How Much Does it Cost to Build a Health Tracking App Like Google Fit?

In today’s health-conscious society, the demand for health tracking apps has surged. People are more connected to smartphones, and therefore, use apps to keep a trail of their fitness and wellness. Google Fit is such an apt example of a one-stop-solution application that comes with a variety of features that help users keep one foot forward towards health hazards. But have you ever thought about what goes into making an app like Google Fit? What are the costs like? Let’s plunge deep into the world ruled by health tracking applications, their features, the process of creation, and the factors affecting cost.

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Popularity of Health Tracking Apps

Health tracking apps are extremely popular, and rightfully so. Therefore, to the users, they assist in finding out health metrics, setting fitness goals, and keeping motivated. As projected in Statista, the global health and fitness app market will hit $10.9 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 21.30% from 2020 to 2027. This will be, essentially, due to the growing health awareness.

Key Features of a Health Tracking App:

Developing a health tracking app, there’d be a need to embed several features for general insights into the health of a user. Let’s break down these features: 

• Activity Tracking

Activity tracking is one of the core features of any tracked health app. It should generally record the number of steps taken in a day, distance traveled, and calories burnt. Advanced apps would also track specific exercises like running, cycling, and swimming. These apps show real-time feedback to the user to help in staying motivated toward their fitness goals.

Example: Imagine running in the morning and having your application track your distance, pace, and the number of calories you burn. You can then review your performance and set new goals to improve your fitness.

• Sleep Tracking

One of the most important parts of health would be sleep. There are a lot of health tracking apps that have built-in monitoring of sleep. These apps monitor the sleep of users in patterns, including duration and even quality of the same, providing insights on how to improve sleep habits. With such bound to lead to different health complications, poor sleeping is an important feature.

Example: You wake up feeling groggy and check your app to find out you only had 4 hours of deep sleep. The app then provides tips to improve your sleep hygiene for better rest.

• Nutrition Logging

Another important component of health is nutrition. Nutrition monitoring features allow monitoring of food intake, calories, and balance of macronutrients. Some applications take an extra step and give recommended foods that the users will take based on their diet and goals.

Example: Right after your workout, you log in your breakfast into the app. This will show the total count of calories and nutrients. So if it’s taking less protein content, the app might recommend you to get better in order to help achieve your goal.

Wearable technology, such as smartwatches and health bands, enhances the capability of health tracking apps. They record a user’s heartbeats, steps, sleep, and many more activities, which make the user experience seamless.

Example: Suppose you do any exercise; your smartwatch will note down your heartbeats from that activity and then update your app, which gives you the overall presentation of your performance. 

• Personalized Recommendations

Personalized recommendations are one of the most prominent features that can bring in increased user engagement. Through all the data collected, the application can guide and suggest ways for them to reach their health goals.

Example: The app, having analyzed your activity and nutrition data, recommends increasing your protein intake and suggests some specific exercises to build muscle.

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Factors that Can Impact the Cost

In general, there will be a number of factors that will impact the cost for the development of a health tracking app. These are explained as follows:

Choice of Platform: iOS, Android, or Both

The choice of platforms would matter considerably in developing the overall cost. Creating an app for either iOS, Android, or both requires different skill sets and development platforms.

Conversational Insight: Of course, some of you may wonder which platform to start working on first. It depends on the target audience. If your target audience uses iPhones, then by all means go in that direction. Android, on the other hand, has a bigger global market share, so that may give you a larger base of users.

Design Complexity: UI/UX Design and User Flow

The complexity in the design of the app comes next in terms of estimating the cost. Actually, making the UI and UX seamless and user-friendly is quite a chunk of labor-intensive and time-consuming work. 

Example: Designing an application with a sleek interface, user-friendly, and joyful in tracking all health metrics. This includes making wireframes and prototypes, and it also includes carrying out usability tests to make sure everything flows smoothly. 

Feature Set: Basic vs. Advanced Features

The number and complexity of the features are what, in large part, drive development costs. Basic features include activity tracking, nutrition logging, while advanced ones involve personalized recommendations, integration with wearables.

Conversational Insight: This might be one of those cases where starting with an MVP is justifiable, one including all core features. This way, you can launch faster and then extend it afterward by more advanced features and collect user feedback.

Third-party integration

This comes with integrations of third-party services and APIs instrumental in increasing functionality, adding to the development cost. This list also includes wearable devices, health databases, and other services integration.

Example: You want to make your app synchronize with wearable devices, such as Fitbit or Apple Watch, by getting access to their APIs.

Development Team Location and Expertise

The major factors are the location and the expertise of the development team. Regions differ in rates, and the more experienced the developers are, the higher their rate will be.

Conversational Insight: This might tempt one to fall into the lowest rate, but remember that more highly skilled developers will charge accordingly for high-quality code that gives more reliable output value to your pocket in the future.

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Development Process

Developing a health tracking app involves the SDLC process, which keeps on increasing the cost at each stage. Let’s walk through the development process:

• Market research and planning

This is significant in understanding market audience, competitors, and finally nailing down those key features. This is going to mean running some surveys, conducting a focus group, and carrying out some competitive analysis.

For example, an application used to track health has features that a user requires, which can be shown through a survey. Analytics of the competition, such as Google Fit, is also performed to identify the gap in the market.

• User Interface Design

The design ranges from wireframing and prototyping to the final UI design. It aims to provide a design that is both attractive and user-friendly to provide a good user experience.

Example: Design an interface simple enough so that users can navigate through the app easily to monitor their health metrics. User feedback through usability testing should be implemented to refine the design.

• Backend Development

The backend part of the application consists of the server, database, or logic of the application to be developed to support such an application. The app will be able to do operations on user data, computation on data, and get live updates.

Example: A robust back-end development which is well equipped with the ability to store and process volumes of health data thus supporting an app that is smooth and responsive.

• Incorporating and Testing

Incorporation implies that an app is linked or integrated with third-party services and APIs. Testing can help uncover and eliminate bugs so that the app can run without any problems on any device or platform.

For example, integration of the app with wearable devices and broad testing in order to verify the feature before introducing it. This will involve functional, performance, and user acceptance testing.

• Launch and Support Post-Launch

Finally, the application will be launched into the respective application stores, with customer awareness. Post-release support is actual support to any kind of bugs, updates, or any kind of fresh features depending upon the reviews from the user of the application.

Sample: Making the app ready to be launched with the preparation of its marketing material, including the app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Continuously helping users troubleshoot problems.

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Are there any Hidden Costs involved?

The hidden costs can be service licensing fees for some third-party services, the cost of maintenance, and the cost of marketing. It is important you factor such in your budget to avoid surprises.

Example: licensing fees for the use of popular APIs such as those of Google Fit would add to the development cost. And, of course, maintenance and updates would bring its cost.

Conclusion

If you want your users to be retained and satisfied, you should have a really good health application. An effectively developed application will offer value to its users and set it apart even in a competitive marketplace. If you know the costs involved and select a development partner who can do quality work within your budget, it will help you build an extraordinary health application. Speak with our experts to know about budgeting and development go hand in hand with a health tracking app.

At QWI, we specialize in developing high-quality health-monitoring apps that are tailored to fit your personal needs. Our team of experts ensures that you go through the perfect, seamless development process—from the initial concept design of your app to launching it on iOS, we do it all for you. Talk to us today to get started on your journey towards creating an excellent health-monitoring app.