Do you use a fitness app on your smartphone? We are not surprised if you do. Since the Apple Watch fitness boom in 2015, people are more conscious of their health and body form. Fitness apps continue to grow.
Want to create a fitness application and gain market share? You are on the right track to success. This article will teach you how to develop a fitness application, the different monetization methods, and the costs of developing a fitness application.
Fitness App Industry Perspectives
- Fitness App 2019 Global market net worth of US$ 14.7 billion forecast by 2026. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 23% during the forecast period.
- A Statista report states that the Fitness segment revenue is US$16.857m for 2019.
- The market is expected to grow at a rate of 5.0% per year (CAGR 2019-2023), resulting in US$20.499.9m by 2023.
- Revenue is expected to grow at a rate of 7.2% per year (CAGR 2019-2023), resulting a in US$3,072m market volume by 2023.
How to develop your fitness app in 4 easy steps
Step 1: Choose the monetization model.
Choose the monetization method you prefer: paid apps, in-app purchases, freemium, or sponsored content.
Step 2: Consider basic fitness app features.
The basic features of a fitness application include User profiles, Notifications, and Social Sharing.
Step 3: Hire a development team
You will need to hire mobile developers to help you turn your idea into an app.
Step 4: Workout application development
You will need three developers to launch an Android or iOS app. These include iOS and Android app developers, as well as backend developers.
Types of fitness apps
You need to select the type of fitness app before you can create it. Fitness apps offer their users a variety of features, including tracking results, motivating them to continue, socializing and even educating themselves on the subject. You can have your coach at your fingertips.
Fit apps can be classified into three different types based on their performance.
- Apps for tracking activity
- Apps for diet and nutrition
- Exercise and workout apps
Look at them one by one.
Apps for tracking activity
These apps can keep track of a person’s daily physical activity, which is pretty much anything they do. Apps that track activity collect information from users about their steps, stairs climbed and slept hours, distance run and speed, calories burnt, and more.
Apps can show the user data and save routes and charts on the map. They also track the user’s progress.
HealthKit, for example, stores and manages data such as:
- Body measurements/weight histories
- Distance traveled/number of steps
- Calories burned
- Favorite sports and activities
- Exercise duration
Apps for diet and nutrition
Diet and nutrition applications help users track their eating habits, monitor water balance, weight, and body mass, etc. Users can create shopping lists, set goals, and collect recipes with a wide range of diet apps.
You may also find that they have some features to engage users, such as scoreboards or slimming contests. Diet and Nutrition apps are also considered activity-tracking apps, as they track your nutritional habits. They have more specific features.
MyFitnessPal is a mobile app that has many features.
Diet Tracker: The application gives users access to an enormous database of foods, as well as a target number of calories based on age, gender, and weight.
Community: The MyFitnessPal Forum allows users to share advice and build relationships by sharing their personal experiences.
Calorie Counter: MyFitnessPal members have an online diary that includes a calorie count. The app also saves and makes it easy to locate favorite foods and snacks.
Overall, users use diet apps to stick to their diets, track calories, and control water and coffee consumption.
You should offer users detailed daily statistics in your nutrition and diet app. Apps should encourage users to achieve their goals.
Workout Apps
You can have a personal trainer with a workout app on your smartphone. It can exercise anywhere with this trainer. You can sometimes choose a trainer by their name or level of training. This is the case with the Abs Workout App.
Sworkit is a good example of this.
Different programs: The user can select which part of their body they would like to exercise first. There are several options, including “Full Body,””Upper Body,””Core Strength,”, “Lower Body,”, “Anything Goes,” and “Custom Workout.”
Timer: You can set the duration of the exercises for either the strength option or “Yoga, Cardio & More”. The default is five minutes. You can also pause the workout, skip exercises and change sound settings on the screen.
Social sharing: The app lets users invite their friends to challenge them after they have completed their training by posting on Facebook or Twitter.
How to make a fitness application: a step-by-step tutorial
Follow the steps below to make your fitness app idea a reality.
1) Select the monetization method
How can you make your fitness app profitable?
There are many ways to make money. You can choose between the following options for your future business:
Apps that are paid:
Users should purchase your app before using it. App prices may vary depending on your application, mobile platform, and content.
In-app purchases:
You can make your fitness app profitable by encouraging users to purchase something within the app. You can offer a variety of in-app purchase options, ranging from premium content and healthy diet recipes to ad-free versions.
Freemium:
Your users will receive the basic features of your app for free, but you’ll have to charge for premium features. This business model is sometimes called a subscription model. Basic features are offered for free and paid services such as personal coaching or advanced fitness plans.
Ads:
Ads. You can charge either a commission based on cost per click or cost per mile.
Sponsored content:
This business model involves partnering with fitness professionals and gyms. Your partners will be able to distribute valuable content and add their expertise to your app.
2) Apps that offer basic fitness features
Although each fitness app is unique, they all share some common features. Consider the following fitness apps ideas to create your app:
User profiles:
Apps for nutrition are designed to help users reach their goals. This includes healthy eating, weight loss, or weight gain. It is, therefore, necessary to create an account with personal information where users can update and enter their physical characteristics, such as weight, age, height, and current weight.
Notifications:
Notifications are in-app to remind users of workouts and continuously motivate them. It will set up a personal goal or a workout plan and inform users of the upcoming exercise.
Track your physical activity:
Apple’s HealthKit or Google Fit APIs make it easy to connect your app with a smartphone sensor to implement the tracking feature.
Social sharing:
Your users will love to share and connect.
Geolocation:
By looking at the map and seeing how many kilometers you have run, walked, or cycled gives you an enormous boost in motivation.
3) Hire a development team
You will need a mobile app development team to transform your business idea into an actual fitness app. Consider that developers in different countries charge different rates per hour.
Developers in the US and Australia typically charge $110/hour.
Western Europe starting at $80/hour
Eastern Europe starting at $50/hour
4) Inception phase
Each development project begins with the discovery phase. You and your team will do the following:
Define your scope of work for your project
Create a project plan
Budget the MVP and plan resources
The discovery phase can take several weeks. This phase includes the development of a functional specification, UX/UI design, and visual prototyping of your app.
5) Technical Documentation
A technical writer prepares the technical specifications of a fitness application based on client requirements. This includes all the information needed by the fitness app developer, such as use cases, platforms, and other relevant details.
6) You can also Design Your Own
The design team at our company needs about two months (160 hours), to produce a great design for the fitness application – including both UX and UI elements. The cost of creating your fitness app design depends on what you need. You may only require standard features or you may also want custom micro-interactions.
7) Workout application development
You will need three developers to launch an Android or iOS app. These include iOS and Android app developers, as well as backend developers.
8) Quality Assurance
Another chunk of development time is spent on testing and bug fixes. QA engineers not only check the code for errors but also test the user experience and whether the features are working as expected.
How much does it take to create a fitness application?
Without clear terms of reference, it is difficult to estimate the cost of developing a fitness-tracking app. The cost of building a fitness application depends on its type and complexity.
What you should know about fitness apps:
- The cost of developing a fitness app depends on time and the number of developers.
- The average time to develop a fitness application (without the initial phase) is 4 months.
- The project timeline depends on many factors including the platform targeted (iOS or Android), the features of the app, and the type and size of the app.
Takeaway
It can be a difficult task to develop a fitness application. Now that you have learned how to create a fitness application, it should be easier to estimate the costs of your idea.
Here are a few points to consider:
- You should choose a solution that has the best fitness apps, including features like a personal account, goal setting, tracking of actual activity, and social elements.
- Apps can provide a feature for creating custom workout plans.
- Collaboration with as many wearable manufacturers as possible is a great idea (and cost-efficient).
- Allow them to compete or compare themselves with others.
Consider gamification when building a fitness application to motivate users to download and share your app with their friends.
We recommend that you start your ambitious fitness app project by creating an MVP (Minimum Visible Product) for the app. This method allows you to test your idea and save money without wasting a lot of resources.
