How much does it cost to create a mood-tracking mental health app?
Mental health awareness, while popular amongst the masses in first-world countries, they are still gaining traction in other countries. But with increased understanding, the need for accessible & affordable mental health care has also gone up. Where therapy and other treatments are rather expensive, day-to-day concerns like anxiety, work stress, etc can be kept in check with mood-tracking apps like Calm, Wysa, etc.
While it’s certainly a great app to invest in, there are many variables that can affect the cost of development. Some of these variables include:
TYPES OF MOOD-TRACKING APP
The general timeline for the development of any app depends on the variety of apps we create. The more complex variant we choose, the longer it takes and the higher the price it costs. In the case of mood-tracking apps, there are mainly three variants to watch out for:
MANUAL MOOD TRACKER APP
These apps allow the user to add the details of how they are feeling and why to a varying level of detail manually. This is completely user-generated data and while it’s a great way of actively monitoring your mood, it’s not very accurate since sometimes we might misjudge how we feel or simply forget to key in crucial data because we are busy or feeling overwhelmed. They can be combined with apps like period tracking apps or apps that provide access to mental health practitioners.
MEDITATION APPS
There are many apps of this variant available in the market like Calm & Headspace that provide excellent stimulation and an environment for meditation. They use audio & visual cues and techniques to create a relaxed atmosphere. This could be to tackle work stress in the middle of the day or sleep better at night. They offer free and premium models both and seem to have a growing user base.
IOT MOOD TRACKER APPS
This variant is the most accurate type of app to track one’s mood and how it affects our physiological health. It uses wearable tech like fitness bands and smartwatches to monitor the body’s vitals like blood pressure, pulse, heart rate, oxygen levels, etc to track our reaction to physical and mental stimuli. Then the analysis is done to see when seem stressed, anxious, etc depending on the vitals.
FEATURES OF THE APP
Mood Diaries
This is the main feature to have if you’re creating a manual mood-tracking app. This feature lets the user key in how they are feeling and maintain a mood diary.
Mood Charts
Data from mood diaries can be presented visually to the user to give them a better understanding of their progress. This can be done using pie charts, bar graphs, etc over different periods of time from a week to a year and more.
Health Tracking
Our physical health can greatly affect our mental health so it’s equally important to keep track of the same. Vital stats of blood pressure, heart rate, pulse, etc are definitive indicators of the state of one’s physical health but may also tell us if any mental health condition afflicts the person.
Gamification
When gamification is used for all sorts of apps to keep the user engaged and motivated, then why not mental health? It’s very important to ensure that the user does not feel encouraged but also good about themselves to use the app. Thus, it’s important to create modules in a manner that provide enrichment and positive reinforcement to the users.
‘Close Friend’ List Integration
While an app can connect you with professionals and help you seek the help you need, sometimes friends are people you immediately need to rely on. For such scenarios, the app should have the option to let you contact a selected list of people with ease.
IoT Integration
Wearable tech is the only way to get true quantitative data for vital stats in real time. Thus, integrating wearable tech like fitness bands & smartwatches will make the app even more intuitive for the user’s benefit.
Guided Relaxation
This is especially important for apps that are aiming to be meditation apps. Guided meditation techniques or audio and visual cues to help relax or even guided sleep, there are many options within this feature that can be made available.
Social Media Integration
Social media sharing in this case isn’t a feature needed to share your stats with the world but to be able to easily and safely share the information you want with your mental health practitioner and/or family and friends.
Any other USPs
There are infinite possible features that you can add to your app, each more unique than the other. However, they also can increase the cost of development, and by how much depends on how complex is the process to bring it to life.
Mood-tracking mental health apps are gaining traction and soon will become the number one way that the world accesses mental health care. So, if you’re planning to invest in an app like this, invest with the end-to-end tech experts like Valere. And if you want an estimate on the budget for your app, you can check out our App Development Cost Calculator.
Valere is an award-winning software development agency that has built over 300 top-rated applications for startups and Fortune 500 companies in all verticals like healthcare, finance, sports, fitness, education, and more. Their apps have been featured by the New York Times, and have been consistently recognized as Apple App Store’s top featured apps, TechRadar, and Google Play Store’s top featured apps! Schedule a call with us today to learn how we can help your team create the perfect software or application that can Accelerate Your Business Goals!
