Month: February 2023

Many companies are switching to remote work due to the coronavirus quarantine. People are staying at home and can’t see their friends and communicate with their colleagues as they used to. This has led to a fast increase in the popularity of video chat apps. Today, everyone uses some sort of video calling app to socialize. If you’re planning to develop a video chat app, now is the right time to start.

At Mobindustry, we’ve managed to be just as productive as before the quarantine thanks to remote work instruments including, of course, video chat apps. If you want to make your own video calling app this article will be very helpful.

Let’s look at the statistics

According to Priori Data, global downloads of Skype, Houseparty, and Zoom each grew by more than 100 percent in March. Spring 2020 is the era of virtual meetings. The video chat app Zoom was downloaded almost 27 million times in March compared to only 2.1 million times in January.

While Zoom is definitely the fastest-growing video chat app today, Skype remains in the lead when it comes to active users. According to Priori Data, Skype had 59 million daily active users of its iOS and Android apps in March, when Zoom had only 4.3 million. Keep in mind that Skype can be used for more than just video conferences, whereas Zoom is strictly for video chats, so this comparison isn’t totally fair.

What are the types of video chat apps?

Video chat applications have similar features, so the main factor that can differentiate them is their domain and target industry. Video chat apps are very popular in: 

• corporate communication
• telemedicine
• education
• customer support
• personal communication

Let’s look at some of the major categories of video chat apps based on their use cases and domains.

Video conferencing

Video conferences can increase employee productivity. Employees who usually communicate via email show a slow pace of work. By using multi-party video conferences, you can improve collaboration between employees in real-time.

Online retailers

Almost every e-commerce website provides its customers with chat-based assistance. A video chat helper can increase the quality of customer service, which can, in turn, improve brand performance, sales, and customer loyalty. With a video chat app, issues can be solved faster and in real-time.

Enterprise platforms

Team efficiency rises 45% with the use of collaboration tools. Enterprises can improve their engagement rates by implementing social platforms that support one-on-one video calls

Top 5 best video chat apps in 2023

#1 Zoom

Zoom is considered one of the best video chat apps today. It’s not only famous among professional teams but is used for simple and personal video chats due to its support across all platforms. With a free plan, users can set up video conferences with 100 concurrent participants that last up to 40 minutes. By purchasing a “large meeting,” users can host up to 500 participants. Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing app that’s used by over half of Fortune 500 companies.
Features include:

• Group messaging with text, images, and audio from desktop and mobile
• User statuses
• Invitations via phone number, email, and company contacts
• Safe driving mode
• One-on-one meetings
• Group video conferences
• Screen sharing
• Zoom meetings/Zoom rooms

Rating: 4.4
Installs: 10,000,000+
Download: Android, iOS
Works on: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, web

#2 Skype

Skype is one app that doesn’t need an introduction. It’s been connecting people around the world for years. Skype is known for being one of the most reliable video chat apps. Video calls support up to 50 participants.
Features include:

• International calls and texts
• Ability to send photo, text, video, and voice messages
• Support for a wide variety of devices
• Video calls
• Low calling rates to landlines and cell phones
• Screen sharing
• Live transcriptions

Rating: 4.3
Installs: 1,000,000,000+
Download: Android, iOS
Works on: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, web, Xbox

#3 Google Duo

Google Duo is a recently launched app that today is considered one of the best video chat apps for Android users. Duo is preinstalled on most new Android phones, and it’s easy to use and completely free.
Features include:

• Calls across Android and iOS devices
• Recording and sending of video messages
• Video calls with up to 12 people
• Knock Knock feature that gives a live video preview of the caller
• Voice calling
• Low light mode

Rating: 4.5
Installs: 1,000,000,000+
Download: Android, iOS
Works with: iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac via web

#4 FaceTime

It’s not surprising that FaceTime is on the list of the best video chat apps. This app is built into every iPhone, iPad, and Mac. FaceTime wasn’t the first video chat app, but it was the one that jump-started video communications for mobile users.
Features include:

• Video calls with up to 32 people
• Voice calls
• High definition video calls up to 720p
• Incoming calls on iOS devices even when FaceTime isn’t running
• Incoming calls on all Mac devices
• Video and audio calls
• Effects, Animoji, and stickers
• Quick access to key people in the Phone app
• Integration of FaceTime calls into the recent calls list in the Phone app

Rating: 3.6
Installs: 10,000+
Download: iOS
Works on: iOS, Mac

#5 Hangouts

Last but most certainly not least is Google Hangouts. This app is one of the best options for Android users. On the downside, it’s not as easy to use as Google Duo: it’s not your usual video chat app. Users can create a web video chat link and let people join in on their phones, tablets, laptops, or even from the web. They can also add video calls to the calendar with ease.
Features include:

• Video calls with up to 32 people
• Up to 150 contacts
• Synchronized chats across all devices
• Google Voice account for phone calls, SMS, and voicemail integration
• Status messages, photos, emoji, stickers, and animated GIFs
• Landline calls
• Remote management of the app with Google Cloud

Rating: 4.3
Installs: 1,000,000,000+
Download: Android, iOS
Works on: Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, web

How to create a video chat app

Step 1. Define your idea

What will make your app different from the competition? How will you market your app? What resources do you have? How will you monetize your product? You need to answer these questions before jumping into development.

You don’t need definitive answers yet — just a vision and a direction will suffice. If you have never developed a digital product before, your next step is to find an experienced team that will ask you the right questions and recommend you the technologies and even monetization strategies. We at Mobindustry do this for our clients all the time.

Step 2. Find a reliable team

If you don’t have an in-house team, and you want to save resources on development, outsourcing is your best option. There are thousands of software development teams worldwide, so how do you choose the perfect one for yourself? Here are the steps:

1. Ask for recommendations from your acquaintances, colleagues, partners, etc.
2. Search listing platforms like Clutch.co for detailed, verified reviews.
3. Check your candidates’ portfolios and websites, read their content, and check the services they offer/
4. Shortlist several companies and contact them. Pay attention to how they communicate, and what solutions they offer right off the bat.
5. Have short interviews with each company, involve a trusted specialist to assess their technical skills, and choose your final candidate.

You don’t have to make a huge commitment right off by signing a development contract. First, you can plan the development and create a technical specification for your video chat app, as you’ll need it anyways.

Step 3. Plan your development

Before the development process starts, you need to plan it. This is what a discovery phase is for. During the discovery phase, we at Mobindustry do several things:

• Interview you to understand your business goals, expectations, objectives, and timeline
• Perform market and target audience research, as well as competitor and SWAT analysis, to make sure your product hits the market and gets a perfect niche
• Create wireframes that show the future’s product user flow
• Create a technical specification that includes features, functionalities, requirements, and other details that will guide everyone on the team through the development process

The technical specification is the most important document on the project that ensures you get exactly what you expect after the development is done.

Step 4. Design your app

Now it’s time to create the UI/UX design for your app. A good user experience design will ensure your product is easy and convenient to use, and a user interface design will make your video call app visually appealing.

Make sure that your interface is simple and minimalistic and corresponds to the modern best practices of UI/UX design. Test your design with your target audience by involving early users and focus groups.

Step 5. Develop and test

Now it’s time to develop your application. You’ll need to develop its server-side and front-end side. You can cut corners by choosing a SaaS solution for your backend development. It will be less flexible, compared to custom development, but it will save you time.

One of the most important parts of video chat app development is integrating a video streaming protocol. Today, WebRTC is the most popular and reliable protocol out there.

As your team gradually builds your app, your QA specialists should test it bit by bit after each piece of code is delivered. This will help you save money in the long run and avoid large inconsistencies at the final stages of development.

Step 6. Release and maintain

After you did all the final testing and prepared your app for release, it’s time to show it to the world! However, the work doesn’t stop here. To keep your app relevant for the users, you need to update, test and improve it regularly. Regular maintenance guarantees that your app is secure, up-to-date and ready for your business growth.

Technology stack for a video chat app like Zoom

Android

• Programming Languages – Kotlin, Java, Flutter
• Toolkit – Android Studio
• Video Chat – WebRTC
• SDK – Android SDK

iOS

• Programming Language – Swift, Flutter
• Toolkit – Apple Code
• Video Chat – WebRTC
• SDK – iOS SDK

WebRTC avails the following APIs

• MediaStream
• RTCPeerConnection
• RTC DataChannel

Third-party APIs

• Pubnub
• ContusFly
• Willio
• CometChat

MVP features of a video chat app

To calculate the cost of and create video chat app, you need to have a list of your app’s indispensable features. Here is a list of must-have features for the minimum viable product (MVP) of a video chat app.

User registration

Let your users choose between three methods of registration. The first is to sign in via social media accounts like Facebook or Instagram. The second is standard registration from scratch using an email, name, and other contact details. The third is registration via phone number.

User profiles

A user profile in a video chat app should let users display basic information like photos, names, and a small description.

Search and add friends

Video chat apps are all about communication and interactions. Add features so users can search for people, find friends, and invite them to join a chat. Consider adding a feature that can import contacts from a user’s phone or social media accounts.

User status

For an app based on communication, users need to see if their video chat companion is away, on a mobile phone, or not available. Users should be able to see the status of other users to understand whether they’re available for a conversation.

Text chat

Even in a video chat app, text-based chat should always be available in case the internet connection is poor. Not every big video chat network app has this feature, but we advise you not to skip it for a better user experience.

Geolocation

With geolocation, users can quickly choose their country and the app will identify it automatically.

Video and voice calls

Finally, there’s the video chat feature. Above, we talked about features that almost every app should have. Now we address the feature that makes a video call app what it is. When adding a video call feature, remember to let users turn the camera on and off, show the screen, and mute/unmute the microphone. Also, don’t ignore simple voice calls, as they can replace ordinary phone calls that can be quite expensive.

Group video chats

When creating a video chat app, remember to include a group video call option — especially if want to build video chat app right now while the whole world is in quarantine. People need this feature to communicate with their friends.

Push notifications

Use push notifications to improve user engagement in the app. You can use push notifications to notify users about the latest updates, chat invitations, and new messages.

How to monetize a video chat app

After video calling app development, you’ll need to think through how to monetize it. We’ve written several articles on the topic of mobile app monetization.

Here are a few ideas for monetizing a video chat app:

Advertising

You can make video call app free and add advertising. Include brand advertising in your app. Try to collaborate with brands that might be useful for your target audience. This way, interactions between users and brands will lead to better profits for your video chat app. You can choose one of the following ad pricing models:

• Cost per click. Charge advertisers every time a user interacts with their ads in your app.
• Cost per mille. Charge advertisers for every 1,000 ad impressions in your app.
• Cost per action. Charge advertisers only when users complete a target action, such as installing an app or signing up for a newsletter.

Premium features

You can offer premium features like customized backgrounds or stickers. This provides people with a better user experience that they might be willing to pay for.

Paid video calls

You can give users the opportunity to use video chats for free for a limited period of time, and, for example, charge for calls longer than an hour.

How much does it cost to develop a video chat app?

The cost of a video chat app depends on these factors:

• Features
• Design
• Hourly rate of your development team

The biggest factor that influences an app’s cost is the hourly rate of developers. And hourly rates often depend on location. For example, an application that costs $40,000 to build in the US will cost around $9,000 if developed by engineers in Ukraine.

Developing your app with a company based in Eastern Europe is cost-effective and gives you access to top talent.
Here’s a rough estimate of the cost of an MVP for a video chat app.

Basic features	Day min	Day max
User registration	3	5
User profile	2	3
Search and add friends	5	8
Voice calls	5	7
Text chat	6	9
Video calls	5	8
Group chat videos	4	6
Push notifications	3	5
User login	2	3
Settings	2	3
User list	2	4

What to consider when developing your video chat app

There are two sides to developing your video chat app: a technical and a marketing aspect. From the technical standpoint, you need to consider your tech stack, especially these elements:

• video streaming protocol with an adaptive bitrate
• video codec
• media player
• encryption
• a sustainable cloud architecture

A good software development team will advise you the best toolset for developing your video chat app, so if you have no technical expertise, you need specialists you can trust. As a business owner and founder, you’ll need to pay more attention to how you’ll sell this solution after it’s developed.

From this perspective, you should really consider:

• your target audience
• your current resources
• investment opportunities
• marketing strategy
• monetization strategy
• timeline
• business plan and scaling

As a tech partner with a high focus on business, we are always ready to help you with your business strategy just as much as with the technical intricacies of building an app.

Quick summary of developing a video chat app

Here are the key takeaways from this article:

• Zoom is on the rise and Skype is still thriving.
• Make sure to include core functionality in the MVP version of your video chat app.
• The cost of a video chat app depends on the features, the design, and the hourly rate of your development team.
• The best video chat apps of 2023 are Zoom, Skype, Google Duo, FaceTime, and Hangouts.