Sean Ammirati of mSpoke is at SXSW in Austin, TX (USA). He is reporting for Read/WriteWeb throughout the event.
On Saturday we covered an SXSW panel
called Web App
Autopsy, which examined four live web applications (RegOnline, FeedBurner, Wufoo, and Blinksale) for things like conversion rates and
revenue per customer. Today there was a similar seminar entitled "Barenaked
App: The Figures Behind the Top Web Apps", which looked at 5 web applications and
what it took to build and release those products. This time the focus was very much
around the financial costs to build and deploy these web applications (as opposed
to elements like lines of code or revenue). It also touched on what it costs
in monthly maintenance. Here is an overview of the data they shared:
- DropSend: Build $48,012 / Monthly $3,625
- Freshbooks Build $20,000 / Monthly $46,000
- Maya's Mom: Build $70,000 / Monthly $30,000
- Mobissimo: Build $60,000 / Monthly $150,000
- Wesabe: Build $200,000 / Monthly: $3,000
One other interesting thing shared was that FreshBooks cost $430k total to build and maintain, until they reached break even ($140k of those expenses went to marketing).
The entire set of slides are supposed to be online soon at www.carsonified.com/sxsw.pdf (as of writing they aren't online yet). When that PDF is published, it is well worth you downloading it - because it breaks the summary costs down by design, development, infrastructure and other categories. [Update: the slides are available now].
Photo: Ryan Carsen