Creating your Mobile App Business Plan

Each mobile app can turn into a business since there are various ways to generate revenues with a mobile app and it will also require to incur ongoing costs to maintain such app. Sources of revenues may include revenues from app installs, subscriptions, in-app purchases or advertising among other. The costs of developing an app can vary from anywhere from USD 2’000 - 20’000 for developing an app or even more for more sophisticated applications. Especially apps with large audiences and which will lead to scaling issues quickly, will require significant investment and management attention.

Therefore, once a pilot of the mobile app is created and traction can be verified, it can be helpful to use that first data to prepare a more solid business plan how the app can be turned into a profitable business. Having a solid Mobile App business plan ready, in most cases is also a “must have” when talking to investors in order to raise financing. 

Such Mobile App business plan should show a bottom up financial plan, which is based on first user data such as number of downloads achieved and expected new app installs over the next months, click-through rates for in-app advertisement, the expected ratio of users deciding between a free and a paid app download and if applicable conversion rates for additional services and subscriptions offered inside the app. Investor also may require a more solid forecast how much it costs to get new app installs in order for them to figure out if the lifetime value of each customer justifies spending money on the acquisition of new customers.

The Mobile App Business Plan depends on the Quality of the Financial Projections

Creating a mobile app business plan gets a lot easier when working with a good financial model template. Such templates offer a comprehensive view of typical financial plans for similar apps and therefore offer a better starting point when creating a mobile app business plan than when starting from scratch. Financial projections should aim to be of the same quality as in such templates in order to be credible when engaging in talks with investors.

Platforms such as eFinancialModels can be consulted for examples of such financial plan templates which can serve as a basis for your mobile app business plan.