In the past decade, the music industry has undergone tremendous growth, all thanks to modern technology. Gone are the old days when people used to rely on the radio and television to enjoy music. Today in the mobile-driven digital world, listening to music implies streaming it via music streaming platforms like iTunes, Amazon Music, Spotify, etc. If you are an entrepreneur looking for how to build a music streaming app, you might be wondering how much it cost to. Don’t worry, we have got it all figured out in this blog. Let’s get started.
What is Spotify, and how does it work?
Spotify is a popular audio streaming platform that boasts over 165 million users worldwide. The music streaming services provide access to millions of audio tracks, podcasts, songs, and videos from creators worldwide. Spotify is immediately appealing to users as they can access the platform for free when getting started. The free version of Spotify can be accessed via PC, laptop, smartphones, but a Spotify premium subscription is required to access the full service.
The free version of Spotify hosts over 50 million songs, but it lacks some perks like ad-free music and downloading music to devices of your choice. The premium version comes with including going ad-free, downloading music of your choice, enjoying the highest music quality, and more. What’s more exciting is that it offers different premium plans for individuals, students, families, etc. The platform also allows users to avail an offline mode where they can access favorite music in scenarios where internet speed is not great.
Essential features of music streaming apps
The features and functionalities of a music streaming app are the major factors contributing to the overall cost. Now let’s see some of the features you need to know about if you are brainstorming about how to build a music streaming app.
- Registration and login
After installing the app, users must be able to register by providing personal information. Integrate social logins as well to make the registration process easy and quick. Once the registration process is done, users must be able to log in successfully to the platform.
- Home
Whenever entering the app, users must be taken to the home page to browse from the music library.
- Discover songs
Integrate search feature for the users to discover their favorite songs, audio tracks, albums, etc.
- Offline music
This is another important feature every music streaming app must have the ability to provide offline access. Users must be able to download their favorite tracks and store them on the devices of their choice. This becomes really helpful when the user’s data is exhausted.
- Bitrate
Bitrate matters as it decides on uninterrupted music streaming so that users can enjoy music with no interruptions. User formats like M3u8 to deliver the best listening experiences to your users.
- Personalization
Delivering the best user experience must be your priority when you are developing an app like Spotify.
- Admin panel
Integrate an admin panel to control the music streaming app end-end from user management, setting to complete management of tracks and music uploaded and monetization.
- Social media sharing
The music available on the music streaming app must be made accessible to share it on other social platforms.
Apart from these features, there are a lot of other functionalities you can consider implementing. Some of them are:
- Maintaining event calendar
- Playlist creation
- Chat functionalities
- Ability to book musical events
- Mark favorite music
- Creating categorized sections like themed radio.
- Multiple language access
Cost to create a music streaming app
The exact cost required to build a music streaming app depends greatly on the features, platform infrastructure, platforms you want to launch your app on, storage, and many other factors, including the time required to complete the project. On average, it costs you a minimum of $50,5000-400,000 or even a lot more if you are developing it from scratch by hiring a development team. So is there any cheaper and quicker way to build a music streaming platform? Yes, there is- Using audio streaming software is a better alternative.
Simply use a readymade script to create a customized audio streaming app like Spotify; you can get the same features and functionalities.
An audio streaming software would cost you around $299-$699 for standard and ultimate versions, respectively. If you want to play smart and launch your audio streaming platform like Spotify without many hassles, using a ready-to-build solution is the ultimate way-it lowers your business investments significantly.
Other related costs to launch your audio streaming app
When you leverage audio streaming software to build your app like Spotify, there are some additional costs you need to bear, which are as follows.
- Hosting
To build a music streaming platform, you must choose and register a desirable domain name and hosting to power your music streaming services. The hosting might come around $20-$30 every year.
- Server cost
To host your music, you must invest in a robust service with suitable RAM capacity. It would cost around $10-$20 per month, depending on the overall space you require.
Conclusion:
Listeners prefer to have their favorite music at their fingertips available on the go. To cater to this increased demand for streaming apps, businesses have been developing solutions that make accessing music easier.
Using a readymade solution will also equip you to build your audio streaming app cost-efficiently. Integrate some unique features that modern users would love to enjoy. You are all set to launch profitable music streaming business and transform how people interact with music.
