How Much Does it Cost to Make a Live Streaming App?

0
675

Share on LinkedIn

Livestreaming is becoming more popular as we go into the future. It is almost looking like the future of TV and video watching will entirely switch to live streaming apps if this trend continues. As an existing or potential app developer, this area would be of great concern to you. Read along for some insights into live streaming app development cost.

What Goes Into Live Video Streaming App Development

Understanding how to create a live streaming app is essential in estimating the cost implications. The amount of disk space that you create on your server and the user’s interface determines the video speed and clarity that you will be streaming. There are special compression programs that you can install on your side and on the transmission side to uncompress the viewers’ images to watch.

When choosing an appropriate compression and decompression program, the cost will depend on the type of video you want to stream and screen resolution specs. These factors will require a corresponding amount of memory space, which will affect the cost in the end.

The following factors also inform the development process:

• Types of gadget you intend your app to work with- Android, iOS, or Web Applications
• Internet bandwidth requirements
• Need to maintain an effective streaming performance

How to Create a Live Streaming App

To create live-streaming apps that pay you, you need to decide the type of app you envision. Is it a live broadcasting app, audio streaming, or video-on-demand streaming? This determination will then guide you in the next live video streaming app development steps. The steps will include deciding your target audience, choosing a hosting platform, and deciding the revenue-generating strategy, among other critical steps.

The hosting platform will provide you with an appropriate tool for developing software. The tool provides you with an appropriate software development kit that helps feed commands that will create your app. You can choose several platforms, and most of them have user instructions that should make your experience hassle-free.

Once you have selected your video streaming host online, you can now download the software development kit for both iOs and Android. The platform should be able to guide you accordingly. Once you are through with the downloading, you can now proceed with app development.

The hosting platform will help you in using SDK (software development kit) and API code to integrate in your app.

Live streaming Cost Calculator

Live streaming hosts may have free trials for the first month, after which they start billing according to the plan that you choose. Your plan will depend on your business types and strategies that affect affordability. Still, other hosts may demand payment for a few months upfront and later start deductions only after the expiry of the period you have paid.

They may also offer different plans with graduated costs and graduated improvement on features. Simpler plans have limited features while higher plans have more advanced features. The advanced features will cost the most.

Still, other issues may affect your live streaming cost calculator. They include storage costs, which the host may charge you over the bandwidth subscription on a monthly and annual basis. Some hosts may charge only a few cents for every gigabyte of memory space, for instance, $0.20 for every one GB.

How Much Does Live streaming Cost in Estimation?

It is not easy to quote the exact cost of live streaming here, but it is possible to give near-perfect estimates. To get the correct estimate, you need to put into consideration your projected production quality and goals. The lower the quality, the lower the cost, but that may end up curtailing the realization of some of your live streaming goals.

Quality in video production is not negotiable if you want your live streaming campaign to impress customers and improve your business. Good quality streaming works in resolutions of 1080p and above. The best quality is in 4K HD format, which is also very costly.

It will help if you prepare yourself to pay extra costs to improve your live streaming production quality. Besides, the type of equipment that you use in capturing images for streaming affects the quality. Investing in advanced equipment is the surest way to achieve high-quality production.

So how much does live streaming cost in the real sense? We have seen that it depends on many factors and you can choose to work with a lower, medium, or high budget. However, we can work with some estimation. For instance, if your production goals target a minimum of 100 viewers with an average of one hour viewing time for each of them, you may need around 11MB for every hour of high-quality streaming.

This estimation translates to around 1.1 GB of memory, assuming each user views at least once per day. At the end of the month, the usage will go to about 33 GB.
Development host companies have varying levels of charges depending on the location of your viewers. For instance, app development costs in the US may vary from $100 to $150 for every hour. This cost may go down to around $20-50 in other parts of the world.

Live streaming app development cost depends on many factors that you must consider when developing a live streaming app. The process of live streaming app development may seem easy as long as you have access to an app-creating platform. However, it would be best if you work with professionals for the best results. Hire mobile app developers to do the work for you at the right cost and give you the best instructions for working with your app.

Amit Tiwari
Amit Tiwari is a expert leading marketing strategy and analytics at OTS & JumpGrowth. He is an inspirator and gives strategic advice to help companies better understand the world of conversations, social media and digital marketing.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here