How Much Does It Cost To Develop Music Streaming app like Pandora?

“Music” is a culture for many but, it gives more joy to human minds.
The world is transforming with innovations day by day. The technology transformed the music apps also.
Nothing can match with fantastic music. If you observe, many are shifting to streaming music apps from local musical libraries.
Nowadays, you can see many apps related to music in the digital world. These apps are attracting customers with a lot of new features and offers.
In the market, if you observe many music streaming apps making their way.
Musical streaming apps are the dream of 15 years for many users, which fulfilled by the entrance of the Pandora app.
It is the app, which hit the market with its features and showed a path to many enterprises and business people to enter in this streaming music app market.
Now, many individuals and enterprises are curious to make their way into streaming music apps.
If you are one of them and thinking about how to develop a Pandora mobile app? How much does Pandora cost? How to make a music app?
We have a solution to all your questions.
“This article will help you in finding solutions for all your queries.”
You may be thinking about why streaming music & radio apps are trending currently in the market?
These are simple reasons:
It saves mobile& laptop storage space.
Cheaper & faster.
All in one stop for all your musical needs.

Overview of Pandora:

It is a leading music app platform, which provides specific songs & favorite artists songs based on personalized interests.
Pandora application founded in 2000.
The app is also known as Pandora radio & Pandora media.
The founders are Tim Westergren, Will Glaser, and Jon Kraft.
Pandora app took birth with the help of the Music Genome Project. If you know in detail about the Genome project, it will give you goosebumps.
In this project, 25 music professionals worked on this project to analyze each song by taking into consideration of the 375 traits such as lyrics, harmony, rhythm, and many more.
The result of the project is the streaming service music app.
In the Pandora music app, you will have five sub-Genomes:

• Pop/Rock.
• Hip-Hop/Electronica.
• Jazz
• World music.

The primary aim of the app to provide playlist which is based on user interest and accessible for 24/7.
You may be wondering how to make a playlist on Pandora?
Open Pandora app, create a Pandora account if you are new to the app or log in. After that, the user must enter a song which is going to develop your core playlist.
The playlist develops after analyzing 375 traits of the uploaded song. It will create a separate radio station for every user.
The app also observes the likes and dislikes given by the user. It also counts while the app suggests you the song.
The Pandora app for Android is available in the Google play store. However, the Pandora app for Windows is going to launch soon into the market.
The competitors of the Pandora app are Amazon music, Spotify, Apple music, and Sound Cloud.
You may get a doubt that “Pandora music app is for free to use?”
Yes, the Pandora music app is free to download & use. The free users can enjoy the music with the ad-supported radio service.

Milestones:

• 2013: Reached to 200 Million users.

Seventy million active users every month.

• 2015: Pandora acquired Ticketfly for $540 Million.
• 2018: Pandora introduced the podcast platform.
• 2019: Pandora acquired by Sirius XM Satellite Radio for $3.5 Billion.

Own in-app voice assistant launch.
Pandora launched on Apple watch.
Launched “Pandora Now” in April (Pandora listeners & SiriusXM subscribers)
Launched a new desktop app for Mac (Available on MacOS version 10.10 & above) in May.
If you observe Spotify vs. Pandora users, you can see how much the app is demanding in the market of the USA & world.
 

Source:  Statista

The demand is leading to more business people and startups approaching FuGenX to develop a mobile app like Pandora.
We are getting many requests to build a Pandora-like app from the USA and around the world.

How to create an app like Pandora?

There is a quote saying, “Prevention is better than cure.”
Before you start something like developing an app or other things, you need to analyze the difficulties you may come across in the future.
So, before going to mobile app development better to solve these problems.

• License:

For any streaming radio app to develop, they must have a License.
Find out where you can stream your station, as it is expensive, make sure you have sufficient money for payment.

• Design:

It is as vital as a license. Mobile design matters very much because these apps will differ from other mobile apps.
It is better to go for the best mobile app designer rather than going for a low profile designer who is fresher or less experienced.

• Streaming:

The next issue you may come across in your path is streaming. Make sure where your app will store all the data for streaming. We can also modify with the help of streaming settings.
It is better to have cloud storage.
To implement the streaming feature, you can use the WEBRTC technology.

• Revenue model:

Revenue is the key to running a business. If you don’t have a perfect revenue model/business model, it is very tough to convince the investors.
It is essential to survive in the market if you are planning to build a mobile app.
These are the various issues which you need to focus & resolve before you start your mobile app development.
You can create a free Pandora app with the help of neural network libraries.

 Key features of the app:

• Registration:

It is a minimal functionality which should include in every musical mobile app.
This feature will help to track real-time analytics of every user to provide the ultimate experience.
You can implement registration in different ways; most of the apps will use the Google account and mobile number.
Since the last ten years, many apps are providing an option to register with the social networking sites.
Majority of the apps are asking to register with Facebook rather than other social networks.
Estimated time:
Google account id & password: 20- 25 hours
Mobile login: 10-12 hours.
Integration of social network: 10-12 hours.
If you want to include these three types of registration methods, it will take around 45-50 hours.

• Search engine:

It may look simple but powerful for Pandora-like music apps.
It will help all the users from Android and IOS to search for a particular song, just by typing in the search console.
You can ask the voice assistant take me to Pandora search engine, and there you can search with the voice also.
If the song in the streaming app it will provide the related songs to users.
Estimated time: 25-30 hours.

• Playlists:

It is the next feature every streaming music app must have. It enables users to create playlists based on their choice.
Estimated time: 30-40 hours.

• Discover:

The discover feature will make your app very competitive with the other musical apps like Pandora & Spotify premium.
It is essential as well as tricky to develop for a mobile app. This feature helps to discover the songs by the new users.
You can always update the discover feature by improving the discovery algorithm.
Estimated time: 38-40 hours.

• Player:

Another feature you must include in your mobile app.
If you are planning to develop an app like Pandora, so this feature should be compulsory.
The play screen will help users to control their streaming of music and podcasts.
The play screen will provide you in detail of every track that is playing in your apps such as cover photo, artist, album info, and many more.
You have player controls and other features such as like/dislike, adding to the playlist, and many more.
Estimated time: 32-36 hours.

• Social sharing:

This feature will be the free advertising platform. Nowadays, every mobile app is deciding to implement social sharing in its apps.
If you are good enough in social media platform, then it can fetch you many customers for your app usage.
Estimated time: 06-10 hours.

• Likes/dislikes:

You must include in your app if you are planning to develop a mobile app like Pandora.
This feature will help both user and mobile app admin. If you are user, the app will suggest the songs based on your likes/dislikes.
For the admins, these feature used for analyzing user preferences.
Estimated time: 06-10 hours.

• Payment gateway:

Ask your mobile app developer to integrate a secured payment gateway to your app. It is helpful for both user and admin.
Estimated time: 30-35 hours.

• Admin panel:

As you are the owner of the app, you should have a management platform to know what is going on with the app.
It is used to maintain all the information, such as profiles of users, songs, playlists, and many more.
The time to develop will vary based on the complexity of the admin panel development.
Estimated time: 300-350 hours.
If you want to make your app unique, you can add some more additional features for your mobile app.

• Addition features:

Album info & Artist profile: 52-55 hours
In-app purchases: 25-30 hours.
User profile: 80 hours
 

• Business model:

The revenue for the Pandora app comes mainly through Advertising
Subscription services:

• Free version:

The Pandora free music app provides various subscription plans to users.
The free version of Pandora: The users can avail free service by in app-ads.

• Pandora plus:

Cost- $54.89/Year or $4.99/Month.
In this, you can enjoy ad-free music.
With this plan, you can listen to music with high sound quality for a longer time.
You can also enjoy Pandora offline mode up to four stations.

• Pandora premium:

Cost: $109.89/Year or $9.99/Month.
With the Pandora premium account, you can also avail the benefits of Pandora plus.
Additional features with the premium service:
Search option.
Unlimited customized playlists.
You can play music on Pandora repeatedly.
Unlimited offline music access.

• Pandora Premium Family plans:

Cost: $164.89/Year or $14.99/Month.
You can avail all the features of Pandora premium.
Six unique users are allowed.
Apart from above, recently in May 2019, it launched two more plans:

• Student plan:

Cost: $4.99/Month.
You will get full features which you will get with Pandora premium app.
Free trial of 60 days.

• Military plan:

Cost: $7.99/Month
The military plan will provide you with a full premium feature.
You can enjoy favorite artist’s songs with 60 days of a free trial.

• In-app purchases.

In the year 2015, the app generated revenue of $1.16 Billion through the ads.
The company has 5.5 Million, premium subscribers.

Source: Statista

The above statistics are showing us the revenue of the Pandora app. It is another reason why many people are showing interest in the development of Pandora like an app.

How much does it cost to develop a music app like Pandora?

Now it is time to know the cost to develop an app like Pandora.
The cost of an app depends on various factors such as features, functionalities, design, tech stack, app developer geographical location, and many more.
The cost we are providing is an approximate cost based on the features & time to develop of the Pandora music app. The price will vary based on the choice of your requirements.
It will take around 850-950 hours to develop an app.
The developer cost will is different from one region to another region.
Developers in India: $10-80/hour
Developers in Eastern Europe: $30-150/hour
USA developer cost: $50-250/hour.
App development cost: Number of hours to develop * Mobile app developer cost
The cost will be around $10,000. If you want more features, it will cost you more based on the difficulty level.
It depends on the individual /enterprise in choosing the right developer. As every project is unique and identical, the cost also varies.
Don’t be in a hurry to while selecting the mobile app development company; make sure whether they can provide the right product at the right time.
We are the top most mobile app development company serving all over the world with streaming music apps.
I hope you are satisfied with the above information. If not, you can reach us to clarify your queries.
Our professional will help you in clarifying all your doubts and queries.
Please reach us. We are happy to serve you. Contact us.