How much does it cost to build a financial literacy and money management app like Zogo?

In the last five years there has been a sharp rise in people – specially millennials and Gen Z getting serious about money matters. In order to satiate this need for financial literacy, the segment has started turning towards the social media and entertainment industry with several surveys suggesting how a third of TikTok users are getting financial advice from the platform.

While these platforms serve the gap created by a lack of financial literacy in school, the content which they consume can also include dubious advice, which they won’t be able to sift through. This is where an app like Zogo comes in. In order to build a personal finance app, you need to apply ablend of gamification and incentive techniques to help its millennials and Gen Z users learn the different finance concepts with an immersive twist.

Backed by a funding of over $295k, the application has become a preferred choice of entrepreneurs to launch their business in. Now while the financial literacy app like zogo cost can range anywhere between $180,000 to $300,000 depending on the different elements that go into it, understanding those elements is what would lead to the success of your custom financial literacy app development efforts.

Let us dive into the different stages to develop an app like Zogo as a way to understand the efforts that will go behind building a fintech application similar to it.

Identify target audience

The first step to make an app like Zogo is identifying the target audience. In the case of the financial literacy app, they are focusing on millennials and Gen Z user base – the latest entrant in the space. While they are using an incentive-based system to keep the users engaged, if you are looking to launch your app for the same user base it is crucial to find ways of keeping the users engaged.

Following the incentive model might work in your case as well but you will need to find other ways to keep users hooked as well since a reward system might soon wear the users out.

Finalize the app features

The process of financial literacy app development like Zogo is divided into three modules – Students, Teachers, and Admin. Let us look into them individually to get a detailed idea.

Students side features of an app similar to Zogo

Sign-up

The user sign up section would require you to have multiple sign up options ranging from email, phone and social media logins. In addition to this, you will need to have a KYC system in place to verify the users. For this purpose, Zogo makes use of Stripe ID functionality where the users have to upload their government identity proof.

Courses

The next crucial part of the financial literacy app development lies in courses and modules. The moment students open the application, they get a list of courses and modules they can enroll in. Now the area where Zogo lacks is not having a category specific to the courses, so when you build the application, you can add in a smart filter option to segregate the course names.

After they have found the course they are interested in, the students can complete them at a speed which suits their schedule.

Pineapples

‘Pineapples’ is what the Zogo application revolves around. The application gives students rewards, called Pineapples, for passing the in-app tests after course completion, inviting their friends, and completing other activities in-app. The students can then use these pineapples as a reward system which can be exchanged on partner stores like Amazon, Adidas, Walmart, etc.

Leaderboard

When you create an app like Zogo which is educational in nature, it helps to have a leaderboard showing how users’ friends or other app users are performing as a mode of motivation.

Contact support

The next part of Zogo app features lies in having a real-time support functionality that would make it easy for the users to connect with the brand through in-app chat, email and phone.

Dashboard

The last critical feature when you create an app like Zogo is a dashboard. It shows the students the details of their past and ongoing courses, number of pineapples earned, and the history of rewards.

Teachers side of financial literacy app features

Create course

The first part of custom financial literacy app development on the teachers module is where they can create a course. The teachers are able to decide the learning they want to impart, test questions, the module length and launch a customized course.

View course performance

Apart from course creation, when you make an app similar to Zogo, there should be a functionality for the teachers to view how their courses are performing – students enrolled along with their leaderboard, most learned courses, level of completion, etc.

Admin side of financial literacy app features

Users management

Through the application, admins should be able to manage the users – students and teachers in a way that if they lose access to their data the admin will be able to help them.

Course management

When you create an app like Zogo for the admin side of things, it should help them in managing courses. They should be able to modify or delete courses which don’t comply with the app’s guidelines.

Partners management

Something that is very unique to Zogo is how they partner with banks and financial institutions giving them a platform to teach users about their products and its benefits. Managing these partners and their content in a way that it gets high visibility is something that has to be ensured when you make an app like Zogo.

Fix the design system

While Zogo comes with a simplistic, gamified interface there’s one issue where it lags – it’s striking resemblance with the Duolingo app.

The way you can get an edge with your custom financial literacy app development process is by creating a unique design.

What we recommend at Appinventiv is keeping a mix of media elements to keep users engaged instead of just a textual design. When you add in interfaces like audio of the chapters, video based explanations, and show the vision of the chapter for e.g. ‘you can save x amount following these learnings’, it gives users confidence in your application. Creating a design like this contributes to the end financial literacy app like Zogo cost.

Think of the team structure

The last, yet crucial part of building and deciding the financial literacy app like Zogo cost is the team that will work behind it.

Typically, the team structure looks like this –

1 Project manager

1 UI/UX designer

2 Android developers

2 iOS developers

1 QA expert

1 Deployment engineer.

This team size, while can vary depending on the app’s complexity, leaves a massive impact on the development cost. Here’s how. This team structure when you hire from India will cost somewhere around $60-80 per resource, while the same will become $100-120 when you hire someone from the US or UK.

Launch and maintenance

Once all these different factors of developing an app similar to Zogo comes together, the launch stage comes.

Here, the platforms you choose to make your app live in are studied and the app is deployed on them.

After the product gets live, the next continuous stage that comes is maintaining it. Here, the fintech software development company keeps track of users’ reviews, app’s social mentions and then works on the common suggestions.

Now that we have looked into the different elements of building an app similar to Zogo, the next logical question you might have is how to make money from my app. Let’s answer that as we conclude the article.

Also Read: How much does it cost to build a custom cash management software

How to make money on your Zogo app?

Finding revenue sources or choosing the right pricing strategy for the app is what sets the path for its success in the market.

At Appinventiv, when we work on fintech literacy apps, we give our clients a range of monetization models to choose from –

• Subscriptions
• In-app advertisement
• Paid app upgrades where users can talk to financial experts.

In the case of Zogo, they don’t have any monetization model besides what they earn through their partners. Now this can be counter intuitive. The brand partners end up selling their products to the users based on the data they enter in the app through questionnaires. This, as the data laws progress in the app space, can lead to the brand pivoting for new business models in a limited time.

Planning the intricate level of monetization and looking at ways to upgrade your app from the existing, leading competitor in the digital space requires an expert team working besides you. This is where we come into picture.

How Appinventiv helped EdFundo become a financial intelligence hub for kids?

Financial literacy being detrimental to kids’ success, Edfundo, a UAE-based startup, created a financial literacy and money management app for kids of any age. Educationalists founded a startup that deeply understands the learning gaps in financial literacy.

Our efforts resulted in Edfundo bagging pre-seed funding of $500,000. Our educational app development services also helped Edfundo prepare for a seed round of $3 million.

We help businesses, across startups and enterprises, explore the different use cases of fintech and launch a unique product in the face of fierce competition. Get in touch with our team behind 30+ innovative financial solutions that are redefining the space, globally.

FAQs around financial literacy app development cost

Q. How to create a mobile app like Zogo?

A. The first step to building an app similar to Zogo lies in identifying the target audience. This knowledge then leads to choosing the right feature set, creating the best design system, and then running a QA test before app launch.

Q. How much does the development of a financial literacy app like Zogo cost?

A. The Zogo-like financial literacy app development cost can be anywhere between $30k to $300k depending on the complexity you want to add through features, design, and technology integrations.

Q. How long does it take to develop an app like Zogo?

A. Zogo-like apps can take a minimum of 4 months and a maximum of 12-18 months. The exact answer to this lies in the app details and its overall complexity.

THE AUTHOR

Sudeep Srivastava

Co-Founder and Director