I'm not a programmer, so I have very little idea of how much it costs to, for example, write the code for a website or app. Suppose I wanted to hire someone to design a very simple, secure, and easy to use app - how much should I expect to pay in terms of time and money? To work with a concrete and timely example, suppose I wanted an app that would do the following:
- Let people enter the minimal amount of information (or use a series of questions) to help them figure out which phase of Covid vaccination they qualify for in their region (e.g. age, occupation, pre-existing conditions, etc.)
- Connect them to the correct website(s) for them to schedule an appointment if they are qualified, or give an estimated timeframe for when people in their phase might be able to get vaccinated.
- Allow for notifications, appointment reminders, updates if the rules in their region have been changed and what they need to do instead, etc.
Note that I'm not suggesting that such an app would make much of a dent in the logistical nightmare that is our healthcare and political systems. I'm using it as a hopefully easy to understand example of the level of complexity I'm thinking about.
As a follow up, how much additional cost would be needed to process payments through an app? (Again, not thinking of this in terms of the vaccine example app, but asking about apps in general).
And finally, if I did want to eventually hire someone to write an app, what would be the best way to go about it? Would people in this community be willing to help?
This is a hard question and software people will typically not want to be pinned-down on specifics without consulting with you extensively, because the depth of requirements for software projects vary dramatically. You're asking for very little functionality (which is great!) but the bulk of costs of software construction are not in the core functionality, they are in polish, bug-fixing and edge-case handling, which you included in your requirements ("simple, secure, and easy to use") but would need to be a lot more specific about, in order to get a result you'd be happy with. It's really hard to give these kinds of estimates without those conversations.
To just satisfy the requirements, I could imagine doing the non-payment-processing version very cheaply using Typeform or another "survey builder" for the UI, and a simple backend that just pulls the results out of Typeform and sends notifications. I could imagine throwing a prototype for this together in a few days of time for someone like me (so less than a few thousand $) but it would probably not work well, be reliable, etc. at that level of polish. Also, few freelance developers of quality will take on a project like this at that price point, because they have "seen it all before" and know that the edge cases and polish are likely going to result in a 10x cost inflation at a minimum.
Payment processing increases the cost a bunch because it adds new requirements for security, ease of understanding & debuggability, etc. You can often outsource the actual UI for it to e.g. Stripe Checkout though so it may not make a huge impact.
I don't think you've given enough information to answer "what would be the best way to go about it?" For example it sounds like you need software help, but you might also need graphic design help, product design/UX help, etc. For software help I know that freelance developers will bid on your projects on various sites (I'm not familiar with which sites are currently considered reputable and I haven't done this myself so I don't know how hard it is to figure out which bidders are any good). But it's unlikely you'll produce a "simple, secure and easy to use" product without getting help in other domains as well. It is sometimes possible to convince people to work with you for free if they like your idea (and you).
Totally agree. But remember - the vaccine app isn't my real idea. It's the idea I came up with to use as an example after 5 minutes of thought :)
I really appreciate all your comments and taking the time to engage with this. They're helping me think about the actual idea I have in mind much more clearly and in more detail. Thank you!