Does your business need an app, or a better website?

Someone told you that you should have an app. Maybe a competitor launched one, or a customer asked, or you saw what a chain in your industry is doing with loyalty points.

Before you price one: most small businesses asking whether they need an app need a better website instead. Here is the test that tells which you are, and the cases where an app genuinely pays.

What is the difference, for a customer?

A website is how strangers find you. Someone searches, lands on your site, decides whether to trust you, and gets in touch. It works on any device, needs nothing installed, and Google can send people to it.

An app is for people who already chose you. It has to be found in a store, downloaded, and kept on a phone that is already full. In exchange it can do things a website cannot: send notifications, work offline, remember someone across visits, sit on the home screen.

The short version: websites win strangers, apps serve regulars.

The test: how often does one customer come back?

Count how many times a typical customer buys from you in a year.

Once, or every few years, and an app is very unlikely to make sense. Roofers, movers, wedding photographers, conveyancing, dentists. Nobody downloads an app for something they do twice a decade. Every dollar belongs in being findable and being convincing.

Monthly or more, and an app becomes arguable. Coffee shops, takeaways, gyms, salons, pet groomers, anything on a membership. Here repeat visits, loyalty and quick reordering have real value, and a notification is welcome rather than an intrusion.

One more question: would a customer use it more than once a month? If not, it will be deleted in the next phone cleanup, and what you paid for goes with it.

What people actually want when they ask for an app

Usually one of these, and most do not need an app:

• “I want to send notifications.” Email and text do this now, cheaply, to everyone rather than only to people who installed something.
• “I want to be on their phone.” A good mobile site can be saved to the home screen and look almost identical.
• “I want bookings or ordering.” Booking and ordering systems plug into a website for a monthly fee, and are live in days.
• “I want a loyalty scheme.” This one is genuinely better in an app, and is the most common real reason to build one.

When an app is genuinely the right call

Four situations, in our experience:

• Repeat ordering where speed matters and saved details remove the friction.
• Loyalty and memberships where points, passes or class bookings are the product.
• Field work where your own staff need something offline, on site, with photos and signatures.
• The product is the app. If it is the thing you sell, this whole article does not apply.

If one of those is you, our starter app build runs $5,500, and apps need upkeep after launch, which is what the care plan at $149 covers.

What to do first if you are not sure

Test the demand without building anything. Put the thing people supposedly want on your website first: an online booking page, a reorder form, a simple digital punch card. If people use it there, an app will make it smoother. If they do not use it there, an app would not have saved it, and you will have learned that for a few hours of work instead of a five figure build.

Target Marketeer builds and runs marketing for small businesses nationwide, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, and we have talked more businesses out of apps than into them.

Quick answers

Does my small business need an app?

Only if customers deal with you at least monthly and would use it more than once a month. For occasional purchases, a strong mobile website does the same job for far less.

Is an app better than a website?

They do different jobs. Websites bring in people who do not know you yet, because search engines send them. Apps serve people who already chose you, with notifications, loyalty and saved details.

How much does a business app cost?

Simple apps commonly start in the low thousands, and custom builds run well into five figures, plus ongoing upkeep for store requirements and operating system updates. A website costs a fraction of that.

Can a website send notifications like an app?

Browsers support push notifications, and email and text reach more people because nothing has to be installed. If notifications are your only reason for an app, you do not need one.

What is the cheapest way to test whether people want my app?

Add the feature to your website first, such as online booking or reordering, and see if anyone uses it for a month. Real usage tells you more than any amount of asking.

If you are costing one up, how much a mobile app costs for a small business breaks down the numbers, and what makes a website turn visitors into customers covers the alternative. Our mobile app development page explains how we build them when they are the right answer.