How Much Does It Cost To Develop An App Like MeWe?

Last Updated on January 21, 2022

There is no denying the fact that people today are very much into social media apps, be it Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter. Hence, the competition in that arena is cut-throat and every mobile app aims to perform better than its rivals. But to beat the most- successfully running app ideas, one has to be different and offer much more than anyone else and this is where MeWe has succeeded in capturing the audience’s hearts.

Starting in 2012, presently MeWe enjoys more than 6 million active users. Same as Facebook or Instagram, on MeWe as well the users can post pictures, videos, send texts and do much more. However, the one thing that wins hearts is its no advertisement and no data collection policies. The app claims that it respects the privacy of its users and they do not share/sell their data. Even its tagline says, “Your private life is #Not4Sale”. This is a tagline that succeeded in striking the right chord with its target audience and MeWe as an app has created a lot of buzz among the people and social media network businesses.

MeWe spends almost no money on paid ads and despite it making a grand debut in 2016 and since then has been growing exponentially creating a record of 9 million registered users across the globe till 2020. Hence to everyone looking to replicate the success of MeWe, it is a good idea to get a quick overview of the MeWe app and in this blog, you will get just that and a lot more. Just keep reading. 

What Is MeWe App? How Does It Work?

A next-gen social networking app, MeWe is a social media networking app that is free-to-use for all users and the core of this app is privacy. The app claims to offer an ad-free experience to its users with no data control. The app can be downloaded easily from Google Play Store and Apple Store.

The main reason behind the app’s popularity is its business-centric products taking companies & communication to another level. The app gained more popularity post-Facebook’s data privacy controversy. MeWe allows customization of feed so the users have control over the newsfeeds. Users can choose what content or news they want to see and what they dislike and don’t want to see again. Also, the app claims that it doesn’t change, manipulate, put filters on the newsfeed, give control to users, and honor their preferences. 

A number of functionalities like a newsfeed, customized stickers, voice support, video, 8 gigabytes storage, and more are available for free, whereas, for the extra features, $1.99/month needs to be paid. It is easier to use the app to chat or interact with family and friends via group call or chat or via video calls and do a lot more. A news feed can also be dedicated to closed ones, and have both open and private groups. Also, the app is not restricted to personal users but can be utilized for business reasons as well. The users get to enjoy amazing features such as GIFs, custom cameras, 1:1 group, and individual chats, voice and live video. 

Who Is Using MeWe Social Media App?

Today a lot of people are disappointed with online bullying, privacy abuses, hate messages, hate speeches, biased content, or promoted and provoking political agendas on a popular social media platform Facebook. And it is these people who are eagerly making the switch to MeWe. 

As MeWe claims to be a next-gen social media networking app, the users also get personal social cloud, personalized members profiles for each group, and much more. The app even allows users to make their chat and content disappear. 

It was in 2016 that MeWe, designed & developed by Mark Weinstein made an entry into the app market not just as a free social networking platform for connecting but as the most promising privacy-centric socializing network with no ads and zero manipulation of the news feed content. Its working motto is “No Ads, No Targeting, No BS” and this is what sets it apart from the renowned social network platforms and this is what people love about this platform. Here they can be free without the fear of being bullied or harmed mentally. MeWe’s unique specialties consist of:

• As quoted by Sir Tim Berners Lee, One of the members of MeWe’s advisory board and creator of the world wide web (www), “ MeWe gives the power of the Internet back to the people with a platform built for collaboration and privacy.” This was stated in news coverage by PRNewswire.
• MeWe secures its “Privacy Bills of Rights” ensuring unbiased & guaranteed control over newsfeed, privacy, and data of app users.
• MeWe has strict “Terms of Service” that assure protection from misguiding practices.  
• MeWe prioritizes #Not4Sale ideology to restrict member data distribution to the marketers or third parties. 
• The app is considered as the “future of social networks” gaining traction with many “Trump supporters” during U.S. presidential elections in the year 2020. 

So it is clear that the prominence of MeWe is unmatchable and if you are looking to create such an app, that in this blog we discuss everything that needed to be considered. 

MeWe Privacy Bill Of Rights

MeWe’s Privacy Bill Of Rights

• You own your personal information & content. It is explicitly not ours.
• You never receive targeted third-party advertisements or targeted third-party content. We think that’s creepy.
• You have full control over your newsfeed and the order of how posts appear.
• We do not manipulate, filter, or change the order of your newsfeeds. Only you can do that.
• Permissions & privacy are your rights. You control them.
• You control who can access your content.
• You can opt-out of our member directory to protect your privacy.
• We do not sell your personal information to anyone.
• Your face is your business. We do not use facial recognition technology.
• You have the right to delete your account and take your content with you at any time

How MeWe Makes Money?

MeWe is a free app with all its great features that people love about it such as Newsfeeds for the contacts & Close Friends, disappearing content, next-gen voice messaging, personal cloud storage, custom group profiles, custom camera with GIF creation, following pages, private and open groups, private 1:1 and group chats,  MeWe’s exclusive dual-camera, 2800+ emojis, and much more. 

Additionally, there are options for enhancements like extra storage (as here 8GB is free which stores over 16000 photos and then 50GB is $3.99/month), Dark Mode & other overlays ($1.99 and up), custom emojis, and custom stickers ($0.99 and up/pack), live voice and live video calling ($1.99/month), exclusive MeWe Journals ($1.99/month), MeWe Pages ($1.99/month), and there is a lot more to come soon. Members can even upgrade to MeWe Premium to benefit from the best premium features for only $4.99/month. 

Another earning mode is Revenue Supercharger. MeWe’s sister division MeWePro is dedicated to business customers and is available separately on Android, iOS, and desktop. The sister company competes directly with Slack and offers a unique suite of well-integrated collaboration tools & security while eliminating bottlenecks and performance hitches of the internal mail. Also, MeWePro pumps up the communication & collaboration between the employees inside a project or an organization, and it costs less than $75/year/employee. This is free for educational and non-profit organizations. 

Facts & Statistics About Social Network App MeWe

As per mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, MeWe had 218,000 fresh installs on Apple Store and Google Play Store in the U.S. during the election week. In the year 2020, the app had 5 million users. In the year 2018, this platform raised $5.2 million and with this brought its total funding to $10 million receiving support from the celebrity investors like fashion designer Rachel Roy, and Lynda Weinman (the founder of Lynda.com. Also, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who is considered the father of www is an advisor with MeWe.

Top Competitors Of MeWe Social Network App MeWe 

Mastodon

Twitter

Diaspora

Minds

Gab

Facebook

Nitter

Friendica

VK

Hubzilla

Known

Ello

How MeWe Is Different Than Facebook, Twitter?

The concept that MeWe has is a lot different than the other social media networking websites as here the intent of the creator is clear as it comes to the platform marketing. Even earlier it has been indicated directly that this app aims to be an alternative to Facebook, and it clearly tells why MeWe endeavors to imitate the user interface of Facebook. On MeWe, the users can offer smiley icons, hearts, and thumbs up to the posts and can share posts on different feeds. It offers to create user profiles and separate pages, also there is groups functionality for the individuals that allows assembling around a specific theme/topic. 

For years Facebook dominated the social media networking business, offering amazing features, community management, job postings, and a lot more to keep the users engaged. But ever since the changes made in the privacy policy, people realized that on Facebook their privacy is being compromised. As per their recent update, Facebook has integrated an algorithm observing behavioral patterns of the users and deciphers them serving manipulated content in-app. With this, it becomes a target-based platform displaying content as per the user’s past preferences & choices. 

So amid this data breach controversy of Facebook and Whatsapp, people were on the look for new social networking platforms that are safe & secure. And during that time this US-based social media platform garnered the attention of people and became the top downloaded social media app in Play Store. MeWe is a free app for iPhone and Android and noticed a recent influx of more than 2.5 million users to its follower list. The app allows keeping privacy protected by preventing political biases and targeting advertisements. 

Why Invest In Developing Social Media App Like MeWe

Statista report from August 2020 states that the social network platform users in the USA spent a major amount of their time on Facebook & Facebook Messenger. They spent an average of 15 & a half hours a month on two Facebook services combined. 

About the amount of time, people spend on social media, during 2019 and 2020, the average social media usage daily across the globe took to 145 minutes per day. This was up from 142 minutes in the previous year. As of now, the one country spending most of its time on social media per day is the Philippines. Here the app users spent an average of three hours and 53 minutes on the social networking platforms each day. On the other hand, the daily time spent on social media in the USA was only two hours and three minutes. 

Presently, the global social media penetration rate is close to 54 percent. Western Europe’s social network penetration rate is near 79 percent and with that, it tops the rank of global social media usage by the region. Mainly people are using social media for numerous reasons, like to find entertaining content, to enjoy sharing pictures & videos with friends, and mainly use social media for staying in touch with friends from current events. In the year 2020, more than 223 million U.S. citizens were using social networking platforms to like, comment, post pictures, or send private messages. 

These stats pretty clearly indicates the people’s obsession with the social network platform and this is why it is just the right time to make the most of social media apps success and enter the bandwagon. 

Key Features Of MeWe Like Social Media App

It is the features in the app that make it stand apart from its competitors and the same goes with the social network app. If you are looking to create a MeWe-like app then these are the basic features that are needed to be included.  

User Registration and Sign-up

Even though MeWe doesn’t take users’ data they require the users to give basic information to create a user profile. Hence, user registration is a crucial feature for an app like MeWe. Also, it is mandatory for every social networking app to follow the registration and sign-up process. It can be asked if the user is 16 years of age or above. The app can have a simple user registration procedure and post that it asks to create a profile, where the users are asked details such as name, birth date, gender, profile pictures, email address, and much more. Hence, whenever the app user opens the app, they are required to log in by entering their username and password. These apps many apps are even offering signup/log-in through third-party social media networks.

Authorization

This functionality is useful to protect the privacy and data of app users. Hence, it is an essential feature for an app like MeWe. The app consists of letting the users signup & log in to the platform using phone numbers and email ids. Also, it requires a reset mechanism, password recovery, certain security interventions, and various other features. Now integrating a user authorization architecture can hugely influence the app’s development cost but it is a crucial step towards enhancing the app security. The feature secures the messaging through end-to-end encryption and it removes the cyber security issues, comprising of the cost associated with MeWe apps development. 

User Search

A functional search option greatly increases the usability of your app. The feature allows the users to find friends, groups, or any community they are interested in via a filtered search functionality. Hence, developers should give crucial importance to the design of the user interface, making the app look appealing and giving an aesthetic feel to the users. 

Advance Features To Consider While Developing Social Media App Like MeWe

Once the basic and must-have functionalities and features are taken care of, next comes the advanced features that might not be must-have but when included in the app can take its charm to another level. A few advanced features are: 

• My Cloud
  This feature works great to seamlessly organize all the app content in My Cloud, which is like your personal cloud. My Cloud offers an interactive dashboard where the users can control everything that they post or share. It can be easily deleted or reshared if needed.
• Enhanced permission control
  This allows management permissions on a granular level and also makes decisions about exactly who sees what. The users can also choose to remove themselves from the search directory, making themselves invisible to the other app members online, and do a lot more. 
• Universal Tagging
  This new and convenient app feature allows sorting and organizing of the entire content that the user receives and shares, hence making it easier to find everything or anything, at any time. 
• MeWe Journals
  Here the users can sort, save, and organize their favorite stories beyond moments, thus creating a lifetime of memories & sharing. 
• Dual-Camera Videos (MeWe’s)
  This feature simultaneously shows one user taking to another user using the front and back cameras of the phone. 
• Voice Integration
  Here the users can post pictures, documents, videos, or include voice messages. They can respond to a shared post or simply chat. The voice integration feature works for the users and their contacts throughout the platform. 
• Unique Profiles
  This feature allows the users to be themselves, free from spying or any track. They can customize their profile for every group they create or join. 

Required Tech Stack To Develop Social Media App Like MeWe 

Also Read: Choose A Tech Stack For Developing A Mobile App

How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Social Network App Like MeWe?

If you are ready to take the plunge and invest in a MeWe-like social media platform, then you must be curious to find the rough cost estimate to create such an app. Well, to determine the following factors need to be considered, such:

• Type Of App
  Here you need to decide upon the type of app you wish to create whether it is basic, on-demand, authentication, data-driven, Wearable/IoT/other hardware-based apps. 
• Team Of Dedicated Developers
  It is best to hire a team of skilled and experienced professionals who can weave a great app for iOS and Android. The team should consist of strategists, programmers, designers, project managers, and testers on board, along with a back-end team for client support. 
• Location Of The Development Service Provider
  The charges of hiring an android app development firm differ as per the location of the developers in North America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, & India. 
• App Designing
  To create an app with a simple design and minimal elements, the cost will be lesser as compared to an app that has a complex design. 
• Q/A Testing & Maintenance
  This involves the charges of QA testing and app maintenance costs.  

Considering all the above factors in mind, it can be said that the cost to create a simple app with basic features, and for a single platform can cost around $25000-$30000, whereas the cost of an app with complex design and for more than one platform will cost around $50000-$60000. 

If you want to create a mobile app similar to MeWe, you should contact the best app development company having skilled app developers who can turn your unique app ideas into reality.