How to Create a Fitness App: From Idea to Launch

Modern global wellness and fitness trends inspire many tech advancements. App development is no exception, but it is probably the primary focus of many companies.

Using a smartphone to track fitness results is a good idea, right? Many people share this view, increasing the use and monetization of different fitness apps.

Various points appear on the agenda, from the idea to tracking an application’s results. In this article, we will share our successful experiences building fitness applications, starting with a preliminary analysis of the market niches and ending with developing the app’s monetization strategy.

Things to Know Before Starting to Develop Fitness Apps

If you want to create a popular fitness app, there are many aspects to consider before launching the process of its development. The more specific your niche is, the better it is for the final products. Thus, you should carry out a detailed assessment. Here is how you can do that.

Define Your Niche and Target Audience

Even if your idea preliminarily shines bright, never neglect to pass this stage. The functionality, interface, and other arrangements are tightened to the target audience for which you develop your fitness app.

You can choose any specialization—yoga, running, fitness workouts, etc. Based on this idea, you will have to form a view of your target audience, taking into account the age, gender, and interests of future users. It is also essential to consider their approximate level of physical training. The latter aspect will determine the exercise program in your future app and the measures for tracking the training results.

The next stage is to create detailed profiles for each category of users in your target audience. You need to know exactly their “pains” and “motifs” for training and their approximate fitness goals. The latter aspect, for instance, may significantly diversify the training program.

If you intend to create a fitness application for yoga beginners, setting the basic exercises and preparation, this app will not suit proficient yoga enthusiasts. The best way to get first-hand information on the matter is to interview representatives of your target audience. Many online tools provide such an opportunity.

Based on the information obtained from this comprehensive preliminary research, you should elaborate on your unique selling proposition (USP). That is the core feature of your future app that will distinguish it from the competitors in the market. The more precise it is, the better you can tune your subsequent development and monetization for an app.

Who Are Your Competitors, And What Is the Overall Market?

Introducing another good idea to the market without prior assessment is like jumping into the water without knowing its depth. You need to know your niche’s top five or better ten competitors. Think from the perspective of your future users since they will assess many options available in the store. So, you have to know how to make future users interested in your fitness application from the start.

To make your USP even more specific, define and analyze thoroughly the strong and weak points that your competitors’ apps have. It is also recommended that users look through the reviews below the description of each application. As you may guess, this is one of the golden mines in app development – perform better in certain aspects where your competitors fail to do so.

Another related aspect is assessing the market overall before developing a fitness app. You have to be aware of and address the recent and, if possible, future tendencies of its development. It is a good idea to look through different research and look more precisely at some of the innovative technologies, like AI, virtual reality (VR), or augmented reality (AG). Manage to create an immersive interface in your fitness app. You will automatically make it distinct from the competitors since it will be more enjoyable for customers, for an obvious reason.

Making the Final Choice

The end of your customer, competitor, and market analysis should lead to developing the final strategy for your fitness application. Based on the information you have obtained and your USP, elaborate on the strategy for your future app. We will share with you the descriptions of the most widespread and popular examples of the fitness apps:

While making the final choice of an app you would like to create, make sure you assess appropriately its pros and cons. This is how you will increase its chances for monetization since you will (1) rely on the strong sides of the concepts and (2) address possible adverse aspects of the concept, minimizing their impact on the future success of the product.

A Perfect Scope of Functions for Your Fitness App

Once you decide what kind of app you want to create, move on to another must-have in its success plan: formulating the scope of functions. These are features that your future customers will love, and your customers will love your application.

Of course, any individual strategy needs a custom approach. However, there are two sets of functions any app should have to be well-balanced:

1) Basic must-have functions:

1. Custom user profiles. Onboarding should never be complicated. Your customers must devote a minimal portion of their time to registration. Using social media or Google accounts is the best way to do this smoothly.
2. Goals settlement and tracking. If you want to make your application popular, ensure proper goal setting. You may be sure that future users would be keen on measurable progress. Each app has its specifics. However, you need to envisage the appropriate formulation of a task, inputting goal value and a date for achieving this result by default.
3. Integration with fitness appliances and other apps. Making your app integrated with other apps or appliances, depending on the type of application you choose, is a good idea. You should carry out research on the integrations that your competitors ensure and pick even better alternatives if possible.
4. Community building. Community feeling is vital in any case. In certain cases, it becomes a must. For instance, having group workouts is a good idea for many users across the globe. Many people find it engaging to meet new people from different countries and have joint fitness sessions. The same example is yoga. Belonging to a community is more engaging than having physical activities alone. People are fond of such positive experiences. Thus, they will more likely recommend your app to other users as well, making your app’s community grow further. So, keep this aspect in focus if you wish to create a fitness app that is engaging and popular.
5. Push notifications and reminders. It is a true art to create positive and non-irritating push notifications. The basic point is that these notifications should be valuable and timely. Keep them short as much as possible. A positive tone of voice is also a must in this case.
6. Payment options. Two points to highlight here are ease and security. To monetize your application, you must ensure streamlined and secure payments for your services. There are two general ways to do this. First, you have to be involved in finding reliable payment providers. They typically provide complete security. Second, if you have doubts about protecting payments, apply extra measures to be safe. The most effective examples are encryption and 2-step authentication.

2) Extended functions:

1. AI integration. AI is a powerful tool that transforms numerous areas and tools, including fitness apps. It can ensure numerous positive experiences for your customers. Among the primary ones to highlight are effective planning and result tracking. AI can help elaborate on a more precise plan that is tightened maximally to the parameters that a user provides. Later, these plans can be easily updated based on the provided outputs. AI will also help track the results of training effectively.
2. Gamification. Many apps have already integrated these features into their functionality and interface. Gaming elements can significantly bolster any training program, especially when discussing challenging workouts or weight loss. Bringing more positive emotions into the process will only make it simpler and engage your users more with your app. Thus, various interactive elements are worthy of appearing in your future app.

Underestimated Yet Super-Important Aspect of Any Fitness Application

In this part of our article, we will discuss UI/UX design. Ensuring a superior and easy-to-navigate app design is not only important but crucial. Let’s explore the matter in detail.

When we speak about UI, we deal with the user interface. It covers the overall look, interactivity, and feel of a product. UX stands for the “user experience”—the overall experience that the application ensures. There are tested ways to make each element work well.

UI Essentials

If you wish to make the UI aspect of your app design workable, follow these simple tips:

• Highlight your brand identity. Users should recognize and remember your brand identity. In addition to your logo, tune the colors of your interface to match your brand colors. Avoid adding any extra ones that lead to aesthetic confusion.
• Keep your application neat and minimalistic. Your interface should not have any excessive elements. Keep it concise always. You may skip if your interface can work without a particular element. That is a simple yet effective test.
• Make it intuitive. Users should navigate your interface without instructions. That is another simple rule. Each feature has to be easy to understand and navigate.
• Keep it interactive. Thinking from the user’s perspective is essential in this case. Different visual and interactive elements will only make the interface more attractive. Make bright and engaging visuals.
• Prefer side or bottom-positioned navigation bars. These options are the easiest and most interactive and have proven effective from the user’s perspective many times.
• Ensure it is fast and responsible. Minimize the response time as much as possible. Users should not have to wait ages for a response. Also, ensure no bugs can cause the app to freeze, especially during workouts and other sessions.

UX Essentials

When we speak about the effective UX interface, these points become important for consideration:

• Onboarding. Users need to follow a seamless registration procedure without any bugs. Don’t request excessive details for registration.
• Navigation. The further navigation should be straightforward and error-free. This is especially the case when it comes to results tracking.
• Goal setting. Tune your app so users can effectively set and keep their goals focused. The perfect approach here is to support your customers with useful recommendations.
• Completion and result tracking. Once a user has completed a session in your application, they must get proper results. These results should be measurable and accurate. Make sure your app provides a clear history of the performance a user has demonstrated.

The same thing is with UI – test your interface to ensure it is entirely convenient for navigation.

Fitness App Development Process at a Glance

Unfortunately, there is no uniform strategy for how to develop a fitness app. Each case is individual. However, we would like to share with you some basic steps to ensure good results in the end:

Plan the Features of Your Apps

Develop the general overview of the future fitness app. This aspect will impact the next appearance of this app: user profiles, workout plans, libraries, tracking, etc. It will also determine the choice of many other tech parameters:

• Programming languages. Swift and Objective-C are the most suitable coding languages for iOS apps, while Kotlin and Java are the right choices for Android.
• Backend. The thing that lies beyond the user interface. Our experience shows that the best backend technologies for fitness apps are Node.js, Python/Django, and Ruby on Rails.
• Cloud services. These aspects may become essential if your apps become more popular and expand. Effective cloud technologies such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure provide the right solutions for growing businesses.
• Databases. Appropriate databases are needed to store information about your apps. For fitness apps, we recommend MongoDB and PostgreSQL.

Start Agile Development

We recommend this approach. Agile fitness application development envisages iterative development, where requirements and programming solutions evolve when different cross-functional teams collaborate. This approach brings more synergy to the software development process, ensuring more innovative and efficient solutions.

In this case, we recommend several frameworks. First is Kanban, a project management framework that relies on visual tasks for workflow management. It reduces time but increases the efficiency of the software development process.

Second is Scrum. This project management framework facilitates the team to structure and handle their workflow through a set of best practices and principles. In the first turn, this approach envisages intervals between different project parts. This approach is perfect for gathering feedback from potential users and adjusting the overall strategy.

Testing

This is another must-have and the final part of the software development process. Depending on the type of app, different testing types, such as modular and integration testing, can be applied. The main purpose of testing is to identify bugs and glitches.

Improving accuracy and making healthy updates is essential until an app’s operation becomes entirely smooth. In testing, it is crucial to rely on users’ feedback. When this is done, the app is ready for launch and promotion.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Fitness App?

The exact answer depends on a specific app. The average price for health and fitness mobile app development varies from $50,000 to $100,000. Different aspects impact the overall costs. However, we would highlight five of the most important features:

1. App type and its scope of features. Different types of apps are tailored to specific needs, including their programs, motivations, progress tracking, etc. The more complicated an app’s conception, the more funds are required. The same goes for its range of functions.
2. Platforms. This option is always cheaper if you opt for app development for one platform (iOS or Android). When you opt for both, this software development is always more expensive.
3. Design. The overall conception, UI/UX design elements, graphics, and animation determine the final costs. If you decide to integrate VR or AR into your app, this will only increase the overall budget. However, this endeavor will be only rewarding.
4. Development team. Two factors impact this part of your budget: expertise and location. Hiring developers from high-cost locations, like the USA or UK, will increase the budget by 100%.
5. Third-party integrations. Two must-haves—integrations with social media platforms and payment providers—can’t be omitted. Fitness and/or nutrition trackers may also incur additional costs.

How to Promote and Monetize Your Fitness App

When you create fitness apps, it is essential to draw special attention to their promotions and monetization. We will cover both aspects one by one.

When you promote your fitness app, there are several important points to highlight:

1. Keep your target audience in focus. In this case, the task is already accomplished. You may use the data obtained before the start of app development.
2. Create a strong brand identity. Keep in mind your competitors in this case and develop a strategy that can overcome them. What things do you make better than your competitors? How do you make the lives of users easier? Envisage a consistent and distinct visual appearance of your brand. The task is simple – make your users recognize your brand among others easily.
3. Apply ASO strategies. Pick the right keywords and visual effects to make your apps visible in the respective stores. Keep your apps’ ratings and customer feedback in the stores in special focus at the start of their launch.
4. Build a strong online and social media presence. Emphasize social media accounts since most customers learn about new products from these sources. Another aspect to highlight is advertising. Make sure you utilize “white” practices.

These efforts will help you monetize your mobile or web app. Use these effective strategies for this purpose, depending on the type of your app:

1. Freemium. This approach works simply – the basic features are free, while the advanced ones are available within the premium plan.
2. Subscription. Users pay as they use the app. If they are unsatisfied, they may cancel their subscription anytime. In this case, the most effective approach is to envisage a monthly subscription.
3. Partnership and cooperation. To broaden your reach, create alliances with fitness brands, bloggers, other influencers, and companies providing complementary services.

Post-Launch Tracking

When you build a fitness app, also keep in mind the aspects that will emerge after its launch:

• Customer feedback. Do different surveys and encourage users to share their feedback in the app and social media.
• Updates. They are required to correct mistakes, improve performance, and integrate new features.
• Customer support. Make sure your customer support operates smoothly and swiftly – this is a primary focus. Find the balance between AI options and human support, keeping the primary focus in mind.

Bottom Line

We hope this brief guide will help you bring your ideas to the world. Do not hesitate to start! The earlier you start, the greater your chances of monetization.

Finding experienced developers, elaborating on a clear interface with superior UI/UX features, and ensuring an app’s streamlined and effective operation can be complicated without professionals nearby. Share your ideas with us, and our agency will develop a rocket strategy for your future app. That is the most crucial aspect of its future monetization. Let’s discuss it!