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Years ago, money transfer was a complex task. But things have changed now with several payment apps making it just a matter of a few taps and swipes. Apps like PayPal have completely changed the way we used to transfer money from one source to another. One of the top P2P (peer-to-peer) payment options, PayPal is the topic of discussion today as it is the reason why so many P2P apps are there today – for both Android and iOS users. Founded by a group of enthusiasts and Elon Musk in the late 90s, PayPal has shown tremendous growth and success in all these years and today it is the biggest and most popular payment apps used by millions of users across the globe. Let’s have a quick look at the growth of this amazing app over the years.

With more than 200 MN. active users, 16 MN. merchant accounts, and presence in more than 200 countries across the globe. It allows users to make electronic fund transfers between individuals and businesses. Some of the services PayPal offers include:

• Send and receive payments for online websites
• Buy and sell goods & services
• Receive donations or donate money for a cause
• Currency conversion online

The encryption software that makes PayPal work enables quick fund transfers between source computers and destination computers. Users can transfer funds to anyone who has an email address, even if that person does not have a PayPal account. But to receive the funds, a PayPal account is mandatory with the same email address to which the money is sent. PayPal also allows you to add credit cards and bank accounts to make instant fund transfers. PayPal also enables some other withdrawal options such as using a PayPal debit card for using or purchasing the card for ATM withdrawals.

How much does it cost to develop an app like PayPal?

Just like it is with any other app or web identity, the cost of creating a PayPal-like app depends immensely on the features and functionalities you choose to include or exclude. Some of the most important features and functionalities that make PayPal what it is today are discussed here for your reference.

Multiple Accounts for Users and Businesses: PayPal allows you to have different accounts for business and personal use – through business accounts and personal accounts.

Virtual Cards: Through a virtual card, users can make a payment by scanning their virtual cards rather than having an original card. To add the virtual card feature to your PayPal-like app, you would have to ensure additional security to protect the details of your users.

Fingerprint Scanner to Unlock the App: This feature requires the user to use fingerprint impressions on his/her smartphone. This way, PayPal prevents any unauthorized access to the account while preventing the issue of logging in every time you need to make a payment. Just a touch of your finger will make fund transfer easier and faster for you.

International Payments: These features include the cost of currency conversion, which is either charged from the user or a small fee per transaction. This is a highly important feature, which may be tough to implement when your app is launched. However, with the right marketing team and partner plus a reliable mobile app development company like appbiz360, you can succeed in this as well.

Mobile Card Reader:  A mobile card reader can be used along with your smartphone app to work as your mobile POS (Point of Sale). It would ideally facilitate payments to be accepted through the credit of the customer or through the debit cards from the app.

Barcode Scanner reads the barcode from the mobile apps by scanning your payment source through the mobile camera. It’s a highly preferred and important feather that most of the businesses, looking to build an app like PayPal, want.

Fraud Detection: This is another great feature for any payment app today. It makes use of machine learning technology for fraud IP detection, fake links identification, and detection of fraudulent devices. This feature may add huge bucks to the overall cost of developing an app like PayPal. But for safety assurance, you will surely not want to exclude it.

The cost of building a PayPal-like app, as already mentioned above, depends on the features you include or exclude, the complexity of the chosen features, the time required to develop & integrate these features in apps, development cost per hour, or per project rate charged by the development firm you hire for the job. Developing a payment app like PayPal demands immense expertise in developing a feature and test it successfully and present it before your client. Despite anything, the cost of building such an app will depend on the number and complexity of features you want in your app.  The typical range falls between $100,000 and $500,000 but this amount isn’t fixed and you may get a few thousand plus or minus depending on what all features and functionalities you want to include in the app, UI/UX, other important factors.

Call our payment app development experts at appbiz360 to discuss your app development needs right away!

I hope this post was useful to you. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me.

Disclaimer: The information above is based upon the primary and secondary research our expert team members have conducted regarding the popular and reliable payment apps like PayPal. The cost and figures above may not be accurate as they are subject to change anytime, based on many factors beyond our control. Please feel free to talk to our experts to get a fair estimate of your payment app development cost, etc.