Signs a business is ready for an app
In short
An app is worth building when a task repeats every day across several people and the tools you have make someone copy information by hand. Without both, a product or a well-kept spreadsheet usually serves better.
A small business can run well for years on a website, a booking or invoicing product and a spreadsheet. The case for an app of your own starts when the gaps between those tools cost more time each week than a build would cost over a year or two.
- The same task happens many times a day, and each time someone types what another tool already knows
- Several people touch each job, and the handoffs live in text messages and memory
- Customers keep calling for the same update, such as where their order or appointment stands
- You have tried the products made for your trade, and each needs a workaround you would pay to remove
- The work involves deposits or signed forms that you must be able to find again
A web app or an App Store app
In short
A web app runs in the browser on any phone and can sit on the home screen like an icon; an App Store app has to pass a review and be built for each store. For a tool your staff or your own customers use, a web app is usually enough.
Apple's App Review Guidelines say an app should include features, content and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website, and that an app which is not particularly useful, unique or app-like does not belong on the App Store. Guideline 4.2.6 adds that apps created from a commercial template or an app generation service are rejected unless the provider of the app's content submits them.
A progressive web app, as web.dev describes it, is a web app built with modern browser features that reaches users on any device from a single codebase, and once installed it launches from the home screen, dock or taskbar. For booking, ordering, a customer portal or a staff tool, a web app does the job without a store listing.
Selling through a store app changes less than people expect for a service business. Apple's rules say an app that sells physical goods or services used outside the app must take payment by means other than in-app purchase, such as a card entry, so those sales carry no in-app purchase commission; the store still reviews every version you publish.
| Web app | App Store app | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Any modern browser, on a phone or a computer | Installed from a store onto each device |
| How people get it | A link, or an icon added to the home screen | A store listing that has passed review |
| Updates | Live for everyone as soon as they ship | Each new version goes through the store's review |
| Upkeep | One codebase and one hosting account | A build for each store you publish on, kept current with each new phone system |
| When it fits | Tools for your staff and your own customers | An app people open every day, or one that needs features only an installed app has |
Swipe sideways to see every column
A worked example (hypothetical)
In short
A small climbing gym that checks paper waivers at the desk could start with a web app for one workflow and keep payments where they already run.
Picture a climbing gym whose front desk checks waivers on paper and memberships in a spreadsheet, while a queue builds on busy evenings. The workflow is one: a new member signs the waiver on their phone before the first visit, and the desk sees at a glance who is signed and current.
That fits the first app step at $15,300, with a sign-up page for members and a desk view for staff. Taking membership payments inside the app would move it to the $34,000 step; leaving payments on the card reader the gym already uses keeps the build at the first step.
What this means for a small business
In short
Before you build, time the task an app would replace for one week and count who touches it. A few minutes a day for one person is a spreadsheet; hours across a team is worth a written plan.
When the plan says build, make the first version do one workflow completely rather than several halfway. Our app builds start at $15,300, include a working version early so your team can try each piece as it lands, and put the code in your repository from the first day.
In the Los Angeles area we plan an app where the work happens, at the desk or the counter it is meant to relieve, because the task is easiest to see there. For businesses in other cities the same walk-through happens over video.