How Much Does it Cost to Develop a News App Like Khaleej Times?

Developing a news app like Khaleej Times involves various cost factors depending on features, design, and development stages. This blog provides a detailed breakdown of the expenses. It also covers additional costs for ongoing maintenance and potential budget considerations. Whether you’re a startup or an established company, understanding these financial aspects will help you plan effectively and create a top-tier news app.

In the modern world, new content is available to read every second as information travels at the speed of light. In the past, newspapers were published once a day or once a week. As you can see, the invention of the telegraph, radio, television, and eventually the Internet has changed a lot of things. 

Since cell phones are so ubiquitous, a significant amount of news is consumed through mobile apps. The world’s most prominent media outlets, including the BBC, CNN, and the New York Times, have released their applications. These examples show the market’s significant potential and demand. 

With Dubai being the focus center nowadays, news apps like Khaleej Times have become indispensable tools for millions to get timely updates and in-depth coverage of regional and international events.

So, if you are considering developing a similar app, comprehending the costs involved in development is crucial. Knowing what to expect can help you budget effectively and make informed decisions whether you are a startup or an established media company. 

What is Khaleej Times?

Established in 1978, the Khaleej Times is the oldest English daily newspaper. Its presence in the UAE is substantial. It covers everything from local UAE news to global events, including business, politics, culture, sports, etc. After releasing its app, it gained a massive user base.

Apart from that, the app gives the user control over their feed. It’s simple for them to add subjects that interest them to their feed. Therefore, it is accurate to state that the app’s popularity results from its convenience, flexibility, and innovative features. The app provides in-depth reporting, which has motivated many businesses or entrepreneurs to make a news app of similar stature. 

Must-have Features to Include in News App like Khaleej Times

Features constitute an application’s core. Incorporating the most crucial app development features and the latest technologies into your app will undoubtedly dominate the market. Here are our top features that will work best for your news app development:

1. Seamless Registration Process

The onboarding process should be simple and hassle-free. Most users abandon the app registration process if it’s too complex or time-consuming.  Therefore, your best option is to make it as simple as possible for users to sign up and register by giving them various options, like phone numbers, Gmail, and more, to facilitate their onboarding process on the app. 

You can hire an app developer who can use real-time validation and helper text to accelerate the registration process. 

2. Hassle-free Search Functionality 

Give your user the option to search for a news article using any keyword or on any topic. These searches will help users find what they’re seeking. These features enable users to explore the app’s archive and find many previously published articles relevant to their search.

It allows users to delve deeper and access more up-to-date information on current affairs, enabling your app like Khaleej Times, to become a more potent news source.

3. Personalized News Feeds

While creating a news application, make sure their feed is personalized. They will interact with the app more in this way. That means no more unrelated articles!

The personalized news strategy, like news aggregation, relies on pattern recognition to offer users/readers news they will find relevant (based on their previous indications of what they find appropriate).

Doing this can increase user satisfaction and make you the best news app with personalization. A reliable mobile app development company has skilled developers who can make an app like Khaleej Times with robust security and scalability. 

4. Real-time Push Notifications

Push notification services can potentially revolutionize your news app similar to Khaleej Times experience.

Personalized article recommendations are crucial for newspaper mobile app development. Customized news alerts should be your app’s priority if you want to keep users interested and up-to-date on current events.

This intelligent push notification function can boost user engagement for your news app like Khaleej Times and enable users to share content seamlessly. 

5. Social Media Integration 

Social media integration is vital if you want your users to stay in touch and share engaging news and articles with their friends and followers on many platforms. 

This undoubtedly boosts user engagement, drives app downloads, and makes your app more engaging for users who can easily share the material.

6. Customizable User Experience

Allow users to search for particular news articles by subject or keyword. Following particular interests or news sources, users may customize their feeds and increase user engagement while ensuring content is always relevant to their primary interest. 

Given the competitive nature of the market, user customization should be your top concern. Therefore, you must look for a reliable app development firm to develop a news app like Khaleej Times with easy-to-use navigation, intuitive UI/UX design, and robust security. 

7. Offline Reading Feature

Consider giving your user the option to read offline. Assume for the moment that they find an intriguing article that they cannot read immediately. You can provide them with the choice to “Save for later.” 

Once they tap and save the article, the “Offline section” makes it simple to access it at their leisure. Thanks to this, users will have flexibility and control even if they aren’t connected to the internet.

Advanced Features of News App Like Khaleej Times

To build a strong online presence, you must consider some innovative functionalities that distinguish your app like Khaleej Times from your competitors. Here are the advanced features that the best mobile app developers include in their apps:

• Support for Multiple Languages

One of the most notable benefits of news app development is multilingual support.  This allows you to reach a large audience and let readers choose between several languages for the news articles.

Furthermore, people who speak more than one language or are curious about world news may find this especially helpful. It will help you stand out in a very competitive market.

• AI-Driven Recommendations

Artificial intelligence can assess your reading preferences and recommend news articles that you find interesting. Since AI app development is the next big thing, you can use this to align news articles with your user preferences.

AI can detect underlying themes in subjects, going beyond simple keyword matching. Given AI’s immense capabilities, your app development platform will undoubtedly be future-proof.

• Augmented Reality Integration

This technology can make news stories more immersive. Through AR app development, you can change how people view news on mobile devices. By doing this, you may give users of your news app interactive experiences similar to Khaleej Times that will deepen their understanding and bring many events to life.

• Integrated Payment Gateway

Users can select from various payment methods by integrating several payment gateways and make payments to access premium content. If you want to build a news app like Khaleej Times, in that case, you may provide users with various payment methods to subscribe, enjoy an ad-free experience, or even pay for content they want to see.

You can connect with a custom news & magazine app development company to integrate the latest payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, Razorpay, etc. 

• Text-to-Speech Feature

News apps with text-to-speech technology let you listen to articles read aloud. You can incorporate this sophisticated functionality with additional choices like voice settings, selecting several narrators, adjusting the speaking pace, and choosing the language for the narration. This function will be much appreciated by the visually impaired.

Step-by-Step Process To Develop a News App like Khaleej Times

To craft news applications from scratch, you must determine the content sources you wish to use. Moreover, you must choose between Android or iOS app development, features, and tech stack. Afterward, you can proceed with newspaper app development similar to Khaleej Times. 

Step 1: Planning and Conceptualization

Understanding your target market, its obstacles, and customer pain points will help you determine your app’s features and functionalities. It will be crucial to making your app idea a profitable venture.

In addition, you can identify areas to differentiate and comprehend the current news app. This lets you choose critical features, identify your target market, and do much more. 

Step 2: Designing the User Interface

UI/UX design is unquestionably essential. Your main goal should be to design an intuitive, user-friendly interface that is simple to use. This also includes an engaging layout and quick loading times.

A wireframe and MVP news app development will help you to comprehend the result. Moreover, as an outsourced news app development agency, we advise utilizing high-quality images, clear fonts, and color schemes.

Step 3: Development and Coding

In this phase, your iOS or Android app development company will develop the app on the platform of your choice, transforming the idea and design into a usable application.

It’s one of the longest stages of the app development process, so you must communicate clearly with the mobile app development firm to ensure that your end product is similar to what you planned.

Step 4: Rigorous Testing Phases

After the app development is completed, it’s time to test it. The goal of app testing is to identify bugs, mistakes, and other technical problems early on so that they can be fixed and the user experience is smooth.

Step 5: Official App Launch

The testing phase ensures that the application is bug-free. Your app is now prepared for public release. This implies that you can publish it on the Google Play Store or submit it to the App Store.

They will respond in about two weeks. Meanwhile, you can discuss marketing plans with your app development company to succeed in the market.

Step 6: Ongoing Maintenance and Support

Mobile app maintenance and support are essential to your news app’s long-term success. Therefore, you should monitor your app’s performance, read user reviews, and release new updates to keep it safe, competitive, and user-friendly in the ever-changing market.

You’ll provide users with a more reliable and satisfying experience. After comprehending the procedure, how much does app maintenance cost? 

The industry standard is that the average cost to maintain an application is around 15% to 20% of the actual development costs. However, the maintenance cost relies on various aspects such as hosting fees, app store fees, support, and regular updates adding new features. 

How Much Does News App Development Like Khaleej Times Cost? 

The cost to develop a news app like Khaleej Times could range between $20,000 to $45,000. These expenses may vary according to complexity, UI/UX design, and other factors. 

This is a summary of the cost to develop a news app:

Phases	App Development Cost	Description
Planning	$1,500 – $4,500	Determining target audience, competitor analysis, decided feature set, and roadmap.
Designing	$4,500 – $9,500	Developing a user-friendly and visually appealing interface.
Development	$3,500 – $7,500	Crafting features such as news feed, search option, etc., for a single platform.
Testing and Launch	$9,000 – $20,000	Identifying and fixing bugs, errors, and other issues before the app is released.

Factors Influencing The Cost of App Development like Khaleej Times

As previously discussed, several variables might impact your spending plan and change the cost to build a custom news mobile app like Khaleej Times. 

Let’s learn more about it in depth:

1. Feature Set and Complexity

A news app with essential features like news feed, search, and categories won’t break the bank. On the other hand, premium news applications with advanced features like text-to-speech, push notifications, offline reading, and augmented reality integration will be expensive.

This shows unequivocally that creating news applications similar to Khaleej Times would cost more if you add more features or complexity.

2. Development Methodology

You may create your app in-house, use staff augmentation, use freelancers, or outsource to a dedicated mobile app development company. However, outsourcing is a financially viable option for obtaining competent developers, particularly for companies with limited resources.

3. UI/UX Design

It is crucial to understand that the design cost will increase for an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly interface with unique animations or micro-interactions compared to a plain design.

We advise you to choose a minimalist approach, which will also help you limit the costs of developing an app like Khaleej Times. Make sure the design is in line with the intended target audience. 

4. Ongoing Maintenance and Support

You know that user adoption is achieved long-term through maintenance and support. Over time, you may fix bugs, glitches, and performance concerns to ensure a seamless user experience.  However, if you ignore this, you may have to pay more later to develop a news app like Khaleej Times because of the increased cost.

As we have learned, mobile app development cost is undoubtedly a significant aspect of building a news app. On the plus side, let’s discuss how to make your app profitable and successful.

Monetization Models for Your App Similar to Khaleej Times

Why is investing in app development so appealing? The possibilities of earning money? Correct? We’ll provide you with some tried-and-tested app monetization techniques to help you generate more income from your clone app like Khaleej Times and assist you with the revenue portion.

• Advertising

This popular model can help you generate a lot of money. You can show advertisements in your app, which allows you to make money from users who might not want to subscribe.

• Subscription Services

You can give users several packages with incredible untapped features for a subscription model.

This will encourage people to pay a small amount to access restricted material and enjoy continuous news consumption. This is a reasonable approach to monetizing news apps given the rise in subscription-based apps.

• Affiliate Marketing

By doing this, you may showcase products and services pertinent to your apps and go one step further in increasing profitability. 

• Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is another outstanding model. You can offer them your app in exchange for promotional activity to help spread the word about any new brand launch. To maximize your earnings, ensure the advertisement is relevant to the audience and the app’s content.

How Can SparxIT Assist in Launching Your Next-Gen News Application? 

Are you interested in creating an app similar to Khaleej Times? Work with a reliable news app development company like SparxIT to build a secure, value-driven, and customer-centric news app. 

We have developed a cutting-edge news app, AM News, with real-time updates, personalized content, and a seamless user experience.  Our developers are skilled in building apps with top-notch performance and the highest possible return on investment. 

We go above and beyond to ensure your app increases user engagement and helps you reach your business objectives. Therefore, if you have an app idea, hire mobile app developers and turn your dream project into reality. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:1 What are the crucial features of a news app like Khaleej Times?

A: Whenever you plan to build a news app, it’s essential to include primary features such as login or registration, profile, search, push notifications, categories, offline reading, social sharing, etc. 

Q:2 How much does MVP news app development cost?

A: On average, MVP news app development might cost between $15,000 and $30,000. The price can vary depending on complexity, features, and development location.

Q:3 How long does building a newspaper app like the Khaleej Times take? 

A: Creating a news app like Khaleej Times can take 3 to 5 months. However, this timeframe can differ depending on the project’s complexity, API integration, integration of advanced features, and more.