Do You Need an App, or Just a Better Website?

We turn down app projects fairly often. Usually because the client will get everything they want from a good website, for a fraction of the money.

The test

Answer honestly.

Will the same person use it more than once a week? If not, you do not need an app. Nobody keeps an app they open twice a year.

Do you need something only a phone can do? Camera, location, notifications, working with no signal. If none of those matter, a website does the job.

Can people find you by searching? Websites appear on Google. Apps do not. If new customers find you by searching, an app cannot replace your site.

Will people install it? This is the hard one. Getting somebody to install an app is far harder than getting them to open a link. You need a strong reason.

If you answered no to most of these, build a very good website instead and spend the difference on getting people to it.

When an app is right, Staff using it every day for their work, Customers ordering repeatedly, like food or transport, Anything needing notifications to work, Anything needing to work with no signal, Anything where the camera or location is central

The middle option most people miss

A modern website can be saved to a phone's home screen, send notifications and work offline. It opens like an app, but people find it on Google and nobody has to install anything from a store.

For a lot of businesses this is the right answer, and it costs far less than two native apps.

If you do need the real thing, what an app costs has honest numbers.