Health is the greatest of human blessings- Hippocrates

Leveraging technology to shed weight has become common these days. Many people use different types of applications to burn extra calories. An app like Fitbit delivers a personalized experience and gives you the insight to reach your goals timely and effectively.

Since people have become more conscious about health and staying fit, fitness apps are becoming more popular. Many enterprises are looking for a top healthcare web application development company for a wholesome fitness app and to make money.

According to the survey by Gallup, around 19% of people in the USA use fitness trackers. Resultant, many companies are investing in IoT apps for fitness. The time has gone when people used to exercise, go jogging, and do meditation once in a blue moon. Now it has become a lifestyle, so they follow a healthy life every day.

But, going to the gym and buying a membership is not feasible and cost-effective for everyone. So, people started to rely on fitness apps like Fitbit. Consequently, many stakeholders found it the best way to make money through apps.

If you are also planning to make a fitness app and want to earn money from it, this blog is a great help. Let’s explore it to know crucial features for a fitness app to make it as successful as Fitbit.

How Does Fitness App Work?

Fitness apps are easy to use. You just have to download a fitness app from Google or the iOS play store. Now register with it and some permissions, and set your goals to be fit. Have a look at the three main features of the Fitbit app in the space below.

1. Today

You can check your daily stats like steps, distance, calories burned, and more. Often, you are asked some questions like how many days you exercised this week, did you lose weight or not, and many others.

2. Discover

By clicking on this button, you can find challenges like health and wellness programs. Moreover, the premium programs like wellness reports and mindfulness.

3. Community

You can find a community in the Fitbit app and join friends to achieve your fitness goals together. Moreover, you can find friends and community members with ease.

Many people want to develop a fitness app clone so that they can also have a successful app like Fitbit. Since many people in the USA want to be fit, they like to invest in fitness apps.

Have a look at the image below to know the number of health and fitness app users in the USA from the year 2018 to 2022.

Source

Types of Fitness Apps

The rise of technology has changed the way we used to live. You order delectable stuff using an online food delivery app and on the other hand, download a fitness app. But, living in the era is the only option, so enjoying the food and staying fit, both things are crucial.

Staying fit is not only related to body or physical exercise. Sakyong Mipham, a global meditation leader says “The body benefits from movements and mind from stillness”. So, there is not only physical exercise apps are important but also apps for mental health.

Moreover, the right eating habits also help to stay fit. So, based on the requirements or type of fitness, I divided the fitness apps into four categories.

1. Home Workout Apps

As the name implies, these types of apps help people to stay fit in the comfort of their homes. After the outburst of the Pandemic, people started to use home Workout apps more than ever before. Moreover, if the distance of the Gym is too far, you can simply use this type of app and stay fit.

2. Nutrition & Diet App

How much amount of calories, protein, and carbohydrates, you should consume? What is the exact amount as per your age and height for nutrition? When should you go on diet and for how long? Nutrition and diet apps help to get answers to all these questions.

Check out the below 2017 statistics to know the percentage of US adults who use an app to track their diet.

Source

3. Fitness Tracking Apps

Fitness tracking apps collect data about users’ activity for example stairs climbed, the number of steps taken, distance ran, and walked. Moreover, you can know the average speed and distance covered by the cycle. Likewise, swimming and snowboarding are also included.

4. Meditation Apps

You must have got the idea of what these types of apps are all about. Mental health is equally important as physical health. When you develop a Fitbit clone, integrate features from meditation apps as well to provide a full-fledged app to your customers. There are many Meditation and Yoga apps.

5. Intermittent Fasting App

From common people to celebrities, everyone uses intermittent fasting apps. It is the best way to drop pounds and feel much better. You can set a schedule for fasting means in what interval you will eat. For example, alternate days, skipping dinner, and an eat-stop-eat diet. Consequently, you can personalize your diet plan.

Also Read: Cost and features to make a Meditation app like Headspace

Features That Can Make Your App Like Fitbit

Fitbit has around more than 29 million unique users in the USA. It is the key wearable brand today. Moreover, it generated revenue of 1.13 billion in 2020. Resultant, it boosted the fitness app development market. Now many stakeholders want to integrate features like the Fitbit app into their fitness apps.

Let’s know the features that can make your app popular like Fitbit.

1. Account Creation
2. Social Media Sharing
3. Designing
4. Notification System
5. Diet Tracker
6. Personalization
7. Gamification
8. Activity Log
9. Wearable Device Integration
10. Audio/Video Guide
11. Multi-device Synchronization
12. Geolocation Feature
13. Chat System
14. Data Security
15. Reviews

Let’s read about each feature in detail below.

1. Account Creation

This is the very first step of using an app like Fitbit. You have to register with your phone number or email. A personal account is crucial because fitness apps guide an individual and offer personalized features.

Moreover, it helps to track their fitness journey. So, if you want more users, keep the account creation simple and seamless process. Likewise, allow editing and personalizing the account to schedule diet plans accordingly.

You can enable account creation with social media credentials, besides email and phone numbers. If users subscribe, they can check the billing information through their accounts.

2. Social Media Sharing

Social media sharing is crucial, and most fitness apps have this feature. So, when you hire on-demand app development experts, make sure they integrate social media sharing features. Your app users can brag about their fitness achievements easily on social media.

It can increase the confidence levels of users so that they can start focusing more to achieve the goal. Social media integration is not only helpful for the users, but also for you (Owner). People on social media will get to know about your app.

3. Designing

Designing is an integral part of mobile app development. Fitness apps need simple and interactive designs. So that users can find solutions easily and start working to achieve their fitness goals.

If the designs of fitness apps are complicated, it can affect the users’ interest. Simple UI can help the user to reach the different sections fast and effectively. Besides, focus on color psychology because people who want to be fit like calm colors.

Keeping the designs engaging and simple, and focusing on color psychology are some specific things, you should inform your healthcare app development company to consider.

4. Notification System

Regular exercise and consistent diet help to achieve goals faster and more effectively. So, if you miss out on them, it can affect your enthusiasm. Irregularities can cause depression because you are not getting closer to your aim.

To resolve this issue, notifications help the users. They remind the app users about various things like its time to exercise, your today’s calorie intake, its time to drink water, and many other types of reminders.

A notification system helps your app users to follow diet plans, do exercise daily, and be determined to achieve their fitness goals.

5. Diet Tracker

The Diet tracker informs users about their water and food intake. It helps them to follow a proper diet plan by informing them what to include and exclude in their diet. It notifies the fitness app user to stay hydrated.

A food tracker helps the users to know about their calorie intake, and nutrients required by the body as per height and weight. This is a crucial feature for fitness apps. If you develop a fitness app clone or hire developers for it, ensure integration of this feature.

6. Personalization

Every individual has different fitness goals. Some want to improve muscles, while some need to shed extra weight. So, personalization of the diet plans and setting targets according to an individual is crucial.

If you offer your users the same fitness guide and videos, it will not suit all, because people have different body shapes, features, needs, and expectations. Let the users set their own targets and timeline to achieve their goals.

Personalization helps the users to be more consistent while focusing on their target. This feature makes a fitness app popular among fitness freaks.

7. Gamification

Exercising is a boring practice, thus people can’t do it on regular basis. Even if you offer a fantastic app, the users can stop using it after some time. So, you should add fun elements to exercising.

People exercise in Gym with motivational music. You can also apply a similar thing, with the help of the Gamification concept. Moreover, incorporate the reward, badges, progress bar, and leaderboards for user acquisition.

Furthermore, you can include fitness-related puzzles, that have diet-related questions. Likewise, some healthcare-oriented puzzles increase the knowledge of the app user.

8. Activity Log

Users want to know how many calories to take, how much exercise to do, and how long it will take to achieve the goal. You have to facilitate the activity log feature in your app to inform the same.

It supercharges the users to move religiously closer to their goals. You can integrate the best and most useful features like the Activity log by partnering with a reliable healthcare industry solutions provider.

9. Wearable Device Integration

You can integrate your app into smartwatches and bracelets. Fitbit offers a smartwatch to track the health of the users. The users can monitor their pulse rate in real-time, steps, and heartbeat rate. Developers use APIs and Kits to integrate fitness apps into wearables.

Many companies in the USA offer healthcare IT solutions as per the requirements of the clients. You can also find the best one that suits your app idea.

10. Audio/Video Guide

Audio/video guide provides better ways to exercise. You can watch videos and follow the steps of the trainer and exercise as he does. You can understand the right way to exercise with the help of the instructor.

It eliminates the risk of injuries due to inappropriate postures. Users can know how to do a particular exercise properly. Moreover, the videos inspire the users to achieve their goals effectively.

11. Multi-device Synchronization

You can embed the multi-device synchronization features in your fitness app just like the Fitbit app. If a user wants a specific feature like Tracker and it is not in the app he is using, he can sync it from another device.

The users can sync data from different devices with the help of a multi-device synchronization feature. It is an important feature so you must tell your fitness app development team to integrate it.

Helping out the customer at every stage of fitness will improve customer loyalty. It eventually helps in the popularity of your app.

12. Geolocation Feature

Geolocation technology is crucial because it helps to know the path, traffic, and minimal time required for going through the track. This feature allows for safe workouts and outdoor activities to stay fit.

You can develop an outdoor fitness app for iOS and Android platforms. Moreover, the geolocation feature informs the user about the number of steps, cycling, swimming, etc.

To enable this feature, you will need GPS integration so that your app users can easily calculate and share the data insights.

13. Chat System

The users can interact with customer support and talk to the instructors. This way, they can get answers to their queries. Moreover, get information about the diet plans and how to stay fit.

Moreover, the users can create daily fitness challenges with other fitness freaks on the app based on their potential. The chat system improves user engagement and drives more traffic to the app.

You can use an AI chatbot for customer support and enable instant and real-time conversation. It improves the user experience of your app.

14. Data Security

You must remember the case of the Strava app. This app breached the information about the fitness of US soldiers, their military personnel, base camps, and locations. So, a data breach can happen to anyone.

You should integrate robust data security features into your app and ensure there are no data leakages. Data security is a vital feature to win of the trust your app users.

Optimize your app performance and update it regularly to stay away from any data breach issues.

15. Reviews

Feedbacks help the developers to find out where is the issue, and whether people are liking the app or not. Regular optimization of the app reduces the chances of big problems.

There are many tools through which you can test the performance of the app and improve it. Moreover, you can know what are the glitches in a fitness application for a better customer experience.

Reviews provide genuine information about the app services. And on the basis of reviews, many people start to use the app.

Business Model of Fitness Apps

Most stakeholders create apps for monetization purposes, and several people think of making fitness apps to earn money. If you are planning to make an app like Fitbit, you must know the business model of fitness apps.

It will help you to integrate features in the app accordingly and get the best healthcare industry solutions.

Many fitness apps are generating good revenue for their owners. Check out some most popular health and fitness apps in the USA.

Source

These apps are a great source of revenue for their owners. You can also make money through your fitness app. Here are five ways to monetize the app, you can choose any.

1. Advertisement

This is one of the popular ways of generating money. There are four types of ways of advertising Native, short videos, incentivized ads, and banner ads. You can allow any type of ad as per the audience on your app.

2. In-app purchases

You can provide different types of in-app purchases like celebrity tutorials, healthy diet recipes, additional app functionalities, and more. Users can choose many plans in your app such as auto-renewable subscription. Moreover, you can provide supplements, nutrients, healthy foods, and sports equipment.

3. Sponsors & Partnership

Since you are providing a fitness guide, articles, tutorials, and any other service related to health, you can partner with Gyms, Experts, Celebrities, and Sports brands. For example, fitness influencers can create content and share that on your app.

4. Freemium

This monetization model depends on the concept of “try before you buy”. First, you can give a free plan and limited features. If users like it, they can go for advanced fitness plans. For this, they will have to buy a plan or subscribe.

5. Paid Downloads

As the name indicates, the users have to pay to download your app. For this type of monetization, you will have to offer innovative and high-security services to the customers. Well, this model is not so popular in fitness apps.

Also Read: Cost & Features to build a robust calorie counter App like MyFitnessPal

Cost to Develop an App Like Fitbit

The cost of a simple fitness app is around $10,000-$30,000. If you want more features and some innovative UI/UX designs for a better user experience, the price can be high.

Moreover, The cost of healthcare IT solutions depends on the type of app you want.

If you want to hire freelancers, an agency, and a development team, the cost of app development can vary. A developer in the USA charges $70-$150/hour.

Whereas, developers in central and eastern Europe charge $50-$100/hour for mobile app development.

You can get a more cost-effective deal if you hire offshore developers from central Asia. $20-$50/hour is the cost of developers in this region. Moreover, some factors affect the cost of a fitness app. Check out them below.

• Development Platform
• App Type
• UI/UX Designs
• Tech Stack
• Trendy Features
• Salary of Development Team
• App Maintenance

People also like to know: Top 5 Meditation Apps Ideas to Worth Investing your Money and Your Attention

Final Words

You will find different types of apps in the market, and Fitbit is one of the successful apps. So if you are planning to make a fitness app like Fitbit, first check out the features of this app and analyze them. Understand the business model and find your target audience. And when it comes to hiring developers, you can choose the top on-demand app development company, Technource. We have experienced mobile app developers, innovative designers, and dedicated quality analysts.