In the near past, students were not allowed to use gadgets as they were considered a distraction. However, things have changed to a huge extent. We can see technology merging with education to provide some amazing apps to students to help them study. One can find hundreds of educational apps easily floating around. A few apps are designed to help students organize their schedule while others help them prepare for a tough quiz in a fun manner with gamification.

Would you believe if we say that the worth of an educational app development company is increasing day by day in the industry? According to stats, the size of this market is going to increase to $46 billion in just 2 years. This makes it one of the best industries to step into. If you are interested in investing in some business that will only blossom in years to come, we suggest you either hire a freelance educational app developer or a development company to make an app for you. Are you worried you don’t know the basics, don’t worry for we will teach you all about it?

Types of Educational Apps

The majority of educational apps can be found on the internet for free. This means that anyone with the need can download and use these apps. However, the experience of these apps is a lot different from the apps that charge users some subscription fees and/or monthly fees. Firstly, you must get clear about whether you want to offer a free mobile app for your target market or you want to charge them some fee.

Once you are clear about that, you must start thinking about the kind of app you want to launch for educational purposes. We mentioned a few types of apps at the start of this article, however, those are not the only ones that are out there in the market. There are dozens of types of educational apps that people keep developing. Here are some of the types for you to consider:

Gamified Learning

gamified learning

The generation of today loses interest easily and finds it difficult to sit for hours with books opened in front of them. It is essential to not just teach these kids but to keep them involved in the whole process as well. This can easily be done by gamifying a normal and boring educational app. Some might suggest that such apps work only for kids of young age. In reality, a journal has proved that the gamification of educational apps helps students of all ages.

You can use different sorts of gamification in apps like introducing multiple levels, giving out titles for completing a level, granting coins or virtual currency to the users, giving different competitions and putting the names of the winners on the winner board, and much more. Check out our  Llama app which uses multiple levels to help teenagers master conflict management. The number of ways to gamify an app is unlimited. You can come up with a new way for your app as well and see the world copy you.

Flashcard Applications

Education mobile app development companies have introduced a new type of app among other educational app types. These apps focus on helping students prepare for their quizzes or exams. Students can either choose subjects from the already added subjects or they can add their class notes to the application.
Once the content has been finalized for the flashcards, the app makes flashcards on its own. The students can slide to view the flashcards and flip every flashcard to view the answers on its back. Students can even make customized flashcards for their preparation. These flashcards can even be shared with friends to prepare for the exam together.

E-Book Mobile Apps

Since everything is becoming digitized, why not books? Technology has helped digitize textbooks for students. The mobile app stores are full of applications enabling students to download different e-books, add e-books to their e-book collections, read books and add bookmarks, add notes wherever desired, share e-books, and perform a bunch of other actions as well.
This eliminates the need for students to purchase multiple costly books and carry heavy books to school every day. They can even categorize their e-books into different categories for easy and quick access. The number of these apps is growing with every passing week so, why not give it a try?

Worksheet Mobile Apps

Another type of app that helps students prepare for a tough exam is called a worksheet or workbook mobile app. These mobile apps are easy to use and create a list of questions for students with three or four choices to choose from. A lot of students use these apps for extra practice for their exams or quizzes.
The use of these apps reduces paper usage, offers great fluency, and presents different difficulty levels for the students to prepare well. These apps have been reported to be the second-best option for students preparing for a quiz in a limited time. Since students love to prepare at the last minute now, why not invest in these apps?

Top Features in Educational Apps

Top Features in Educational Apps

The features of an app have the power to either make it a successful app or a history for the new apps to not repeat. You must do some market research and embed functionalities and features in your app that would make it successful. Now, that you have decided on the type of educational app you would like to build, you must be aware of the features your app must have. Here are some suggestions from us:


Profile Building Option

An educational app must be customizable to give the user an unforgettable experience. Customization starts at the level of profile building. Your app must offer the user to make a profile by adding personal information and contact details. This must enable the user to save some preference settings and save items as well.

Push Notifications

Your app should have an option for push notifications for the user. These notifications can either be email notifications, in-app notifications, or SMS notifications. These will keep the user updated about any new development or bug fixes and will remind him of the incomplete lessons for better user engagement.

Screen Sharing

Most students love to have group studies irrespective of the time they belong to so, your app must support screen sharing for group calls. This makes it easier for one user to present to others, share knowledge without any hassle, and make the whole experience wholesome. This feature is even more helpful for teachers having distant classes.

In-Session Chats

When talking about group study or distance learning, it would be awesome if your educational mobile app can provide the option for in-session chats. This option will help participants of a class or group study session to share their thoughts and communicate well without the need to have the other person on mute. Moreover, the messages sent can also be used as notes later on.

In-App Scheduling

Whether you are looking to have an app developed for students only or course creators as well, it is suggested that you have the feature of in-app scheduling. This feature is beneficial when it comes to helping students and teachers make their schedules and then stick to them. This feature must be accompanied by reminders to help everyone follow the schedule.

There are multiple other features you can include in your educational mobile app. We suggest you do a bit of research and check the demand of your target audience before you finalize the features.

Technology Stack For Developing Educational Apps

A technology stack is more like the brick and construction material that helps make the skeleton of your mobile app. The rest is just decoration that can be added later on. You must be concerned about the decided technology stack for your learning app development. There are multiple technology stacks available in the market. All of them have pros and cons that you must be aware of. Here are some hand-picked technology stacks to help build the app of your dreams:

Programming Languages

Objective-C

If you are aiming to launch an app for Apple users, Objective-C is a good option. This language is supported by Apple for building iOS applications. The best thing about it is its dynamic runtime environment and the potential for object-oriented processes. However, if we talk about cons, it is considered one of the most complex languages. This is the main reason behind the downfall of Objective C.

Swift

A lot of developers are moving towards Swift as it is a relatively easy language. It has eliminated the need for string identifiers making the code lesser in terms of lines. The code is also easier to run, edit, debug and repeat.

Development Tools and Kits

Android Studio

Android Studio along with Android Developer Tools (ADT) make the most famous tools for the development of Android apps. These official development platforms are powered by Google. Containing code editing and debugging tools, these platforms are user-friendly and easier to handle.

There are multiple drag-and-drop code snippets available making the development faster and smoother. The developers can also find coding and test automation support whenever desired. All these features make Android Studio and ADT the best environment for developers to make educational mobile applications in Android.

Flutter

Flutter is a relatively new development toolkit but flutter education apps are getting famous with time. The biggest advantage of using Flutter is that the developer can write one code and produce apps to run on multiple devices and platforms. It makes the work easier, faster, and more efficient.

All you need to do is set up an environment of your choice, use the snippets already available or write your code from scratch and see the app in runtime. You can easily edit and debug the code and see its effects on the screen at the same time. It reduces the development time for an app as well.

Factors Affecting The Cost to Develop an Educational App

We are sure that you have decided on the type of educational app you want to have, and the features it must have and probably have a bit of an idea about the technology stack as well. Before you talk to a development company or hire a freelance app developer, you must first understand the factors that can affect the cost of app development. The knowledge of these factors will help you understand where your money is going and probably help you cut down the cost as well.

Number of Features

If you want to develop a small app with just 3 or 4 features, the developer would not have to sit for long hours to finish your project as it would be easier. Given that you have this app developed by a company, they would not have to assign a good number of developers to develop the app. This will reduce the manpower used and the number of dollars will go down as well.
On the other hand, if you are hoping to have an app that is very advanced and has 9 or 10 features, it will take a lot of manpower. Probably a team of 5 to 6 developers will have to sit down to develop this app. The price for such a project is destined to go up and you will end up spending more.

Deadline for the App

At times, the customer spends a lot of time figuring out the kind of app he wants and ends up having less time for development. If you give the development company deadline of a few weeks, they will have to probably halt the development of some apps or hire more resources to develop your app driving up the cost.
This will push them to ask for more money as compared to the scene where they are provided a deadline of at least 4 to 5 months. You must decide the deadline wisely to have your app developed the best on a reasonable budget.

The Choice of Technology Stack

Since the preference for technology stacks keeps changing with time, you must be aware of the newer technologies used in the market. However, at times, your app would only work best when developed in a specific technology stack that is probably running out of trend. This means that the developers of that technology stack would be less difficult to find.
In such a case, you will have to pour in more money to have your app developed. On the contrary, if you get your app developed in a trendy technology stack, you can find more developers for it. This would make your search easier and would cost you way less as well.

Cross-Platform or Native App

At times, your target audience is scattered on multiple platforms and you would like to have 2 apps developed. Either you can have two native apps developed for your target market or you can have one cross-platform app developed that would work great for both platforms.

If you go with the former choice, the app development company will have to make two separate projects for you with two teams working day in and out. This will require more workforce and increase your expenditure as well. However, if you have one app developed that can run on multiple platforms giving the feel of a native app, you would need fewer developers and would cost you less money as well.

These are just a few of the basic factors having the potential to affect your project’s cost. However, you can read about some factors and plan your app development project accordingly.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop an Educational App?

Whether you are trying to guess the cost of app development for course creators or the use of the students, the budget does not differ much. With the help of the section above, you can guess the budget yourself. However, you can give us a quick call and we will provide you an estimate you save you do some calculations, and we have done a budgeting estimation for you. Find a basic budget estimate for your educational app development project.

Beginner-level App

If you are aiming to launch a simple app with some basic features, it would not be very complex to develop. Hence, it would require less time and a fairly small team of developers. You need to have a budget ranging from $15,000 to $30,000. An example of a beginner-level educational app includes an app that allows you to download, read and bookmark different e-books. This app can also allow you to add notes to an e-book you are reading. Since it can be developed easily and in less time, it would not cost you much.

Mid-level App

Coming towards a mid-level app with features less than 10 but a bit advanced, you will have to save up some more dollars. Such an app can cost you easily from $31,000 to $60,000. Continuing our example of the e-book reading app, a mid-level app would allow the users to share the chapters or an entire e-book with their friends. Moreover, the user would be able to share notes and have group discussions as well.

Advanced-level App

If you want to launch an app that covers multiple areas of the educational industry with complex features, you must be ready to hire a big team of developers. Such an application would have a lot of advanced features and would require more time to be developed. Having an advanced app developed can cost you from $60,000 to $75,000+ easily. These apps have more than 10 features and all of these features are pretty advanced.

An e-book advanced app will allow users to have video and voice calls to talk about e-books, create multiple groups and invite new people to join, share e-books or small paragraphs on social media, or probably help them start a small e-book of their own. These features will take a lot of time and a big team to develop, hence the cost will be more.

Quick Wrap Up

It might seem easy to have an educational app launched but it requires a lot of groundwork. You must know about the types of educational apps, the features of these apps, the different technology stacks used for development, and the cost occurred to have an app developed.
Now, that you are fully aware of the types, factors of cost, and features of an educational app, we believe it would not be difficult for you to have an app developed just like you want. However, we believe you have already spent a good amount of time figuring out the kind of app you want along with its features. Just to make this search easier, let us introduce an amazing app development company.
We recommend you have your educational mobile apps developed by Origami Studios. With them, you just need to define your requirements, and the rest, they can take care of. They have multiple teams of developers with years of experience and proper skills to deliver what they promise – the best applications. So, instead of wasting more time in finding a development company, make a quick call to Origami Studios. We wish you the best of luck.