The World loves to chat, and communication apps such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, WeChat, and many others have revolutionized the way people communicate and remain connected with one another.
About Snapchat
Developed by Stanford University students Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown, Snapchat, or as it is called now Snap Inc., is a mobile messaging app that enables users to share pictures, videos, and stories. Launched in 2011, the app was initially called Pictaboo, the app featured a unique security mechanism where it enables users to capture and send ‘Snaps,’ which are only available to view for a limited duration or until closed by the recipient, post which they are automatically deleted. Initially, the app had the self-destructing functionality only with photos; video capability was added in 2012.
Snapchat, with its unique feature, became so successful, that just one year it was launched, Facebook tried to purchase the app for $3 billion. Snapchat reached seven billion daily video views in January 2016. The company was listed on the stock market exchange in March 2017, priced at $24 per share, and is currently valued at around $20 billion. By the end of June 2020, the company logged 238 million Daily Active Users. Snapchat’s blazing success has inspired many entrepreneurs to build successful apps of its kind.
Features in Snapchat
Snapchat was launched as a simple messaging app with its core functionality of self-destructing messages. Over time, the company added some excellent features to provide more immersive interaction to users to spend more time with the app. Snap has gradually evolved into a mix of private messaging and public content, including brand networks, video-sharing, and live events. The Company has expanded its abilities and has transformed into a multi-entertainment behemoth. Some of its main features are as mentioned below:
Snaps: The core function of Snapchat is its ability to take and send photos and videos that self-destruct in a time limit of 10 seconds, enforced on the recipients viewing the material sent to them by the user. Exchanging self-destructing messages, images, or videos is one of the driving forces behind the app’s popularity. When a user sends a photo or video on the Snapchat app, it gets uploaded on its server. The user receives a notification about the new snap, it gets downloaded to a temporary location on the user’s phone. When the user opens the snap, Snapchat removes the pic or video from the temporary location and notifies the server, destroying the message from the app server. If the user has not viewed the app’s message, it gets automatically deleted after 30 days. The self-destruct feature allows users to share original, possibly even strange content with friends. The increased privacy and security level drives more and more audiences towards using the app. Snapchat also provides many filters, text captions, and drawings for photo/video editing.
Lenses: Snapchat brands itself as a camera company and “Lens” is one of its most exciting features. The lens allows users to add real-time effects such as goofy animations and alter video images using the Active Shape Model to detect a user’s face by marking their facial borders. The company launched this feature after it acquired the start-up Looksery.
Snapchat offers a range of 7 lenses that provides different types of animations for users to choose from. While the types of lenses keep on changing, the number of lenses remains constant. This feature cannot be applied to existing pictures and needs to be activated before taking the picture.
Geofilters: “Geofilters” is a unique graphical overlay available when a user is within a specific geographical area, such as a town, event, or destination. This feature is similar to lenses, but the difference is that Geofilters are only available in distinct locations. The company uses geocoding, a computational process that converts the geographic coordinates into a location description, such as a place’s name. This area is then overlaid on the image in a template.
Adding friends: Besides the standard methods of adding friends via usernames and phone contacts, Snapchat allows additional options to add friends. One of the features the company uses is called Snapcodes. Snapchat has created a personalized QR code located in the Black dots surrounding the Snapchat Ghostface Chilla logo. Users can scan these personalized QR codes to start following other users. This function is enabled by using a recognition algorithm and an algorithm for generating such codes.
Add Nearby: This feature uses the user’s location and looks for other Snapchat users who also have this option open. The app sends the device’s coordinates to the server, and the server compares the geolocations of devices with the Add Nearby screen opened.
Video and audio calls: This functionality was introduced in the later versions of the app, where the users can communicate using audio/video calls made via the app. The unique feature about this functionality is that it allows you to be on a call and send pictures simultaneously. Users can also create small videos and audio clips, or as they call them notes in case the recipient isn’t online, you can send an audio note.
Story: This Stories functionality enables the user to broadcast photo and video content to all followers to view as many times as they would like for 24 hours. As the author of these stories, you can also view users’ profiles that have checked your content. Users can jump straight to their next friend’s Story by swiping left on a Story, and once it finishes, the following Story on the list starts automatically.
This function was later expanded to “Live Stories.” Under this feature, Snapchatters who are at the same event or location (for example, music festivals or sporting events) can contribute Snaps to the same Story. Additionally, you can also decompose the Story into video spots or download them all in a single file.
Discover: This feature helps users to explore Stories from different editorial teams. It is a sort of media catalogue that allows you to access sponsored short-form content from major publishers, such as CNN, BuzzFeed, Mashable, etc. Every edition is refreshed after 24 hours.
Stickers: Stickers have become an integral way of expression in modern communication. Snapchat contains more than 200 stickers in its app and includes various types of stickers such as emoji, timestamp, stickers for the day, etc. The app allows users to create custom stickers such as Bitmoji stickers, which are versions of users in cartoon formats.
Location sharing: This feature allows Snapchat users to share their location with friends or other users, which then appears on the Snap Map. This feature enables users to filter who can view their location, and it also has an option to update when the app is active.
Snapchat AR: In this functionality, Snapchat creates the average face and aligns it with its image powered by a machine learning algorithm. The algorithm then rectifies errors to ensure that the filter matches the user’s face by analyzing the pixel data around the face borders. Snapchat uses these pointers to organize and arrange a mesh, a 3D mask that users can shift and scale with a face.
Snapcash: The latest feature added to Snapchats arsenal is Snapcash, where users can make payments inside the app.
Revenue Model of SnapChat
Snapchat generated a revenue of $454. million in Q2 2020, up from $30 million in 2016. Below is the breakdown of Snapchat’s monetization model:
Advertising: This is the primary revenue source for Snapchat, where the app shows 10-second full-screen video ads based on other snaps.
In-between Snap Ads: Snapchat displays 10-second promotional videos. Users can swipe up and take action based on that, such as watching the full video, install an app, or read a blog post.
Sponsored lenses: In this feature, brands run their promotional ads in videos in the lense feed. In the past, brands such as Michael Kors and Taco Bell have advertised on the platform by creating their own customized lenses.
Partnership: This monetization method can significantly benefit your customers and your business alike, especially if you create an integrated experience – as Snapchat and Shazam did. This partnership allows users to recognize music, engage with Shazam content, and send music as Snaps to their friends. Such a partnership provided Snapchat with more users and a significant revenue source.
Sponsored Geofilters: Depending on the geolocation, users can access fun augmented reality filters that stay available for 30 days. This feature enables businesses to advertise through their own customized lenses that appear in particular locations to promote their brands or events. Snapchat charges for the area’s size and the amount of time the Geofilters is available. The app charges businesses $5 for coverage of 20,000 square feet. McDonald’s was the first brand that applied a branded Geofilters that covered all its restaurants in the United States.
Snap Store: Snap Store exclusively sells Snapchat’s merchandise such as dancing hot dog, emoji Snap streak hat, Winkface sweatshirt, dog lens tee, etc.
Discover The app place promotion content in the Discover section. Snapchat generally charges between $0.10 to $0.15 per view and is estimated to be viewed 500,000 to 1,000,000 times every day.
Sports Partnerships: Under this model, Snapchat partners with sports organizations to promote attendance to sports events. In the recent past, the company has partnered with sport merchandise manufacturers such as Nike and Adidas to promote their products to sports fans. Snapchat charges $400k to $500k for complete exposure to its user base.
In-app purchases: A staple for most of the freemium model apps, Snapchat users can purchase additional features such as Re-play to a feed, such as pictures or videos that the user has already seen.
How to Build an App like Snapchat
In order to develop an app like Snapchat, there are specific steps to be considered.
- Market research to identify competitors
- Identify the target audience and understand their needs
- Build a list of features that you would like to have in the app
- Set up a budget to develop the app
- Select the platform where you would like to develop the app, be it iOS or Android or maybe both
- Recruit a software development agency to develop the app
- Create a marketing strategy to achieve maximum eyeballs
- Release the app and ensure that it is continuously updated to address the changing market dynamics
Tech Stack of Snapchat
- Coding languages: Python, Objective-C, Ruby, JavaScript, and PHP.
- Framework (Full-Stack): Android-SDK, Cocoa Touch(iOS)
- Platform as a Service: Google App Engine
- Messenger app development: Firebase, QuickBlox or Sendbird SDKs
- User location (required for Geofilters or adding nearby friends): Core Location Framework for iOS or the Android SDK Class on Android.
- For video communications: ooVoo SDK or TokBox SDK (also supports audio and text messaging).
- Lenses: Mirror Reality SDK It enables creating real-time video face effects
- Cloud Hosting: Google Compute Engine
- General Analytics: Google Analytics
- Transactional Email: Sendgrid
How Much will it cost to Create a Mobile App like Snapchat?
Developing a basic framework which is standard for most apps would take a considerable time, a detailed breakdown is provided below:
- Business analysis:100 – 1500 hours
- Project management: 150 – 250 hours
- Frontend (iOS): 450 – 550
- Frontend (Android): 450- 550
- Backend development: 600 – 700 hours
- Quality assurance: 120 – 200 hours
- UI/UX (iOS): 200 – 300 hours
- UI/UX (Android): 250 – 350 hours
Apart from this, Snapchat contains some unique features; we have provided a delayed breakdown below:
Feature
- Registration/ login – Up to 125 hours
- Self-destructing messages – 40-50 hours on each platform
- Push notifications – 40 hours
- Adding friends (recognition algorithms and QR code recognition algorithms development) – From 2 hours (depending on complexity)
- Geolocation – 32 hours
- Uploading pictures and videos – 50 – 100 hours
- Video and photo customizing – 60 – 80 hours
- Audio and video calls – 180-220 hours
Altogether, the development of an app like Snapchat from scratch for iOS platform would require around 1200 – 1500 hours and 1500 – 1800 hours for the Android platform.
The development team’s location: Development costs are charged on a per hour basis and varies significantly between location to location. For example, development charge in Central or Western Europe comes in the range of $80 to $120 per hour, while developers in the U.S charge in the band of $70 to $150 per hour. On the other hand, development cost in India ranges from $15 to $40 per hour.
Based on this information, the estimated cost of developing an app like Snapchat will come around $70,00 to $90,00 for an Android app considering the median per hour charge.
Since building an app such as these is an expensive and risky venture, brands look for ways to optimize the budget, and one such area where you can save some money is reusing the code of an existing app. This can reduce the cost of coding by 20-30% compared to developing it from scratch.
If you would like to build your own app like Snapchat, please get in touch. Our company has extensive expertise in developing messaging apps and social networks.