines.
The thing is emergency/express development typically has a higher cost as it takes more specialists to accomplish a project in a short time. Thus, making enough time to create a VR application at a regular pace will require less budget.
3. Level of Detail (LOD)
The type of app’s graphics requires the use of different developers as well as software/tools of another complexity. It’s obvious that everybody adores hyper-realistic VR products. However, the highest impression from visuals isn’t always defining the success of an application or its usefulness.
So, in case you require a highly immersive commercial application that should stand out among robust competitors, then the development will take more time and money. Otherwise, VR applications for educational purposes or the like will perform their functions well enough with low LOD.
4. Kind of Developers
Hiring virtual reality app developers for your team, it’s imperative to choose reliable specialists who can perform fast and efficiently. Yet, experienced US developers may be too costly, considering an average yearly wage of $117,452/yr. In addition, entrepreneurs should provide in-house specialists with equipment, perks, and social packages.
At the same time, you can find a remote VR app engineer from Central or Eastern Europe who makes $18k/yr on average. Moreover, when you opt for an outsourcing development company, you can hire specialists from them and pay only for time and materials. In this case, there’s no need to provide outsourced specialists.
5. Power of Equipment
In order to create a top-notch VR application, specialists use advanced software with a variety of powerful tools. In order to use them with optimal efficiency and avoid delays or technical mistakes, developers need robust equipment to operate at full capacity.
At this point, partnering with freelancers will be unsteady because it’s not guaranteed that a specialist has an appropriate computer for your project. On the other hand, providing your in-house developers with the best equipment entails extra spending.
Cost-Efficient Way to Build a Custom VR Application
As you can see, virtual reality app development takes careful preparation, organization, and resource allocation in order to keep it within an optimal budget. Fortunately, you can always opt for one of the most cost-efficient development strategies — outsourcing full-cycle or partial development to a reliable partner.
Interesting Related Article: “How VR & AR Will Change Business“
