How Much Does It Cost To Build An App Like Likee?

When building an app like Likee, it’s essential to understand that video-sharing platforms fall into a distinct category of highly complex apps. Likee isn’t just a simple content-sharing platform. It integrates advanced video editing tools, real-time filters, and social networking capabilities. This means a combination of features, compliance needs, performance demands, and more drives the development costs.

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The video-sharing app market in the United States has been booming, with similar apps being top-rated among Gen Z and Millennials. Developing such an app means meeting user expectations of top-tier performance, real-time interactions, and a seamless user experience. This custom app development relies on advanced technology stacks, considerable backend infrastructure, and exceptional design. Let’s break down the factors that specifically impact the app development cost for an app like Likee.

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Platform and Device Compatibility

How Platform Affects App Development Cost

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Platform choice is pivotal in influencing how much it costs to build an app like Likee. In the United States, it’s essential to consider the popularity ratio between Android and iOS users. As of 2023, iOS maintains a dominant market share among United States smartphone users, but you can’t ignore Android users, particularly among younger audiences who frequently use video-sharing apps. Deciding whether to pursue custom app development natively for these platforms or use a cross-platform approach (using tools like React Native or Flutter) will significantly impact your budget.

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Native iOS & Android Development: Developing an app like Likee natively for iOS and Android means writing separate codebases for each platform (usually in Swift for iOS and Kotlin or Java for Android). This will increase custom app development costs because each platform will require distinct coding, testing, and design efforts. Moreover, native development allows for optimal performance since the app takes full advantage of each platform’s unique features. However, the additional complexity and time involved will heavily influence how much it costs to build an app with a dual-native approach.

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Cross-Platform Development: Cross-platform development allows you to create a unified codebase that operates on iOS and Android. Frameworks like React Native or Flutter can help lower custom app development costs by reducing the amount of separate work needed. Though this approach can help you hit both platforms faster, some platform-specific features (e.g., iOS-specific haptic feedback or Android’s intent system) may require extra development work or native integrations, which could add to the total cost.

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Beyond Smartphones: Apps like Likee often extend beyond mobile devices, offering compatibility with tablets and, increasingly, web platforms to ensure a broader user base. Expanding to these additional devices can increase the cost of building an app, as it requires more testing, interface adjustments, and possible changes to the back-end architecture to support different screen resolutions and functionalities.

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Choosing between native and cross-platform development and compatibility requirements is essential in shaping the budget for custom app development when aiming to build an app similar to Likee.

Design and User Experience (UX/UI)

The user experience and interface (UX/UI) design, particularly for a video-sharing app like Likee, is crucial to competitiveness. Video-sharing apps need a sleek, frictionless interface where users can browse content, share videos, and engage with filters within a clean, easy-to-navigate environment.

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• Intuitive Interface: Building an intuitive interface that places content creation tools seamlessly at the user’s fingertips effectively increases user engagement but requires personalized design iterations, thus increasing the app development cost.
• Emotional Design: In the United States, apps like Likee thrive on user emotion and engagement, especially among younger demographics. Exciting, vibrant color palettes and animations can draw users back to the app but involve additional design and testing processes.

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Integrations with Third-Party Services or External Systems

Third-party integrations are essential to ensure a robust, feature-rich app like Likee. The use of external systems enhances the app's core functionalities and impacts the cost of building it. Depending on their complexity and licensing, these integrations can elevate the user experience while adding to the project’s overall cost.

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• Social Sharing Capabilities: Integrating with social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok is vital for an app like Likee. This functionality allows users to share their content across multiple platforms, boosting engagement and expanding reach. However, each social platform has its own API, specific requirements, and possible licensing fees. Ensuring smooth and secure integration across all these networks can add complexities and costs to custom app development.
• Push Notifications: A core feature for any video-sharing app is keeping its users actively engaged. Push notifications, triggered by events such as new followers or comments, are essential for maintaining user retention. Leveraging third-party services like Firebase to send automated notifications helps streamline this process. However, custom push notification strategies targeting users based on behavior, preferences, or real-time events will complicate the app’s development and back-end infrastructure.
• CRM and Analytics Platforms: Integration with analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms like Mixpanel, Amplitude, or Google Analytics is crucial to measure user behavior, content performance, and app success. These tools help you understand how users interact with your app, what features drive growth, and where improvements are needed. While the integration typically involves utilizing the platforms' APIs, the costs can vary based on the level of detail you want to track and the number of users your app serves, as licensing fees often scale with usage.
• Payment Gateway Integration: If your app incorporates in-app purchases, live-streaming tips, or premium features, integrating secure payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, or in-app purchases via Apple or Google Play is critical. Each service often takes a percentage of the transactions processed, adding to the ongoing cost structure.

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Each integrator enhances your app’s functionality and contributes to the overall cost of building an app like Likee, factoring in specialized APIs, licensing fees, and the complexity of securing and maintaining these systems.

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Database & Back-End Infrastructure

A video-sharing platform like Likee is data-intensive, requiring scalable backend architecture for managing users and videos and driving features such as real-time notifications or in-app currency for gifting.

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• Cloud Storage for Video Content: The cost of storing massive amounts of user-generated video content can be significant, and services like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage are often used.
• Real-Time Video Processing: Managing server-side operations for processing video filters, compressing files, and presenting real-time changes to users requires expertise in video processing platforms.

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To cater to United States users, choosing reliable, customizable back-end frameworks and cloud infrastructure ensures low latency and efficient data delivery.

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Ongoing Maintenance and Updates

Launching an app like Likee isn’t the end—the app will require continuous maintenance and updates. This includes fixing bugs, incorporating user feedback, and adding new features like curated video categories or updated AR filters.

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Compliance with United States-based regulations like GDPR or COPPA is essential for app success, and these frequent legal updates will raise the cost of maintaining and updating the app.

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Team Expertise and Location

Development costs also hinge on the quality of the development team.

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In the case of a video-sharing platform similar to Likee, you'll need developers familiar with the following:

• Real-time Communication Systems: Ensuring real-time video uploads and streaming necessitates experienced backend developers.
• AI and AR experts: Building advanced facial recognition-based AR experiences requires machine learning experts.

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Team location also plays a significant role—for instance, United States-based teams often have higher hourly rates than offshore teams but may deliver faster deployment timelines, familiarity with United States regulations, and more localized user insights.

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Hidden Costs & Miscellaneous Factors

Developing a high-performance app like Likee involves several hidden costs that can impact the budget. One of the primary considerations is QA & testing. Ensuring the app's stability, performance, and data integrity requires extensive mobile and cloud testing to catch potential issues early. This process is essential for maintaining app quality but can be costly, especially for an app with complex features like Likee.

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App Store Fees are another factor. Publishing on platforms like the Apple App Store or Google Play involves ongoing fees. Apple, for example, requires a $99 annual developer fee, while Google Play charges a one-time $25 fee. Additionally, compliance with COVID-19-related app store updates might incur legal costs, particularly in regions like the United States.

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Legal and compliance costs should be noted. Apps that collect or process user data must adhere to data privacy laws, which vary by region. In the United States, regulations like COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) mandate specific practices for protecting children's data. Meanwhile, you must comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requirements if your app operates in multiple countries. Ensuring your app meets these legal standards involves additional resources, legal fees, and possible third-party audits to safeguard sensitive user information.

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What Makes This App Category Unique in Terms of Development?

Building a video-sharing app like Likee comes with a unique set of technological challenges, which are magnified in the United States due to competitive user expectations.

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The United States continues to be a hub for social media innovation, and users there expect seamless performance, high-quality video processing, and highly engaging AR filters and experiences. With such high standards, app developers must prioritize building a robust, efficient platform.

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Working with a team specializing in complex app creation across new technologies like AI, AR, and real-time broadcasting can make or break an app's success in the United States.

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Are you interested in making your Likee app concept a reality? 

At Scrums.com, we specialize in custom app development tailored for United States users. Let our experienced team help you bring your video-sharing app to life. From video streaming to AR filters, we’ve got the expertise you need! Reach out today for a custom development estimate, and let's build the next big thing together!