A Complete Guide to Write Mobile App RFP (Request for Proposal)

Being an entrepreneur, whether you are starting your mobile app development project or you need to work on an existing product, you eventually will need to fill out a mobile app RFP or request for proposal.

It is often difficult to manage the entire project all alone, and at that time, you might need to purchase app development services. You will look for the mobile app development company around you.

A request for proposal helps to collect offers from various vendors. You can select one of the professional app development partners who can meet all your project requirements, both in regard to experience and budget.

Download Mobile App RFP Template

To get the most benefit, download a free copy of the mobile app RFP template. You can use this template and edit it as per your project requirements.

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Mobile App RFP Template for free

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Now get to know what you can expect from an RFP. Please check the next section to see what you can expect from an RFP document completed by the development vendor.

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What to Expect from the Best Mobile App RFP?

Being an entrepreneur, you must have some expectations that you want to clarify with the vendor through the mobile app RFP. Therefore, here the possible things that you can expect from a vendor’s side.

1. Company Overview

   The first thing you will expect is an overview of the company and get to know about the leadership and the app development team.

   • The mission of the company and from how long they are in business
   • The company’s size in terms of employees
   • The size of the app development team, including developers, designers, quality analysts, and project managers
   • Ability to work overseas

2. Service Offerings

   Now, get to know more about the services offered by the company. You can also find descriptive information for the following services.

   • Consulting and strategy to deal with the management process
   • App development process
   • Design & user experience
   • Quality assurance
   • Maintenance and future-proofing

3. Development Lifecycle Philosophy

   The development lifecycle includes different stages and ensures to help teams to deliver high-quality software rapidly. Here are the 3 lifecycle philosophies to check.

   • Know the development philosophy that company follows
   • Responsibility for owing the code
   • Coding standards and best practices

4. Case Studies

   Check the list of their clients, awards, and portfolio of projects. You can also expect to see how the company has offered the solution and end result of each project.

5. Solution Overview

   Please provide a summary or description of the product.

   • Who will be involved in the project? Please provide the names of the resources you would use to handle the requirements listed above and share the weekly cost for the app development team.
   • What product management, project management, communication, and app development tools will be used? Will the client have access to these tools?
   • What will the key features be? Please provide a short summary.
   • What platforms will the solution be developed for?

6. Project Scope

   Get to know more about the project scope with the help of comments, concerns and about the supplied project scope with respect to the estimated timeline, budget, and project risks.

7. Project Timeline

   Now, with the help of mobile app development proposal, you can expect to see detailed information on the project timeline, including the estimated initial date, schedule of actions, deliverables, and resources that will be used.

8. Pricing Model

   Also, get to know the estimated price based on the scope of the project. Ensure you check the fee breakdown for all the different stages in relation to time, scope, and weekly team costs.

9. Maintenance Plan and Product Roadmap

   In the end, you will see a summary of the types of service level support plans and the roadmap for the product, as well as a breakdown of services and costs.

How to Write Mobile App RFP

We have mentioned 6 steps that you can consider in order to write a mobile app RFP. Let’s check all the steps one-by-one.

1. Executive Summary

   Include a summary that describes your organization. Specifically, write about your mobile product that will address the business case and the solution you are looking for.

2. Details of the Company

   After the summary, give an overview of your company. For that, you can include the following things in your RFP.

   • Which services/products are your company offering?
   • What is the type of industry your company operates in?
   • Who will lead the project?
   • Do you have any stakeholders/leadership? If yes, then who are they?

3. Project Summary

   In the project summary, provide more information about the idea to give a complete understanding of the required solution. Try to be more specific with your project requirements.

   Problem Summary

   First, describe the core business or the solution you want to offer for the customer problem.

   • What are the objectives?
   • What is the vision of your product?
   • Who are the target audiences of the mobile app?
   • Provide information on the user personas
   • What challenges are your users facing and their goals?
   • What type of possibilities can distract your users through using your app? (for example: frequent updates and difficulty with navigation)
   • Will it offer only a solution, or is it attached to some larger project?

Goals & Success Criteria

Mention the criteria, metrics, and benchmarks that will help you determine your mobile app’s success. Include answering these questions in your RFP.

• How will you measure your business goals?
• What are your goals with the app downloads?
• What are your future goals after the post-launch of the app?
• How have you planned to measure these goals?

Functionality

When it comes to functionality, mention what you expect from the end-to-end solution and describe the core functionality in detail.

• What functions do you expect your app to perform?
• What are the must-have features for your mobile app?
• If you have, then share a prioritized list of features.
• Mention user journeys, wireframes, and mockups for the solution.
• Also, share the clickable app prototype

Use Cases

Share each use case in the RFP. From the beginning until the end, explain how a user would interact with your app to understand your requirements as well as to have clarity of the project.

Stakeholders

Mention all the names of the project decision-makers and key leaders. To be specific, name all the project managers who will be leading the project on a daily basis and share their roles and responsibilities in the project.

4. Requirements for Project Scope

   Services

   Share more about the services that you require from the professional app development company. Is there any particular stage, or you require services throughout the entire project lifecycle?

   • At which specific stage will you need help?
   • Consulting and Product Strategy
   • Development
   • Design and User Experience
   • Quality Assurance and Testing
   • Technical Delivery

Platforms

You have certain options when it comes to the mobile app development platforms. Let’s check all these platforms:

• iOS
• Android
• Web
• Connected TV (Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, and Chromecast)
• Other

However, identifying the app platform will be your main priority. Many factors can influence the number of platforms you want to develop your apps on, such as timeframe, resources, target audience, and the cost of app development. The number of platforms is directly related to the cost of your project. In case you are developing for multiple platforms, then ask for multiple codebases. Please keep in mind that each platform requires developers with different skill sets, which carries cost implications.

Backend

Here you need to describe your existing systems if you have, such as web services or CMS. Do your existing systems have access to available APIs and documentation? Do you need help from the vendor in API development or web services development? What about the current internal database? If you have, then which type, Oracle, Salesforce, or MongoDB?

Push Notifications

Ensure you share the details regarding push notifications that you want for your solution. How often you would update the push notification content, or at what frequency you would send the push notifications.

5. Project Timeline

   For your project timeline, you need to consider the following things:

   • What is the launch date for your project?
   • Do you want to launch your app with a specific event?
   • Is there anything that could influence the launch date?
   • From when you want to start the app development process?
   • Do you have any expectations with the project timeline?

6. Project Proposal Timeline

   Share a due date for proposal submission, and if possible, then also an ensuing timeline. Along with this, you can mention evaluating proposals and shortlisted presentations.

Benefits of Mobile App RFP

We have shared an image that depicts all the main benefits of a mobile app RFP. Please check all the significant benefits one-by-one.

If you still have some queries related to an RFP or want to know more about writing an RFP, then​ refer to our FAQ section.

Conclusion

To sum up, we have shared significant information about RFP, such as what an RFP is, how to write a mobile app RFP, benefits, and a downloadable template to write an RFP. In case you need more information, then feel free to use this template and edit it as per your requirement.

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