Remember the times when you have to download the music over your device and listen to the music. Well, those days are way over us. These are the times when things are convenient, and people can freely listen to the music over streaming services that are available through mobile applications.
You can easily download them over App Store and Google Play Store and enjoy good music.
The market leaders in the music streaming app services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora are very popular. It is because of the convenience and the value they are providing at the cost of some money. People are willing to pay to get access to good music. People are looking forward to listening to people the music that is exclusively getting released on these applications by their favorite artists. Other relative services such as buying of merchandise, buying tickets of concerts and more are also engaging for people.
In short, music streaming applications are the future. If you are thinking about starting your own music streaming application, this blog might be able to guide you through the process. There are factors such as license, platform, technology, features, etc., that have to be sorted out. In this guide, we would be helping you to know more about these factors and how you can build amazing music streaming applications.
How to make a music streaming application?
- Music Streaming App Market Overview
For any app to be successful, it has to provide convenience. Music streaming applications are no different. They provide music conveniently to people, and that has helped it grow to a massive amount. Here are some statistics:
- The global music streaming market has an average revenue per user of approximately $26.
- The market is expected to exceed $10 billion by 2023.
- Spotify, one of the leading music streaming app, has a 36% market share in the market.
- According to a report by Apple, 60 million users pay for Apple Music Subscription.
Music streaming applications are the future. People are looking forward to paying for the right set of services. For you to compete with music streaming giants like Spotify and Pandora, it is essential to get your game plan ready before entering the business. These platforms are five years old and have a huge user base. To become who they are now, you are required to leverage modern technology such as ML and AI to make the experience more worthwhile.
Also, as the trends change and new rewarding technologies pop up, you would be required to ponder on how they can transform your business life. For music streaming applications, it is essential that they provide the right suggestions, such as relevant artists, tracks, and albums.The use of modern technology and futuristic investment in machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions can help you learn about your users better.
In short, there are some things on the smaller and larger levels that you have to decide and implement to make the experience on your mobile application much better. Let's start by discussing the market leader and make our way to the important steps in the making of music streaming applications.
- Competitor Research
Before you start building your own music streaming application, it is always good to look at the people and their work that have already aced it. Let's discuss the market leaders and understand what they are doing differently than others.
- Spotify
Spotify is one of the most loved music streaming applications in the world. They have millions of users globally, and they are giving a tough fight to their competitors and well-known names of the tech industry – Youtube and Apple Music.
It is not a secret that Spotify is in line to become an enormous application for music. And the secret behind this is they are offering a gigantic part of their collection of music for free. There are a number of people that use a free account to listen to the music found on the app. Though there are some limitations to these freemium accounts, such as ads and limited access to the music, it is not stopping people from opting for Spotify. The service offering premium accounts get unlimited access to music.
- Pandora
Pandora is highly competitive music streaming application. It is globally recognized for the audio quality and customizations that are possible within the application. Additionally, the on-demand segment of the application is called Rdio and reclaimed its title of being the best music streaming application in the world.
- Apple Music
Apple Music is a well-known name in the game. It has created an application for both iOS and Android. Offering various songs for users from all over the world. Additionally, users can listen to local radio stations using the application.
Some of the other music streaming applications that you can look at for research purposes include iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TIDAL, TuneIn Radio, Deezer, etc. These are some of the apps that have been successful in marking their place in the industry. They have exciting features that you can incorporate into your audio streaming application.
- Major Features to consider while building a music streaming app
There are some features that are absolutely necessary for music streaming applications.There are various things you have to weigh out for making a significant difference in the building of an application.
- Type music streaming services
Start discussing what kind of app you want to create. It is common for the music streaming applications to offer:
- Music library
Decide how you want to build a server. A server-based music library would offer customers access to music for a paid subscription or free access. Consider apps such as Apple Music and Spotify.
- Cloud Storage
Allow your users to download the songs and get access to their collection anytime and anywhere. Take an example from the apps such as Audiobox, Groove Music.
- Radio Stations
Arranging the music as per the genres. The apps would have various radio stations and can be arranged to specific themes. This can be streamed on PC, home audio, or any smartphone. Take examples of apps such as Shoutcast, Apple Music.
- Getting License
Music streaming services help your users to listen to music without having to purchase it. But as an owner of the music streaming application, you are required to get a license for offering the music content. You would be required to purchase the Public Performance Rights.
If you are based in the United States, you can consider two agencies:
- The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
- Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI)
If you are based in Europe, apply to the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC).
Brands like Spotify have two types of licensing for streaming music: Sound Recording License and Musical Composition License Agreements. It also signs contracts with large music labels like Universal Music Group, Entertainment Group, Sony Music, and others.
To start a music streaming application, it is very important to work out the license. If you don't have a license, you might have to pay up to $750 to $1,50,000 per one song is played. This is going to be very difficult for you.
- Data Storage
This is where the development team dives in. Before you start music application development, your development team should take care of the data storage. The backend server should support your application. You would have to select a service provider such as AWS or Microsoft, Google, IBM, Oracle, and more.
There is also a second option to bring down your data storage cost. You can stream from Spotify or SoundCloud using SDK or API provided by them. You can keep in mind the restrictions listed in terms of use for the developer tools. Third-party streaming APIs can be used and integrated into your product. You can create a data storage-based app on a self-hosted server. You can upload your songs into a readable directory on your server.
- Platform
iOS and Android are the two most common music streaming app development platforms. Choose the one that offers you maximum market reach. To stay competitive, you can choose to build an application for the platforms. One of the biggest examples of this is Apple Music. Apple launched its application for both iOS and Android to gain more users.
However, you are on a budget; it is possible to choose a platform according to your target audience and their preference. Like in the US, people prefer iOS devices over Android devices. At the same time, the Asian and European market is dominated by Android. So you must think about Android and iPhone app development services depending on your userbase.
Development of a Music Streaming Application: Feature and Cost
- Essential features for a music streaming application
Technology has advanced to a great extent, and it has bestowed the enterprises the power to reduce their development cost, seek out investors, gain useful insights and keep growing their service offers. This evolution has divided the features into two categories – MVP and Advanced version.
MVP or Minimum Viable Product is an application that has features that are absolutely essential for the functioning of the business. To satisfy the basic user needs, you can create an MVP of your music streaming app, release it and get feedback. This helps you to build more advanced and expensive features in the application product.
- Building MVP: Step By Step Guide
Here is all you need to know about the MVP version of your app. The MVP allows you to get more investment as the stakeholders would be able to see your product and build more trust in you. Here are a few features that are absolutely necessary for an MVP music streaming application.
- Registration
The registration process on your application should be fast and user-friendly. A lot of businesses are using social logins to make the registration process as simple as one tap. Apart from this, you can allow your users to register through their phone number or email id. Make sure to add Forget Password feature. This is all that you need for the registration.
Development time: Backend Development: 27 Hours
iOS Development: 38 Hours
Android Development: 38 Hours
- Search
The search option is the most important feature of the music streaming application. While users are registering on your platform, you can provide a list of music genres they are interested in, something like Pinterest does to know what are the interesting topics for their users. This would help you make the suggestion that is relevant to the users.
Apart from this, the search bar of the application must allow the users to search for the music through the name of the song, artist name, the title of the record/ album, recording studio, and genre.
Development time: Backend Development: 24 Hours
iOS Development: 51 Hours
Android Development: 51 Hours
- Music Player
You have to have a music player. This would provide the functionalities to the users for creating a playlist of favorite songs, add albums to their collections, and mark their favorite artists.
Development time: Backend Development: 10 Hours
iOS Development: 69 Hours
Android Development: 69 Hours
- Dedicated Dashboard for My Music
A dedicated dashboard for "My Music" would serve as a good addition. This would be a place where a user can find their favorite tracks, download them and manage them. You can add features such as creating or deleting a playlist, sharing a playlist, and playing a playlist. You can also add the ability to share the playlist or song via social media. It is common to integrate an artist's screen with popular tracks and the latest albums.
Development time: Backend Development: 83 Hours
iOS Development: 140 Hours
Android Development: 140 Hours
- Settings
The settings panel in a music streaming application should be user-friendly. Incorporate all the abilities that are a must-have to improve the application experience for the users. This includes profile management, audio settings, app settings, etc. Added features such as automatic download, sync for various devices are commonly found in the leading music streaming application. Hence, a must-have in your app too.
Development time: Backend Development: 11 Hours
iOS Development: 61 Hours
Android Development: 61 Hours
- Features for Developing a music streaming application
Apart from the above-mentioned features, one of the most common things required for running any kind of app-based business is an Admin Panel. Also, the overall design of the application is absolutely necessary to discuss when building an app.
- Admin Panel
An admin panel of the music streaming app would heighten your vision of your product. It helps you manage subscriptions, create featured playlists, and delete or add more playlists. You are able to manage the label present on your platform, and if you need to make customizations to the admin panel, you can contact the software development to add new features to it.
An admin panel with basic features to run a music streaming application would generally be built within 435 hours. However, it all comes down to the customization you are requiring. More the customization, more time would be invested.
- Design
Success does not come easy. And one thing that people have voted as the major reason to opt-out of the subscriptions or instantly uninstall an application is the user experience on the product. You need to pay attention to the UI and UX of the product. Your music streaming app design should interact with the users. Designers must research the design of the application. Keep an intuitive design based on the devices' in-built navigation. Create separate designs for iOS and Android.
Here are a few things you can do to make your application design more interactive. Here are several advanced features:
- Recommendations
- Preferences
- Personalized notifications
- Social sharing
- Top trending artists and songs
Building a Music streaming App: Technology and Team
- How to create your own music streaming service?
To create an iOS and android music streaming application, you need a specialist team. It is not just about the front-end (user-side) of the application but also about the server-side of the app that is going to be complicated. Storage, cloud, streaming, setting up of the database, using of important technologies, etc., is an important aspect of running music streaming applications. You need people that have knowledge and talent to interpret these needs into fullyfunctional music streaming applications.
- Team Structure
Here is the structure of the team that you would require to finish the project.
- Business analyst
- Project manager
- UI/UX designer
- 1 or 2 Android developers
- 1 or 2 iOS developers
- Backend developers
- Q & A engineers
- Technology Stack
Music streaming applications require a scalable technology stack. It is essential for you to use various programming languages for developing iOS and Android apps. Swift and Kotlin, respectively. Also, you need a scalable database. Here are some of the technologies we suggest for a music streaming application.
- Programming languages: Python, Java
- Frameworks: Hadoop, Apache, Storm, Hub Framework
- Server: Ngnix
- Cloud Storage: Amazon S3, Google BigQuery
- CDN: Amazon CloudFront
- Database: PostgreSQL, Cassandra
- Tools: Bootstrap, Kafka, Google Analytics
- DevOps: Docker, Datadog, TestFlight
Read the blog- Must-have Features and Costs Involved in Music Streaming App Development
Choosing the technology stack is absolutely necessary for a music streaming application; you need to consult with the professionals and find the toolset that best suits your project needs. It all depends on the technical needs and project requirements. As leading music streaming application, we offer you a free consultation on all your project requirements.
How to Build a Music Streaming App: Time and Cost Estimation
The cost of any mobile app development services depends on various factors that influence the project. Like time taken to build an app, the number of resources you are required to hire, complexities of the application features, functionality, technology stack, 3rd party integrations, and so much more.
You can easily control the cost of development by planning your product better. This way, you will be able to tap the market while also testing the features and services that are most profitable to your business. Considering all factors we have discussed, let's find out the final time and cost of a music streaming application.
Some of the most popular sites of development are the USA, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and India. Of all the places in the world, India provides you the best offshore resources at cost-effective rates.
- Time estimation
As time is a necessary unit when deciding the estimated cost of development. Here is a complete breakdown (Step-by-step) to help you proceed with the development.
Features: 514 hours
Admin panel: 435 hours
UI/UX Designer for iOS / Android: 150 / 150 hours
Frameworks and Libraries Integration for backend: 82 hours
Frameworks and libraries for iOS / Android: 65 /65 hours
Quality Assurance (one app): 300 hours
Project Management (one app): 225 hours
Total time is taken in Android and iOS app development: 3017 hours
- Cost estimation
The cost of creating your own music streaming application may range between $88,250 and $150,850 for one or two platforms respectively in India. An advanced feature application would cost you more as the project would have added features and complexities.
In the USA alone, you might have to pay three times more than what you have to pay for a talented resource in India. It is because they have higher hourly rates in comparison to the engineers from India. Resources in India are equally talented, experienced, and well-versed in the industry trends.
The final price of the development is major gets influenced by the location of the development team.
Finally: how to monetize a music streaming application
You need to offer popular content to gain more users. Also, you need to consider several features that you can monetize and develop a winning strategy. Here are some suggested ideas were taken from the leading music streaming applications.
In our observation, two areas that help music streaming applications to monetize the platform are Subscription and Advertising.
- Monetization Models
It is necessary to have a vision of monetization. It would help you boost the development process and give you insights to prepare a marketing model that is winning. In the end, it is all about finding opportunities that are hidden in the model and interpret in the winning combination.
- Subscription
The subscription model is very common. A lot of music streaming services give you access to unlimited music and all features after you have a premium subscription. It helps you generate revenue on a regular basis.
- Advertisements
Advertising is another avenue that can be used to generate revenue. Youtube Music is a prime example of this type of model. Spotify Ad Studios for the artist is another. The services analyze the genre of your music and show and show users ads based on their preferences. This makes advertising profitable for the companies and also does not impact the experience of the user.
Wrapping Up
Hope now you would find music streaming app development a bit easy. The key takeaways from the blog are working out the legalities for starting a music streaming application and gaining some knowledge of technology. In-depth research about your competitors would give you an extra benefit to decide on the features and functionalities that are absolutely required in an application. Most of all, the team structure and choosing the best technology partner for mobile application development services are going to be equally challenging. However, with the right vision and game plan, you would be able to get through this situation easily.