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  • # Paul Blake
  • # App Development
  • # 28 December, 2020

Cost of Developing an App like Pinterest

App like Pinterest Development Cost

Tired of the use of mainstream use of social media? Want to develop a website that has a picture board for the collection of ideas just like Pinterest? It may seem like a simple website that collects pictures of ideas but it requires extensive technology and a delicately orchestrated database that keeps, and maintains the collection of the pictures to make it operational. According to our rough estimate, the cost of building a website like Pinterest may cost $40,000- $100,000.

What is Pinterest?

In simpler words, it is a pictorial search engine that is used to discover visual ideas like home and style inspiration, food, dresses, etc. These pictures are termed “pins”. The boards are used to collect pins of one kind under one board. For example, the board named “Home Interior” pins all of the house interiors of the Victorian, French, and American, etc. style. People can share, view, and save these pins and boards with their friends.

Astonishing Facts about Pinterest 

According to Hootsuit, Some astonishing facts about Pinterest are;

  • Pinterest’s active user base grew 26% to 335 million last year
  • Pinterest is now the third-largest social network in the U.S.
  • Pinterest’s revenue topped $1 billion in 2019
  • Pinterest rates as the 10th most relevant brand in the U.S.
  • Pinterest is most popular with women—especially moms
  • More than half of Pinterest users are based outside the U.S.
  • Some 43% of Internet users in the U.S. have a Pinterest account
  • High-income households are twice as likely to use Pinterest as low-income households
  • There are more than 2 billion searches on Pinterest every month
  • 600 million of Pinterest’s monthly searches are visual

Pinterest’s Success Story 

Ben Silberman, a Yale graduate, designed this search engine and released a closed beta of the site in March 2010. He designed it along with his friend Evan. The launch of the iPhone app for Pinterest in March 2011. It attracted funds from entrepreneurs like FirstMark Capital, Jack Abraham, and Michael Birch, etc.

Benchmark Features of Pinterest 

The benchmark features of Pinterest are;

Profile Setup: The user can create a unique user name, and password, also set a profile pic, and business profiles can also be set up using this feature. It requires to develop interaction between client and server-side of the application which can take somewhere between 55-80 hours approximately. By viewing the profile, the user can see what profiles and boards they are following

Pins: The visual engine brings results of thousands of pictures in less than mili- second when a user enters the keyword from all around the world. The pins can also be videos and products else than the pictures only. The creators can share their pins too. The additional information can be added on a pin and it can be added to any board anytime.

For database, they use MYSQL, but mostly as a key-value store that is partitioned horizontally with a sharding scheme in a service atop MySQL. For the majority of data they shard based on user ID*, all tables exist on all shards. It takes almost 80-120 hours for the database developer to develop such a database.

Create Boards: The boards are literally like our school whiteboards using which we can paste the pins of a special kind of idea in one place. The name of the board is usually kept on the name of the idea on which it has been created. IT takes almost 50-70 hours for the board creation.

The boards can be private and public. Other users can only follow your public boards. It takes 30-50hours for the developers to build this functionality out.

Cost of Pinterest Prototype

The golden rule for calculating the cost of the Pinterest is;

The basic features we have pinpointed need almost 270+ hours of development and per hour development cost in the United States is $150 per hour.

Total App Development Cost= 150 x 270

Total App Development Cost= 40,500

This is only the cost of the benchmark features of Pinterest, miscellaneous costs are given below;

Best Development Approach for Pinterest like Platform 

Step1 – Requirement Gathering 

This step includes gathering the requirements you want your app to deliver to you. Deeply analyze the idea and how these ideas can be translated into functionalities. Check the feasibility of these ideas getting translating into features or functionalities. Now, prepare the project plan optimization. It costs around $0-$600 during the planning phase depending upon the availability of the tools dispensable for planning.

The secret ingredient in the perfect recipe of Instagram is the smooth and seamless experience that comes from the smooth UI and UX design. It includes two phases 1) UX Modeling 2) HLD & Documentation. The phases in this step include the preparation of the flowcharts and sketches of the user needs and functionalities. Prepare the information architecture design. Prepare the sitemaps too. Sitemaps are the maps that are used to represent the specific pages of the website and navigate the client through these pages.

The wireframes are the floor plan of the project into which the design and content flow, which could be sketched or annotated diagrams. It costs around $0-$1000 for this step.

STEP 3 – UI Design 

The third step is to build the User Interface design. The UX/ UI team needs to determine the UI strategy first of all. This strategy includes building a strategy that should facilitate the user interface experience. Incorporate art direction, storyboarding, and mood board creation in making the full UI design.

The UI design must specify the location of the content and video player on the page. It costs around $0-$1500 for this step.

STEP 4- Agile Development 

Nowadays, agile development is preferred. This is quick and team-based software development. The Project Manager and technical lead should create milestones, plan the sprint, conduct scrum meetings, and show the sprint demos to make the development really quick and impeccable.

The knowledge of the following languages is necessary;

  • HTML/Client-side JavaScript/CSS
  • Database OLTP to maintain relational DBMS
  • Data warehouse (OLAP)

Moreover, other persons required during the development process along with the developers are tool developers, database developers, and designers of the web application, API developers and authenticators, etc.

The major chunk of the cost is spent here with an estimation of about $1500-$4000.

Content Support: Pinterest like websites need a well-established content management system to facilitate the users with the Metadata of the pictures, videos, and products being advertised and used on the site.

STEP 5- Testing and Launching 

The test codes and user test scenarios are written down by the quality and assurance team and the testers perform automated or manual testing to check the functionality of the app. The bugs are removed by the developers after which the product is launched.

Usually, the minimum viable product with the least features is developed and released. This is called the beta-version. After the bugs are reported, the app is updated accordingly.