Musical platforms’ appearance makes audio accessible for millions of users everywhere they want it and opens the way for the talented youth to show themselves to the entire world. Digital products like Spotify offer to do it conveniently and without any delays.

 

You can create a Spotify-similar streaming application, and this essay will help you to do it most efficiently. Here, we’ve gathered all the essentials you should know to develop a qualitative streaming solution that will be delightful for users, profitable and satisfying for your business needs.

What is Spotify? The Essentials to Consider

Before you start developing a streaming solution like Spotify, you need to find out what this service is, its operating peculiarities, and other crucial information. So, let’s start discovering. 

 

Spotify is a digital service for streaming music. It allows millions of customers to listen to favorite tracks and podcasts or look through video clips of well-known singers. Spotify can function in view of a website or a mobile app, depending on the user’s choice. This service utilizing is free of charge; however, some premium functionality enhances the user experience and can be obtained by paying for Spotify Premium. 

 

What do users get with a Spotify Premium subscription? These are the following commodities as:

 

• Offline listening
• Switching tracks without any advertisements
• Enhanced quality of the audio played
• Opportunity to use the subscription together with five friends, etc.

 

Spotify website’s view

 

Now, we’ll look at how this audio-streaming giant functions. You can start working with Spotify in two ways:

 

• Register your user account on the Spotify website (or download a free app from a marketplace). The social login through Facebook is also available, giving you an opportunity to find your Facebook friends, follow them and look at what track they like.
• Choose a kind of subscription (Spotify Premium, for example). This selection will help you connect with more devices and make your Spotify use more flexible and advanced. 

 

Spotify offers music for listening quickly and without any delays. How does it happen? A peer-to-peer (P2P) network streamlines the process turning the server users into microservers for the data exchange. This way, when you start playing a chosen song or a podcast, Spotify doesn’t apply the required data to a server, but retrieves it fragmentally from various users’ devices. Such a process can be performed even if people are offline. 

 

All the content on Spotify is played legally. It means the service owners got the license — the permission to publicly perform the audio tracks (or even video clips) for their customers. Planning the Spotify-like app creation you should care about this question. 

 

What organization should you apply to for having audio license? It depends on where your target audience is located: thus, if you’re aimed at European listeners, you can talk to European Stage Authors and composers. In case you plan to render your services to American market, The Broadcast  Music Incorporated is the organization you need to ask for licensing.

 

It should also be mentioned that Spotify watches your listening habits. It means if you save the first track of Celine Dion to your album, the system automatically prepares the next one. Spotify’s smart engine for quick audio streaming allows you to switch your favorite music without delays and even change the typical order of playing tracks. 

Developing an App Like Spotify: Where to Start?

Spotify became a go-to service for millions of music listeners around the world. According to a Forbes article, Spotify remains the biggest streaming server in the world at the beginning of 2022. Its revenue is more than $3 billion, as Macrotrends proves in their report. 

 

It’s not surprising that the entrepreneurs want to replicate Spotify’s commercial success and create a solution similar to it. Let’s find out what is required to build a Spotify-like streaming service. 

Choose a software development team to work with

Creating a solution like Spotify is a complex process, so you need to choose a team of qualified specialists in order to develop a top-class software. There are two effective hiring options you can choose from:

 

In-house team. You will be able to find and gather the local software experts under the roof of your office. Knowing how to create an audio and video streaming website (or application), they will build and deliver a qualitative digital product for your business purposes. However, you can choose this recruiting option if you have enough experience, time and money to look for local specialists, check their skills and employ them.

 

Collaboration with an outsourcing software development vendor. This option will be perfect for your business if you need to quickly find a sufficient way to create an audio streaming app with advantageous quality to price ratio. All you need is to choose a software development provider to collaborate with and start contacting them. 

How audio streaming app is created in outsourcing company: the typical development stages

After you’ve contacted an outsourcing software development vendor, told them the details of your project, and signed necessary documents for the upcoming collaboration, your software will pass the stages described below. 

 

The discovery stage is a start point for your streaming product to be properly prepared. This is the time for the specialists to enhance the quality of the product and make a detailed project specification defining functionality the app should contain, the third-party services to include, and other. Moreover, the composition of a future team to work on your project is decided on this stage. 

 

At this time, the UI/UX designers also start creating the upcoming app interface. This process begins from building a design concept, as well as the User Experience (UX) map. You can also offer them your own design sketches, if you have some. It should also be considered that the future streaming app design is tested for several times by the QA engineers who ensure that it’s easy to navigate and customer-friendly to offer you a flawless user experience.

 

After the designers finish the interface creation, the developers can start bringing the streaming solution’s functionality into life. Let’s talk below about how it happens. 

 

Spotify’s screen for new account registration as an example for your streaming app design

Product development and Quality Assurance. The software development engineers now need to implement the pre-defined list of features for your streaming solution by encoding them. All the process is controlled by a Project Manager (PM) and divided into sprints. These are short time periods (about 2-3 weeks) which purpose is to create a specific part of functionality or a full-fledged software.

QA team works together with the developers checking the developed functionality for bugs. In case the bugs are found, QA engineers make bug reports for the developers to deal with hotfixes. One of the QA team task is also to concentrate on the possible scenarios of the non-standard user behavior and eliminate the issues that can arise.

 

Software release means the streaming solution is published in the marketplaces (if it is a mobile app), or moved to a live server (if it’s a website). It is done after numerous tests from QA. 

 

After-development activities. The collaboration with an outsourcing IT provider is not ended after your audio streaming app is developed and released. The provider’s specialists continue to check the created solution for bugs, and add new features to it according to the early users’ feedback.

 

Thus, you can see that the outsourcing vendor will be your reliable assistant in solving the question of how to create an app for your business. They can carefully guide you through the development flow avoiding pitfalls (you’ll be able to fully participate the process) and delivering you a stable, effective and attractive Spotify-like solution. 

How Much the Spotify-Like App Development Costs?

The development price of a Spotify-similar solution is also one of the essential for the entrepreneurs. It ranges from $70,000 to $105,000, and the price growth depends on different factors. Some of them are the following:

 

• App operating system choice (e.g., iOS or Android)
• Solution’s security issues
• The size of the software
• Tech stack to be used during the project
• The UI/UX design
• The core and the advanced app features, etc.

Core features to be included in your audio streaming app functionality list

 

Cooperating with an outsourcing software development vendor, you can also have rough and detailed cost estimates prepared by experts. These estimates will help you wisely and effectively plan your expenditures. Moreover, you’ll always be able to apply to vendor’s specialists for consultation and advice, as well as promptly obtain it. 

Summing Up

As you can see, the creation of a music streaming solution like Spotify is a complex process, requiring a lot of knowledge, resources, and time. However, the skilled outsourcing software development company can assist you in such a development. The vendor’s professionals will be your trustworthy helpers in building of a streaming solution, which will fully fit your company needs, and attract new users for further business development.