“An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure”
The emergence of several fitness mobile apps has led to a revolution of its kind. They not just help in enhancing the fitness level but are also helpful in maintaining a healthy life. So let’s explore in detail what impact these fitness mobile apps development companies have on your health, their significance, and a lot more in detail.
Basics of Health & Fitness Apps
Nowadays, entrepreneurs with a keen interest in the arena of fitness are executing their ideas and are eagerly investing in this huge profit-generating business by developing a fitness mobile app.
As an entrepreneur, start the development process focusing on the practical aspects of the mobile app by collaborating with various gym trainers, dieticians, and fitness experts.
The app should allow customers and experts to register with a very simplified approach. Make the user interface as simple as possible and try to categorize entire sections of fitness and exercises which will be provided by the app, under a drop-down menu.
Categorization of Health & Fitness Mobile App
Let’s explore in detail the numerous categories available in the arena of fitness mobile apps. A business can develop an app that specializes in any of the broad categories of Health & Fitness app development, or create a combination.
Workout/Exercise Apps
These days, people find it tough to take some time out from their busy schedules to visit a gym daily. Hence, fitness and health apps come to their rescue. These apps serve as personal workout trainers. Simply log in to an app and the user gains the information regarding pre-scheduled weight loss regime and other exercises.
Physical Activities Tracking Apps
Well, now it is easy to keep track of the entire physical activities done by a person all along the day. Utilizing the motion sensors present in the user smartphone, and with the help of GPS, the app collects accurate data regarding the number of steps taken, stairs climbed, liquid intake, kilometers run or walked, hours slept, or calories burned.
Yoga Apps
Do you find it tough to learn various yoga postures? Well, the fitness and health apps have made the process of learning very easy for their users by presenting a visual demonstration of a myriad of yoga postures.
Diet Planning Apps
Worried about constant weight gain? Well, the diet planner app has just made the weight loss process easier for you. These apps allow you to keep a track of the user’s calorie and sugar level, food, and water intake, recommend appropriate food items, and a lot more. This way, one can have control over their eating habits.
Market & Growth Stats
No doubt the Fitness planner app development has outreaching its visibility across the globe. If we look at stats of the year 2020 the fitness app market is evaluated as $5.7B, and is expected to go for $25.2B in the year 2028 with a growth rate of 20.15%. This report by Global Health and Fitness market shows that now people are more careful about their health. Whereas, in September 2020, the World Economic Forum has proclaimed that people are more reliant on such apps during the pandemic with the rate of 46%. These health-conscious apps transform the lives of people by resolving human health problems in day-to-day life.
It has been suspected that these apps are more composed with several medical and healthcare solutions to improve the lifestyle quotient of users. This all can be possible by integrating well-suited frameworks to their platforms. Users can adjust between various functionalities like track exercise activities, calorie intake, set specific fitness goals, plan workouts and share on social media, to achieve their goals.
Geographically when we look at the market leaders of this industry then North America is on the top, following Europe and Asia Pacific continents. The top players contributing are Nexercise, Nike, Aaptiv, Fitbod, etc.
Steps to build health and fitness app
Finding the business model by the audience:
It might be a tedious task to choose a few niches from a pool of hundreds and move forward. But to beat your competitors, it’s the only way you can make yourself stand ahead. Plan your needs and figure out that your ideas would bridge the gap of market requirements, if yes then quench your next move following this step. Identifying the correct business model for your business not only leverages your profits but also gives you the reason to cherish your success. There are a lot of options to work with like a fitness app, calorie tracking app, weight loss program app, or daily diet chart app. Take your time before moving to further steps.
Define goals and hand out responsibilities:
Have you ever heard that large companies mark their presence in the world without any goal? Of Course, they would have a goal initially then they have connected with the people who can turn their goals into their commitments. SO basically making a goal is the root of any success. For etching your goal into the wall of success your mind must be clear and focused. In the beginning, you might be confused in planning your goal but a team of experts can help you if you choose them wisely.
From planning the goal to managing the campaigns to launching and future maintenance of your app, there are plenty of responsibilities needed to be fulfilled to create an app. There are three options for you to proceed with your journey:
- If you are an expert, you can go with yourself to achieve your goal.
- Or you can hire a dedicated team of developers who can plan everything for you and you just have to focus on other important things.
- The next option could be to connect with a freelancer or partner who helps you to assist you throughout.
Starting on the right note:
You are moving on the right path or not is crucial to know. And this can be done by performing an overall analysis of the product, fitting it with the user’s needs, and calculating its entire cost. As the owner of your mobile application, it is a must thing to know whether you are on the correct path or not. People trust you and invest their money in your product, then it’s your responsibility to insure them. Add advanced features in your health and fitness mobile app like whole body analysis, lab testing tools, and many more to convert every penny into meaningful function.
Induction of important features:
This is the most important step of the entire process of mobile app development. To turn your business into a brand it is essential to add some of the intrusive features. Try to occupy a win-win situation both for your product and your customer. You need to cover all of the important features relevant to specific panels like the user, admin, and fitness coach.
Monetization Opportunities
The market of health and fitness apps is very rigorous; it allows plenty of opportunities for fitness freaks, and entrepreneurs to enter inside it. But before entering into the pool of market, you must carefully examine the market tactics, previous stats, the flow where it has been growing, and competitor’s strategies to get the high ROI. To get profits, you have to adopt a monetization model which works well for your business niche.
Let us understand one by one about each of them.
Paid Membership:
This is the premium version available for paid customers. This is one of the best models for revenue-generating. In this model, you can add a few advanced features in your app, like personal coach assistant, or training plans including some free plans to get maximum profits. Nowadays, people are more conscious about their health so they will go for your plan if they have found that quality in it.
In-apps advertisements:
This is the best model for eCommerce companies. This model works like on every click by the user, you have got a small penny by Google itself. This model works best when you have much traffic on your mobile app. However, sometimes users get annoyed with the random ads and may switch your app, therefore, you have to be extra careful in ad selection and placement.
Commissions:
There are commission options, you can avail for leveraging your product reach and earning a high commission. Affiliate markets like Amazon, Flipkart give commission to those who promote their products on their platforms. Before promoting something on your platform, take your time and make a detailed analysis of their products that match with your fitness and health niche, and then experiment with your content to insight your customers in a good way.
Freemium Business Model:
As the name suggests, this is the free model. You cannot earn profits in terms of money but yes you can obtain high visibility using this model if you have well-nourished features and services in your app. This model helps you to engage your customers and make them more trustworthy.
Health & Fitness App Market Leaders
The market is crowded by many top players of health and fitness apps, but we have picked the top-3 players whom we trust for monitoring our fitness hacks. Well no doubt, there are various reasons for an individual to stay fit and healthy. Fitness tracker app development companies allow them to utilize their crucial time and quickly get their body stats on their hands.
Google Fit:
It is Google’s product. It is one of the promised apps for fitness and health tracking. Now you can count the steps and track your heart rate and ensure your health. Just start the GPS tracker while using the app, your every step will count by this app and you will earn a point for it. If you cross the limit of certain steps, you will be able to earn a reward. This is such a decent solution for beginners and intermediates who don’t struggle in using complex exercises.
Fitness22:
It is one of the top free fitness tracker apps for Android. It allows you to track your distance, walk or run. It is aligned with a list of various features to calculate the total distance, average distance, run log, pace per kilometer, etc. It has a music option in it, so you don’t feel exhausted during your activity. You can go for advanced features with paid versions.
FitNotes:
FitNotes tracking app is for those who do not want to indulge in heavy functional apps. It is a very basic yet feature-centric app for fitness enthusiasts to keep an eye on their regular activities without investing a penny. Features like cardio, bodybuilding, running, are cool and basic needs for individuals. The calendar feature helps you to mark important dates and can create custom exercise routines. Cloud storage delimits the storage capacity.
Health & Fitness Apps – Basic Features
Choosing the right features in the app is most crucial. So, here we present some important features which a fitness app must have.
User Panel:
Registration: Once the user has successfully installed the app, it’s time to register via Facebook, e-mail, or by generating OTP on the mobile number.
Edit user profile with personal information: Once registered, now users need to fill in their profile details, which comprise a name, age, sex, weight, height, and other crucial info. This way the app will know the user’s present physical state.
Social Integration: Offer the choice to users to link up the app with their social media apps so that they can share their daily progress and achievements with family and friends if desired.
Option to set several goals: Not just pre-set fitness goals, but the app also allows the users to set their own personalized goals and tasks that can be attained within a stipulated time frame.
Save user statistics: The apps using the cloud sync feature, to save the user statistics in a journal. Any progress is tracked using this.
Preset schedule: Based on the details filled in by the user, several workout plans are pre-scheduled. There will be a visual demonstration of the exercises to allow the user to perform exercises with proper posture.
Geolocation integration: For real-time tracking, the app needs to have permission to use the GPS. The user can gather accurate info of the steps, km, and the number of sleeping hours, with the help of the geolocation integration feature.
Payment Integration: Several services are offered free of cost, still there are specific premium features that are enjoyed by the users, by paying for monthly subscriptions via Debit/Credit cards, NetBanking, eWallets options.
Push Notification to Display Results: Push notifications are integrated to get notified about daily, weekly and monthly achievements. Users can also share their accomplishments on social networking sites.
Admin Panel:
As an entrepreneur, to develop an app you need to join hands with a few gym experts, fitness supplement and equipment suppliers, and dieticians. Thus, the app will be able to offer live updates & execute live sessions with app users and fitness professionals. This process requires the registration and login process from the app itself.
Dashboard: Once logged in, the clients are directed to the app dashboard, where the record of the live sessions are tracked and stored. The admin can grab an idea about the orders which users placed for several supplements or gym equipment, along with the delivery date.
Account section: This is the section where users can find information regarding customer reviews, past deliveries, and user-account balance.
Payment section: Here, the clients are offered a choice to make the payments to the Gym trainers, gym-owners, and other fitness individuals using a specific wallet app or they can even transfer the money directly to a bank as well.
Marketing & Promotion Tools: The best way to market these apps is through referral programs, cashback, or loyalty programs. Various other marketing ways like push notifications, Social Sharing, Retargeting, etc. are enabled by the admin
For Fitness Coach:
Fitness Charts: Fitness coaches prepare a whole fitness chart for their users according to their condition.
Personalized nutrition plans: As a fitness coach, you must monitor the health and fitness of your users and plan a personalized nutrition plan according to that. You must consider their BMI, lifestyle, and other parameters for accurate plans.
Calculate BMI: Body Mass Index (BMI) is the brief analysis of the body to predict the curial things of the body.
Calorie Counter: Using this feature for workout planner app development you can calculate the calorie intake of your users and limit or increase their calories as per need.
Diet Chart: Prepare a customized diet chart for the individual trainees as per their weight and height, to achieve their targets with the fitness app. Prepare a weekly chart for them in such a way that they feel more energetic and motivated.
Water Intake: This feature allows the coach to find the amount of water required for their trainees and notify them as per the fixed duration and goals.
Required Team Structure for Health & Fitness App Development:
When developing a remarkable mobile application, one requires a mobile app team, consisting of designers, developers, testers. It is crucial to have a set of potential candidates, whom you must evaluate on a timely basis. The key personnel that you need to hire for the app development are:
- Project Manager: An expert in the arena with immense knowledge and great managerial skills, who can execute deep market study and recommend the best things that can be done.
- Designers: It is crucial to have an app that can appeal to the users, hence app designers come in handy here. Hire a team of expert UX/UI designers who can make a brilliant choice of colors, elements, background, etc.
- Developers: The team must have Android and iOS app developers, guided by the project managers. It is crucial to have a conversion with your app developers, so they offer technical support and readily update the app, in case of bug-fixing required.
- Quality Analysts: Hiring quality analysts is most important to find flaws in your app if any present. Only when the app is well-tested and certified by the testers, it processed for launching.
Tech Stack for Health & Fitness App Development:
To build an amazing app there are multiple functions and tools are intrigued inside it. Several features work individually to enhance the functionality of the app. API’s like Luno API, Runscope API, Google Fitness API, Health Graph, Starve, Jawbone UP, encompasses tools like BMI calculator, FoodSpex, etc. All of the tools and APIs are worked in the backend.
The hardware required for giving the suitable interface between app functionality are Gyroscopes, Ambient light sensors, Barometer and Accelerometer, etc.
Apart from hardware, tools, and APIs, there are a few of the frameworks used to build an advanced level of the app. Languages like Python, Java, HTML, CSS, React, Android SDK, Spring Frameworks are required to build the app, for cloud hosting IBM Softlayer is used.
Some of the other tech stacks are:
- For project management use Confluence.
- For tracking any error in between use JIRA.
- For performance monitoring use Relic.
- For code collaboration, you can use GitHub.
- Finally, for the help desk, you can use HipChat.
Time and Cost of Health & Fitness App Development:
The time duration to develop an app depends mainly on the app size and its complexity, and it can be anything from two to four months. Meanwhile, the cost also depends on the two mentioned factors, along with one other factor, i.e. the number of platforms on which you want to run your app and the region of the development center. Below are the different hourly charges for particular regions:
- $50 to $250 per hour for U.S. based developers
- $30 to $150 per hour for Singapore based developers
- $10 to $80 per hour for India-based developers
Here, below we present the basic estimate of time duration and cost to develop an average app with average features for the Android platform with India being the development center.
- Technical documentation may require 40 hours of work ($1000 to $2000)
- UI/UX designers may take up 60 hours ($1500 to $3000)
- Front-end and Back-end development require around 400 hours ($10,000 to $20,000)
- MVP testing may take up to 80 hours ($2000 to $4000)
- Bug fixing and Polishing may need 40 hours ($1000 to $2000)
Hence, upon adding the entire cost, an average app may cost somewhere around $15,000 to $30,000 for a single platform (either Android or iOS). If you choose to have a cross-platform app or if you want to add more features, then it may rake the cost up to $50,000. However, spending that much sum of money certainly assures that your app will make a mark.
Why Choose Octal for Health & Fitness App Development?
No doubt, there are several health domain companies in the market, who are eagerly waiting to accomplish your goals. But wait, are they reliable? Don’t jump to approach any company before doing a keen analysis from your side. A good company helps you to attain maximum reach for your application, while a bad one ends up frustrating and diminishes your brand. We suggest you choose an offshore company like Octal Info Solution, which has had vast result-driven applications in the past. They are the leaders to find the needs of the audience and employ them in their products.
You have to identify the company’s recent projects, their revenue models, cost optimization techniques, whether they are well communicated, and last but not least modes of payment on their platform to suit your comfort.
Conclusion:
Health fitness app development companies are widely spread in the market, which prevails opportunities for businesses and brands to channel their reach. In this blog, we have explained the basics of a health and fitness app, its market leaders, revenue generation models, what features to embody inside the app, what will be the final cost and time required to deter a great app.
If you allow us to turn your app idea into a valuable product then, we guarantee you that you will cherish your journey with us.
