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Blog Summary:
This blog explains the cost of building a fintech app. Apart from factors that affect development costs, we explain the reasons to invest in the app, including its feature list, maintenance costs, development process, and additional expenses.
Table of Content
In today’s fast-growing digital world, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) has revolutionized the way consumers shop online with interest-free installment options. It enhances both convenience and affordability, while also providing a seamless online shopping experience.
As a result, the BNPL market has received a significant boost and is expected to reach approximately $560 billion by 2025, growing at a 13.7% year-over-year rate, according to Fintech Futures. The stat reflects the widespread adoption of this app across multiple industries and demographics. This explosive growth of BNPL has led to the emergence of leading market players, such as Zip.
As a leading Australian fintech brand, Zip serves customers from various countries and generates substantial revenue. Building a BNPL app like Zip gives businesses the opportunity to tap into the fast-growing BNPL market. However, the most common concern among them is the cost to build app like Zip.
In this post, we provide comprehensive information regarding its development cost, allowing you to calculate the cost for your project accordingly.
The BNPL industry has experienced rapid growth. Zip, a leading BNPL player, boasts millions of active users across multiple countries, processing hundreds of millions of transactions annually. Let’s explore impressive stats.
As the BNPL market is booming rapidly, investing in apps like Zip presents numerous growth opportunities. It helps you attract more customers, driven by the fast-growing demand for flexible payment options. Let’s explore all these benefits in-depth.
The BNPL industry experiences a significant surge as consumers seek the best option over traditional payment methods. This app meets the consumer demand with interest-free installment options for day-to-day purchases. Following the pandemic, BNPL has gained widespread acceptance, particularly among budget-conscious shoppers, for allowing them to manage their expenses without incurring high-interest debt.
Whether online or offline retailers, they often seek BNPL providers to improve average order values and conversion rates. With the integration of apps at checkout, merchants can offer customers greater flexibility in payment options. It results in fewer abandoned carts and also an increased sales volume. These partnerships span multiple industries, including fashion, healthcare, and more.
Zip-like apps are not only consumer-friendly but are also apt for scalable and sustainable revenue models. The app generates revenue in multiple ways, including premium membership plans, late payment charges, merchant fees, value-free, value-added services, and more.
Additionally, you can utilize its transaction data to identify revenue-generating opportunities through cross-selling financial products. These mainly include personal loans or insurance loans.
The BNPL app serves more than just as a payment tool. They are customer retention engines. Users return more for more transactions when they find the service helps them buy products affordably. Whether it’s low or zero interest, transparent repayment schedules, and personalized spending recommendations, these improvements enhance trust and reliability.
Maintaining an app like Zip involves ongoing costs for various tasks, including updates, cloud infrastructure, server hosting, security compliance, and more. We present the cost in a table.
| Components | Estimated Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Server and Cloud Infrastructure | $1,000 to $5,000+ |
| Feature Enhancements | $2,000 to $10,000 |
| Bug Fixes and Performance Tuning | $500 to $2,000 |
| Security and Compliance Monitoring | $1,000 to $4,000 |
| Third-Party API Subscription | $500 to $3,000 |
Scalability and uptime are crucial, as any downtime, especially during peak shopping hours, results in a loss of customer trust and revenue. Many leading cloud service providers offer a flexible infrastructure with load balancing, auto-scaling, disaster recovery, and more. Costs tend to scale with storage traffic and other factors.
Regular updates may integrate with new merchants, which incur additional costs for advanced SaaS app feature development, such as AI-based spending insights, biometric login, and adjusting repayment terms, among others. Apart from regulations, user feedback also plays a vital role in guiding improvements, whether it be enhancing the checkout experience or providing various installment options.
Your app may encounter issues such as lag during checkout, failed transactions, and payment gateway errors. These lead to frustrated users, who are compelled to avoid accessing your app. Ongoing maintenance encompasses various activities, including regular code audits, real-time performance monitoring, prompt issue resolution, and more.
When creating an app like Zip, you must implement PCI-DSS for secure payment processing, GDPR for data privacy compliance, and relevant fintech-based regulations. It is essential to note that continuous security monitoring plays a crucial role in detecting and preventing fraud attempts, phishing attacks, and account takeovers.
So, it’s compulsory to update the following important features regularly;
We handle your projects strategically and let you grab multiple revenue streams. We create flexible payment systems to drive your business growth.
The overall cost of developing a fintech app like the Zip app depends on multiple factors, including the selected platform and the technologies used. Let’s have a detailed look at some of these factors to find the answer to the question, How much does a Zip app cost?
When you develop an app separately on platforms like iOS or Android, it maximizes both workloads and cost. Meanwhile, you can minimize the development cost by leveraging frameworks like React Native or Flutter. These help you build an app on both platforms by using a single codebase. It minimizes your overall development time and cost.
When designing an app like Zip, it’s essential to ensure a clean financial interface that reflects key features such as payment schedules, spending limits, outstanding balances, and more. It should also include repayment timelines, credit summaries, and other relevant details.
Therefore, it is essential to keep in mind that the app design costs that can affect UI/UX factors, such as micro-interactions, animations, and custom designs, can often increase costs.
The location of your development partner can impact the development cost of your app. When you hire developers from countries like Australia, the US, the UK, and others, they charge a range of $70 to $150 per hour. Besides, offshore teams from Eastern Europe, Indian, Southeast Asia, and others charge only approximately $20 to $70.
Team size or team composition directly impacts both budget and development time. A small team composition includes a limited number of professionals. So, you need to spend less. On the other hand, a larger team comprises more professionals and thus requires a greater investment.
A general team composition for Zip-like app development includes the following:;
Your selection of tech tools also significantly impacts expenses. Advanced tools are available for a subscription or licensing cost. Meanwhile, they can also reduce several scaling challenges and maintenance costs. For app development, you need the following tools and frameworks;
We are aware of the importance of app maintenance in ensuring optimal performance and keeping the app up to date with the latest changes. Meanwhile, you need to understand that maintenance is a recurring cost that you must pay for ongoing updates, version upgrades, and other related expenses.
To become successful, your BNPL app requires a perfect combination of features to deliver the finest user experience. We will discuss the must-have features you can consider integrating while developing a similar app.
User registration is the onboarding process that also defines the user experience. Ensure your app meets the following criteria to attract more users.
Since the BNPL app offers short-term credit, it becomes quite necessary to address the following risks;
Ensure your app provides a seamless checkout experience to maximize its adoption rate. It should include the following important features;
Dynamic spend control is necessary for complete protection of financial safety for BNPL service providers and users. It should include;
Your app should include a real-time transaction monitoring feature. It should notify users about every transaction in real-time and make them aware of various fraudulent activities. The app should include;
A well-designed repayment system is crucial for minimizing defaults and enhancing user satisfaction. Besides, it should be accompanied by the following features;
A robust analytics dashboard is essential for both administrators and users. It should be available with a custom filter option to allow users to filter everything based on merchant, data range, currency, transaction type, and other relevant criteria.
Besides, an analytics dashboard should also provide necessary graphs and charts for easy understanding.
In case you target users from abroad, you should integrate multi-currency flexibility and also international support to your app The following are features that are must-haves for your app;
Your BNPL app can be successful only when merchants can join easily and manage their offerings better. The panel should be available with the following features;
To develop and maintain trust in financial services, an app should offer a robust customer support chatbot to resolve customers’ issues quickly. It should also promote immense satisfaction. A successful app like Zip comes with the following customer support features;
The development of an app similar to Zip needs a perfect blend of strategic approach, proven strategy, and next-generation technologies. The entire process consists of multiple steps. Let’s go through all those steps to understand how to create a BNPL app like Zip.
The app development process involves gathering details about the preferred payment methods, spending habits, and pain points of your target audience. You need to spend adequate time researching the BNPL market trends, related apps, features, user requirements, and other relevant aspects.
You should also focus on the compliance needs of your target regions, as BNPL services must align perfectly with regulations, including consumer credit laws and PCI-DSS.
The next step is to select the best platform for app development, whether it’s iOS, Android, or both. The choice depends on budget and audience demographics. Native apps are apt for improved performance and security, whereas cross-platform frameworks save both time and development costs.
The BNPL app generates revenue through various means, including late payment charges, merchant fees, and premium features. You should opt for a monetization model that strikes a balance between profitability and user satisfaction. For instance, Zip generates the maximum revenue from merchant commissions while ensuring the customer fee is lower.
This step involves hiring a BNPL app development company that can effectively bring your app development idea to life. While hiring them, you should not forget to check;
Testing is essential, especially for a BNPL app like Zip, as it handles sensitive user data and financial transactions. Therefore, it’s essential to strategize your app testing effectively and conduct multiple types of app testing.
Once you have found that your app is bug-free, you need to submit it to the Google Play Store (for Android) and the Apple App Store for financial apps. It includes repayment conditions, clear disclosures, data usage policies, and other relevant details.
Once you make your app live, you need to market it with the help of influencer collaborations, targeted digital marketing, merchant partnerships, and more. You can leverage various analytics tools to track KPIs, including active users, user acquisition rate, repayment compliance, and more.
We create and launch your app with a holistic approach to ensure the success of your project. We deliver solutions to drive your business growth in the fintech industry.
The development cost mainly depends on the type and complexity of the app you wish to develop. We discuss the following important types of apps and their development cost.
A basic app similar to Zip focuses primarily on core BNPL features, including KYC, user registration, loan application, repayment scheduling, and more. You need to target only a single platform, be it iOS or Android, with standard UI components. It’s best for the startup testing market.
The mid-tier version is designed for multi-platform deployment, featuring a custom UI/UX, vendor onboarding, integrated essential notifications, limited analytics, and additional capabilities. This version requires a higher backend infrastructure to handle different user segments.
A high-end version of the app includes numerous features, such as global payment gateway integrations, advanced analytics dashboards, multi-currency support, compliance, loyalty programs, and more, in accordance with global regulations. It’s developed for higher scalability and supports huge transaction volumes.
Apart from the actual development cost, you will also come across some hidden costs. Let’s find out these details in-depth.
BNPL apps include bank account verification, payments, credit scoring, and more. Additionally, services such as Stripe and Plaid charge usage-based fees. It scales in proportion to the growth of your customer base. It relies mainly on transaction volumes.
To run your BNPL app successfully, you must ensure it complies with local financial regulations, particularly those applicable to your target location. It involves several things, including data protection certifications, fintech licenses, and legal consultations.
These are necessary for creating a privacy policy, terms of service, lending agreements, and other similar documents. So, its cost varies extensively. For startups, apps may spend approximately $5,000 to $15,000, whereas enterprise-level compliance tends to increase $50,000 yearly.
Whether you submit your app to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, you need to pay charges for hosting. For Apple, you need to pay $99/year for the developer program fee. On the other hand, Google charges $25 only for a one-time fee.
The integration of customer support tools, such as helpdesk software, AI-driven chatbots, and CRM platforms, also incurs additional costs. Its cost ranges from $60 to $500 per month. It also depends on both user volume and features.
With over 16 years of experience in fintech software development, Moon Technolabs delivers scalable and secure applications that comply with regulations. We have a proven track record of serving clients from multiple industries in over 30 countries. We blend agile methodology with transparent pricing for risk-free and fast delivery.
From idea gathering and designing to development and deployment, we provide end-to-end app development services. We are a one-stop destination to create a BNPL app like Zip, whether you are a startup or an enterprise.
Explore our BNPL App Development Services
So, you may have already found the answer to the question, ‘How much does a Zip app cost?’ Developing an app similar to Zip is decisive in today’s fast-growing fintech sector. With flexible payments and increasing customer demand, these apps promise to form brand loyalty and scalable revenue.
The development cost of this app starts at $60,000 and can range up to $250,000. It depends on several factors, which we already discussed. Get in touch with us to share your app development ideas and know the actual cost of your project.
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Jayanti Katariya is the CEO of Moon Technolabs, a fast-growing IT solutions provider, with 18+ years of experience in the industry. Passionate about developing creative apps from a young age, he pursued an engineering degree to further this interest. Under his leadership, Moon Technolabs has helped numerous brands establish their online presence and he has also launched an invoicing software that assists businesses to streamline their financial operations.
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