Templated Apps vs Custom Apps
Clothing and apps have a lot in common - you can get them custom or off the rack! Quality, time and money are the differences.
Like most things in life, there is more than one way to get something done. My favorite analogy for mobile app purchasing is clothes. There are three ways to buy clothes. The first is you can go to a tailor and have something made custom to your body where you pick out the fabric, the style and the finishes. This is the longest and most expensive option. It’s also the one that relies on your own taste and fashion sense. However, what if you don’t have all the time and money in the world? And perhaps need a little guidance around what is stylish and suited to your body? Then you might consider working with a stylist who will help pick out ready to wear clothing and help you choose. This is drastically more affordable, takes a lot less time, and ensures that you don’t get carried away focusing on zippers or buttons designing something less than suitable for the occasion.
Designing an app is very similar. You can either hire a team of engineers and designers to build something tailored to your organization’s requests, paying often an hourly rate of $150-300 which over the course of 6-18 months can leave you owing hundreds of thousands - and that is just to launch, not long term maintenance and updates. Another path is using an out-of-the-box solution like a texting service or a community board website - these tools are usually very limited in functionality and or require signing in on a web browser which limits accessibility and usability.
MilkCrate provides an option much like the personal stylist - we have ready to go features and tools that we are expert in selecting for the right client. We can launch an app for a fraction of the time and money a custom app would cost while ensuring it has the functionality to suit your needs. And best of all, like your own personal style, it will have your own organizational branding to set it apart.
Each MilkCrate app allows our clients to insert their own branding, images, colors and content.
The benefits of launching a mobile app using a templated system like MilkCrate includes:
Lower costs (custom development can be $100K-$1M+)
Faster launch time (custom development can take years to fully finish)
And features ready made for your needs (instead of starting from scratch!)
Before our award-winning solution was available, organizations had to choose between expensive and time-intensive custom build projects with development firms that would bill by the hour - and those projects would often take years before they could launch a stable and useful product. MilkCrate clients spend on average less than 1/10 the cost and at 1/10 the time of building an app from scratch! Our mission is to help nonprofits run better programs with transparent results by providing the most valuable and cost-effective solution for nonprofit program engagement and participation tracking.