Thriving mobile app technology has made our daily activities easier. Hundreds of thousands of mobile apps are available in the app store in the ‘health and fitness’ category to make our life more comfortable and healthier. This surge in the number of fitness apps is largely attributed to the fitness boom that occurred in the year 2014 with the advent of wearables. However, the trend quickly shifted in favor of the mobile apps because they can effectively control the wearables as well.
Today, as the number of smartphone users increases by leaps and bound, the popularity of customized fitness apps is increasing continually. Statista has predicted that globally, the number of fitness app users will surpass the figure of 353 million by 2022. Another report has estimated that the mHealth apps revenue will expand to $31 billion by 2020. Taking cognizance of this scenario, both Google and Apple have come up with Google Fit and Health Kit respectively to facilitate mobile app development for the Health and Fitness domain.
Types of Health and Fitness Apps
It is indeed quite a task for the fitness companies to stand ahead of the curve with a tailored mobile app. It is necessary to keep the health and fitness trends in mind along with the current direction of the niche market and the user behavior while developing a health and fitness app. \
These days, four types of health and fitness apps are in vogue to improve the user’s health and lifestyle:
- Activity Tracking- Such apps track all the physical activities like walking, cycling, running, and jogging. These apps use the motion sensors of smartphones to provide the accurate data of the individual’s activities.
- Personal Trainer- As the name suggests, such apps can act as a gym instructor. A personal trainer app is more useful for people who cannot spare time to visit the gym due to a hectic work schedule.
- Diet and Nutrition- Health-conscious people love this type of app as it takes care of the calorie and nutritional value of daily food. It shows the nutrition chart and helps users take a balanced diet.
- Yoga and Meditation- The holistic approach of health includes both physical and psychological wellness. Yoga and meditation can keep the body and mind in the fine shape and keep you relaxed.
A high-end health and fitness app integrates the features of two or more categories to give end-to-end fitness solutions. However, new players should stick to any one category for ensuring better penetration in the fitness app domain. Also, feature integration is proportional to the development duration and the cost of an app, and therefore, it is advisable to start with minimum necessary features.
Most Sought After Features of Health and Fitness Apps
Here we describe a few noteworthy features to be included in the tailored health and fitness mobile app to attract and retain more people:
- Easy Sign-up
Users hate a lengthy and complex registration process. You need to enable the first-time users to create their account with social media accounts. Or, you can make the entire process short and simple by asking for name, email id, and mobile number. The app will send the verification code (OTP) to the given mobile number, and the user gets registered.
- User Profile
The second most important feature is a user profile. Here, the users enter their personal data like age, weight, etc. You can make the profile stronger and inclusive to give your users all types of personal information at a stretch. Also, in future, if you want to add functionalities related to healthcare in your fitness app, the detailed user profile can help you a lot.
- Social Media Integration
From signing up to sharing fitness-related activities, the social media integration can serve many objectives for your app users. You can also get a social media advantage as the users spread a good word on their social accounts for your app. The social media integration can also boost the online search for your application.
2. Wearable Device Connection
As the wearable devices have started gaining ground swiftly, it is beneficial for you to connect the app with the wearable devices. It enables the users to monitor or track their fitness activities on the wearables with ease. In a way, the wearable device connectivity also makes your app more user-friendly.
3. Record Tracking
Be it a workout plan or diet plan, your app needs to keep the record of the user’s activity and fitness schedule. From individual activities like cycling, walking, etc. to calories burned and weight reduction- the fitness app should track everything and show the real-time situation to the users. You can also add a functionality of planning a meal.
4. Geo location Facility
This is one of the most important features for a health and fitness application. The geolocation feature enables your app to monitor direction and routes when the users go for walking, cycling, or jogging. Also, it enables the users to know their exact location.
5. Push Notification
Well, push notifications can motivate the app users to achieve their goals. You can encourage the users for regular exercises with inspirational quotes through notifications. Also, the users can set up reminders for the workout, and push notification can effectively remind them on time.
6. Video Tutorials
Many people like workouts and exercises, but they have no idea where to start from. Live video tutorials can help them to know the ins and outs of workout. Video tutorials also show the right way to do a particular exercise. It is easy to give necessary tips regarding workout and their impact on a particular part of the body with video tutorials.
7. In-app Purchase
You can offer the option of purchasing fitness equipment and health drinks through in-app purchase features. It makes your fitness app complete and the users do not need to visit some other app or website for buying the equipment or a complementary health drink. This feature can save the user’s time and offers you an opportunity to earn some money.
8. Safe and Simple Payment Options
You can offer premium features or an ad-free version of your app with a small fee. Also, the in-app purchase feature can also need payment gateway integration. You need to make sure that the payment options are safe and convenient for the users to get the most from app monetization methods.
You can also consider offering unique features like loyalty program, reward for workouts, and the like to attract more people toward your app. Along with these features, simple yet attractive UI and a pleasant user experience are also necessary to ensure your app’s success in the app stores.
Additional features of the fitness mobile app are a direct chat with the gym instructors and built-in soothing music during the workouts. Such features can make your app more acceptable to a huge audience.
Here it is worth to mention that you should prefer a reputed and reliable mobile app development company to the freelancers to get a high-quality fitness app. After discussing the features, let us move to the cost estimation for your health and fitness app.
Cost of Health and Fitness Apps
Costing of a fitness application largely depends on two factors: feature integration and development duration. Though both these factors are interrelated, they need to be considered as major factors. Another factor is an hourly rate. Let us go through these factors one after another:
- Feature Integration- Complex apps have many features, and integration of many features cost higher than the integration of fewer features. What’s more, the complex app needs an extended team of professionals that comprises a couple of app developers and a salesperson. It increases the app development cost significantly.
2. Development Duration- The duration of app development largely depends on the number of features you want to include in the app. Also, the development platform is also important in determining the cost. For example, Android app development requires more extensive testing because of a plethora of devices with different screen sizes.
3. Hourly Rate- There is a great variation in the hourly rate across the world. On one hand, American and Canadian app developers charge above $160 an hour, and on the other hand, Indian app developers take just above $25 an hour. It is better to hire mobile app developers from a reliable fitness application development company to meet the requirements in a cost-effective way.
4. Approximately, the fitness app development process takes over 1000 hours depending on the feature integration and other development procedures. For example, the documentation takes up to 40 hours, whereas the designing phase can last up to 70 hours, etc.
Summing up all the development aspects, the cost of fitness app remains in a range of $25000 to $50000. You need to consult the mobile application development company to get the exact estimate depending on your project’s requirements.
Also, it is advisable to keep some amount aside for support and maintenance cost to keep your app up-to-date.
Conclusion
The health and fitness domain thrives as people tend to focus on remaining fit and active. A feature-rich fitness app can leverage you the benefits from this prevalent trend. All you need to contact the reputed app development company and give them your app idea.
We offer enterprise-grade mobile app development services. Just connect with us to get 360-degree fitness app solutions.