How to Create a Live Streaming App: Price, Features, And Examples [2024 Edition]

With an average of over 480 billion hours spent on live-streaming platforms in 2020, the industry is undoubtedly valuable and growing astronomically.

Are you a startup founder, product manager, or serial entrepreneur wondering how to create a live-streaming app?

Or you’re simply seeking more information on the steps to live-streaming app development.

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Book a 30-minute FREE consultation with us to give a powerful digital upgrade to your live streaming app project.

Let’s delve into the crux of the article:

What is a Live Streaming App?

A live streaming app is a mobile application that lets users record and transmit videos concurrently to many viewers using similar software. For example, a streamer using an app to broadcast requires receivers on the same app.

Due to demand, the number of live streaming applications has risen astronomically since the innovation was launched in 1995.

Thanks to advancements in IT infrastructure, there are now multitudes of live streaming mobile apps, some of which are:

• YouTube live
• Facebook live
• Zoom
• Bilibili
• Google Meet
• Twitch
• And more!

Some live-streaming apps were niched down to gain dominance amongst target users.

For example, Twitch niched down to become a live streaming platform primarily for gamers. And due to its authority in that niche, the platform has over 5.7 billion streams in Q3 of 2022 alone.

At over 3.3 million subscribers, Hulu is the largest live streaming TV service.

Thinking of venturing into this industry? Let’s provide more in-depth insight into its prospects.

Insight on Why You Need a Live Streaming Mobile App

As opined earlier, the demand for live streaming services has been growing rapidly, leading to a corresponding profit for startups with products in that niche.

Here are additional statistics pointing to the fact that owning a live streaming mobile application is a great move:

Beyond the robust industry and its quick-growing market, investors have also shown a keen interest in investing in startups with a product in this niche.

Here are some companies that have received noteworthy funds here:

Now that you have an idea of the opportunities therein, we’ll dig into the types and examples of livestreaming applications available.

Types of Live Streaming Apps with Examples

Before we discuss the steps to creating a live streaming mobile app, you’ll need to know the category your mobile application idea falls into.

Here are three distinct types of live streaming applications:

Type 1: Live Broadcasting Applications

This is the most prominent type of live-streaming applications. Apps in this category allows users to capture, record, stream, share, and broadcast live audio and videos to anyone with access.

Some popular live-streaming applications in this category are YouTube, Twitch, Periscope, Facebook, and Periscope.

Type 2: Video-on-Demand Streaming

Live Streaming apps in this category lets platform users schedule and view favorite TV programs online in real-time. Popular platforms offering this service entails YouTube TV, Hulu, Amazon Prime etc.

Type 3: Audio Streaming

Audio streaming platforms are apps for real-time recording, and broadcasting sounds for anyone with access, and a suitable device. Common examples of apps in this niche are Podbean, Spotify etc.

How to Create a Livestreaming App In 2024?

The process of creating a live streaming app is similar to other mobile applications.

Here are the steps involved:

Let’s discuss what each livestreaming app creation step entails:

Step 1: Discovery Phase

The discovery phase in livestreaming app development is a planning stage where team members hold meetings with other startup founders to understand the app idea, category, and niche of the target audience.

Information gathered is then used to create a budget and estimate deliverable timelines.

The discovery phase has multiple aspects that entail:

• Research on product viability
• Identify business goals
• Identify your target audience
• Estimate budget and timeline
• Create project roadmap.

Let’s discuss each point:

Benefits of the discovery phase in live streaming app creation entail:

• It helps to reduce costs
• It helps founders understand live-streaming app development risk earlier, thereby taking preventive measures
• It helps to validate the profitability and scalability of your app idea
• It helps to identify needed talents
• It streamlines the process of business goal formation.

Once you’ve set the groundwork with the discovery phase, the UI/UX design phase is next.

Step 2: UI/UX Design

This next step entails the creation of wireframes and mockups for the live streaming app development.

These wireframes and mockups provide a pictorial view of the overall look of the live streaming app, and an opportunity to gather early feedback from important stakeholders before development begins.

The design phase is where your user experience and user interface are conceived.

This phase is more fluid than others, as deliverables often require edits. However, the process is a highly creative one and lays the foundation for other technical activities.

It’s imperative to have completed the discovery stage before starting the design phase. This is because output on consumer research will be used to map out a suitable user experience for the solution.

At the end of this step, you should have the following deliverables:

• An interactive prototype
• Separate iOS and Android live streaming app design or a cross-platform design
• A full UX wireframe.

The deliverable from the design phase should be a clear pictorial view of every feature a developer needs to create. Deliverables should both be technically practical and aesthetically beautiful.

For more knowledge about this phase, read this article on how to design an app.

Step 3: Development Phase

This step is the process where the core development takes place. Here, a team of backend and frontend developers write codes using a range of suitable programming languages.

For this step, we’ll divide live streaming app development phase into three parts:

• Choose suitable tech stack
• Create the backend
• Create the mobile interfaces.

Let’s discuss each of this part:

At the end of this development phase, some features would have been created for the live streaming mobile app.

The type of features you’ll need varies with the intricacy of your business model. However, generic must-have features for live streaming apps are:

• Must-Have Features for Live Streaming App

You need to have these features to create live streaming app MVP:

• Advanced Features You Can Add

For optimum user experience, and to edge out competitors, you can add the following advanced features:

• E-mail and social media sign-up
• In-app messaging
• Feed
• Recommendation
• Push notifications.

Once these features have been created, the next step is testing the quality of its functionalities. Let’s discuss these:

Step 4: QA Testing Phase

The QA testing phase is the process of verifying a system and its components to ascertain that it adheres with given blueprint, technical requirements, and the overall business need.

In planner terms, it’s a process of identifying bugs, errors, and gaps that conflict with businesses and technical requirements.

QA Testing Procedures for Live Streaming App are:

A QA tester should perform the following procedures to ensure your product is maintainable, scalable, secure, and resilient.

Once QA tests are over, and the app is certified to be of good quality, the next step is product launch.

Step 5: Live Streaming App Launch

Once your live streaming app appeals to founders and other stakeholders involved, then it’s time to launch your mobile application on suitable platforms.

The end goal of live streaming app development is launching a product several people use for live recording and broadcasting, which includes having a high retention and engagement rate. For a successful product, ensure you have a relevant feedback loop.

Having a readily available live streaming app requires that you have a development team for tech support and app maintenance. Quick modifications also influence user experience, leading to a high retention rate.

For your maintenance team to function effectively, you need a budget that’s at least 25% of the overall cost of building an app. What does this mean?

If the overall cost of developing a live streaming app is $100,000, then your maintenance budget should be at least $25,000 for a start. Anything less may result in multiple downtimes due to poor product maintenance.

Now that you’ve learnt how to create a live streaming app, let’s discuss on the live streaming app development cost:

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How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Live Streaming App In 2024?

Live streaming app development cost ranges from $35,000 to $200,000.

However, the exact amount to pay may differ with:

• The type of app
• Location of the development team
• The product’s complexity
• The type of team involved.

Live Streaming App Development Costs by Product Complexity

The complexity of the live streaming mobile app refers to the number of features, functionalities, user roles, and how every function interacts with each other.

For example, YouTube is more complex than Google Meet, because while YouTube has multiple purposes apart from live streaming, Google Meet is simply a uni-purpose app.

By complexity, the cost of creating a live streaming app can be defined by:

• Basic complexity
• Average complexity
• Advanced complexity.

Let’s discuss how they differ by price:

Note: By basic, it doesn’t literally mean that the product is simple to create, it refers to the fact that development time is lesser, compared to other live streaming apps.

Live Streaming App Development Cost by Team’s Location

Another important factor affecting the cost of developing a live streaming app is the location of the development team.

Geography affects because the cost of living differs from one location to the other, as such, developers in low income nations generally charge less than others.

For example, the cost of living in the US is 3X higher than India, thus, the cost of live streaming app development in India is cheaper than in the US.

Here’s a spreadsheet depicting how live streaming app development cost differs from one country to the other. We’ll assume you’re creating an app of average complexity here:

Live Streaming App Development Cost by App Type

The type of mobile application also determines price. But first, what do we mean by type of app?

Apps can be categorized based on the operating system that’s hosting that. That’s an Android app is a mobile software that’s hosted on the Android operating system.

Using this classification, let’s discuss live streaming app development cost by app type:

Cross-platform apps are mobile applications created to work on both Android and iOS using a single codebase.

Live Streaming App Development Cost by Team Type

The type of development team is another factor in costing live streaming apps.

The different team types available are:

Let’s delve into their meaning:

For top-notch cost-effectiveness, and expertise, it’s best to opt for a live streaming app development agency based in India.

India is known as the headquarters of software development as they have a vast range of programmers, and can offer one at a fair price.

What’s more? We also offer free consultation and live streaming app development cost estimates.

Now that you know how to create a live streaming app, we’ve also answered the question, “how much does it cost to build a live streaming app?” Let us help you get started.