Connecting People Over Voice Chat: Learn How to Develop an App Like Clubhouse

The mobile app is a booming industry that is growing at a rapid pace and unarguably there is no end in sight to that anytime soon. The revenue generated by the mobile app industry globally has surged over the years. However, as we know that change is the only true and constant irrespective of the field, the mobile app industry is outwardly making this precept an inimitable statement. Throughout the years, the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. have sprung up as extensively popular apps in the social media community, however, messaging apps are no inferior. 

In the course of an extensive period of time, chat messenger applications like Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, and Telegram have already garnered users’ attention collectively. However, there is another app on the list that is gaining traction nowadays and emerging as a household name carrying tons of rich features and functionalities – Clubhouse. Developed in 2020, Clubhouse has become an acclaimed invitation-only social media app based on voice-chat where users can form a tight-knitted community and interact with each other easily. If you are desperately looking for an answer to the most-anticipated questions – How to build an app like Clubhouse? or How much does it cost to build an app like clubhouse? This article is for you.

This app has gained overnight popularity so much so it is appealing to many entrepreneurs and budding enterprisers to have a second thoughts about their app idea and rather contemplate developing an app similar to Clubhouse. The growth of social media is ceaseless and people are now tired of interacting over a video call, so they now need something innovative, something that allows them to be them and Clubhouse is one-of-its-kind that fits the catalog without a doubt. 

In this article, we will break down the popularity of Clubhouse, its features, and what it takes to build an app like Clubhouse comprehensively.

What Is Clubhouse?

The clubhouse is currently an invite-only audio-chat social media app soon to usher in to download by everyone. It is available for iOS users only but CEO Paul Davison has said that the plan to launch the app for Android users is under process and it will soon be executed. Clubhouse lets users engage in a conversation where the downloaders can create rooms, join clubs, or can connect with someone in a meeting hall. Basically, the concept of Clubhouse has been taken to a traditional room-creating chat-based portal where people can get into any live ongoing chat and start communicating with other members. 

This spontaneous social media app based on audio chat was created last year in May 2020 when the COVID-19 outbreak caused havoc and people were imposed to be locked at home. The creators of the Clubhouse app found this as an opportunistic situation to come up with a mobile solution that can kill people’s boredom and get them in the vicinity under one platform. 

Keeping Elon Musk’s act of tweeting about Clubhouse, which made the app gain explosive growth and influenced people to an extent, apart, the idea of introducing virtual social events majorly enticed people to download Clubhouse proved to be a kind of testament.

Why Is Clubhouse So Popular? – The Reasons for Audio-Chat Apps Gaining Traction

Clubhouse app, within a year of its launch, is leading the list of top social media networks on the planet. According to the reports, Clubhouse is currently the 5th most popular app on the App Store under the “Social Media Network” category. Other usage stats claim that Clubhouse has been downloaded 2.3 million times in January 2021 alone which is a record in itself. Why is it so? Why do you think the Clubhouse app has become so popular among multitudes in such a short span of time? Let’s try to unpuzzle this enigma.

1. An iOS app development project like Clubhouse encompassed the social networking community and picked up steam among users from the day of launch. Being a voice-only social media app, it helps users maintain secrecy to the core.
2. A two-in-one functionality. People can use it as an audio-chat social media app while some can put this to use as a live podcasting app. Hence, another major reason for being Clubhouse so popular is its personalization offerings to the users.
3. Not everyone is comfortable attending video calls and showing themselves in the video-chat rooms. The clubhouse comes as a rescuer to camera-shy users who just want to interact with people without revealing their faces or profile.
4. The COVID-19 pandemic made this Clubhouse app a hit machine among users which eventually led the app to register 6 million users within a year and still counting.
5. Clubhouse app has made the short-form video app concept so yesterday and provides a platform for people to meet, talk, and share ideas without feeling uneasy.

How Much Does It Cost to Make an App Like Clubhouse?

If you are looking forward to building a Clubhouse clone and cashing in on the success of the same as the creators of Clubhouse did, you need to understand the nuances of chat messenger applications. Take a moment and understand the appealing strategy of Clubhouse and other similar messaging apps like Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. 

With over 3.2 billion of the population accessing the internet on a smartphone, the Statista reports claim that around 79% of the population in the United States have a social networking profile. Hence, bearing the stats in mind, creating a social media app with intuitive features becomes a more significant need for businesses. 

It is important to understand that each app is unique on its own and the process of building them from scratch could be different that very much depends upon several components such as requirement analysis, UI concept, visual design, QA process, etc. Though there are trails of attributes you can add to your audio-chat-based app to make it the best and stand out of the crowd, the following is a mobile app checklist that counts on the most essential things to consider while creating an app like Clubhouse.

1. Backend infrastructure
2. Complexity and app features
3. Inclusion of visual element
4. Technology stack
5. Target audience

Let’s get to the meat of the question, that is how much does it cost to develop an iOS app like Clubhouse? However, it is apparent for business savvy that the more seamless they want their app to be, the more they would be required to spend. On top of everything, if being a business you want to employ features similar to Clubhouse in your app, the app development would cost you around 50 to 60k.

If we take Clubhouse into consideration and study the case of how it turned out to be buzzy overnight, there were bigwig celebrities and high-profile capitalists who promoted it on other social media platforms. If you are searching for top alternatives to the clubhouse app, there is no other app like Clubhouse that has been discovered yet and that’s one of the reasons why the swamp of users are being added to the platform daily.

Must-Have Features for Clubhouse Like Mobile Application Development

Since Clubhouse is still invite-only, you just can’t just visit the App Store, download it and brush it off. You have to be invited to join by an existing member. So let’s suppose if your friend is on the Clubhouse who has earlier sent an invitation and got accepted, he/ she can invite you. Founder of Grouper and one of the early Clubhouse users, Josh Felser said about Clubhouse “It’s either dead by July or it’s something big.” 

When he began using Clubhouse, he too, like others, was deceptive about the app being sustainable but the app is going thunderous in the marketplace and all the credit goes to the users who really loved it. It won’t sound boastful if I say that Clubhouse is a Silicon Valley of social media hub. When you think of – how to build an app like Clubhouse, it is impossible to consider features that could make your app pick up steam. If you are looking forward to giving your startup idea an instant push and coming up with something that makes strides, look at the features of Clubhouse that you can replicate or take inspiration from for your app. 

a) Invitation Only Onboarding – Once the user receives an invite link and gets redirected to the sign-up page, they would be required to enter their name and upload a profile picture to set up the account. After they are done with profile customization, users can join any room of their choice by just tapping on it or they can also start their own room.

b) In-House Feed – The feed of the social media platform is something that monitors user activity and shows the account or pages of their interest. Clubhouse operates on the same concept here. The feed section of the app shows users a list of rooms where they will see different ongoing discussions and join any of them.

c) Clubs – Clubs are the section that is created to bring a like-minded group of people together. It is different from rooms. The club groups are created around topics. For eg – If someone is a bibliophile, they can join clubs of people who are interested in books and discuss the same.

d) User Bio – This is one of the interesting sections which allows you to let people know who you are and what interests you. In this section, you need to create your profile with all the relevant details along with a short description. And when you visit someone else’s user profile, you can track down their activities and their background. The other person can also see your profile, however, you do have the option to personalize the security.

e) Search Navigation – The search feature is like any other common feature that is found in most social media apps. Clubhouse allows you to discover everything whether it is about accessing rooms, clubs, the conversation history, profile, and many more. The search option also enables users to find topics and personalities of interest.

f) Activity Tab – The activity tab in the Clubhouse app enables users to track the interactions, accounts, followers, followings, the club someone belongs to, and the scheduled events. Basically, it is a historical log of activities on your account.

g) Clubhouse Rooms – In order to discuss and initiate conversation, the Clubhouse has a rooms tab. You might be thinking about how it is different from clubs. While in clubs you meet with people who are interested in a particular topic, the room is a place for random discussions irrespective of the interests. The users can join existing rooms and can also create new ones.

h) Notification – Notification features are generally used to engage and make users active within the app. The clubhouse here goes after the same theory. Push notification has always been one of the winning features for social media apps and the setting in the audio-chat app Clubhouse is no unfamiliar. The notification in Clubhouse enables users to be notified of upcoming events, new members joining rooms, and clubs, or who have dropped a new audio message.

5 Steps to Building a Voice-Chat App Like Clubhouse

How to build an app like Clubhouse? Is this the question constantly coming on the scene whenever you think about kick-off your startup journey? An attention-gaining app like Clubhouse is always a smart investment unless your idea is not plagiarized but a completely fresh concept to revolutionize the former one. While the creators of Clubhouse have already set a shatterproof example in front of you, what you, as a budding businessman, need to do is to put that similar concept into action and validate the solution even something bigger than Clubhouse. 

For eg – As Clubhouse is currently an invitation-only app, you can launch it for everyone. The current target base of Clubhouse is the iOS platform, you release it for cross-platforms. Now you know what Clubhouse can do and what are the basic functionalities it is compiled with, let’s take a glance at these five steps that will help you get started with the app development spot on. 

The clubhouse has a flexible, simple, and user-friendly interface with some high-performance architecture, and if you are planning to build an app like Clubhouse, you must follow these steps.

Carry Out Market Research

Market research is generally conducted in order to understand and decide whether your app idea is viable or not. But in the case of Clubhouse, you already know that people are loving it to the depths. However, instead of limiting yourself to becoming another Clubhouse app or a replicated version of the same in the market, think beyond that. Think of solving real problems. 

In order to gain a complete understanding of how Clubhouse understood the market and appealed to users, go the extra mile and read about use cases that will detail about the company’s strengths and weaknesses. Apart from that, don’t just devote all your time to knowing the Clubhouse app but other top alternatives of Clubhouse app as well so that you can have multiple approaches to employ.

Understand Target Audience

Unless you know your target audience well, you won’t be able to satisfy their requirements. While identifying the target audience and selling your idea to them is the most crucial element of mobile app development strategy, doling out potential ones from the list is a hell of a task. That’s when the diligence of market research i.e. product owner ropes in.

No one is perfect and that is why pencils have erasers and product owners have developers to fix bugs. No matter how rich Clubhouse is with features, there might be something that would seem to provoke users and you just have to get your eyes on that. As you know what loopholes are already out there, it is time to build your app focusing on eliminating all the drawbacks Clubhouse had and enrich yours with avant-garde functionalities. Try to seek the answer of why is Clubhouse so popular and how can you gain a competitive advantage over it.

Create User-Friendly UI

Clubhouse gained its popularity back in May 2020 when it was launched. Though various social networking sprung up in between, Clubhouse remained steady. When you are competing with the giant in the marketplace, you need to put yourself out and compete determinedly. And that’s what Clubhouse did with resoluteness. Personalization in apps is something that is standing out for users nowadays and your Clubhouse-like app should be designed with user experience and their requirements. 

Use demographics to understand the kind of people using voice-chat apps and strike a balance between the functionality and UI animation (read about – Top Mobile App UI Design Trends). Here comprehending what users want and what they need is as significant as putting the app idea like Clubhouse in formation. In order to understand the user requirements and pain points correctly, put yourself in their shoes. Explore through apps akin to Clubhouse yourself and just grab the chance to grasp with features that could have been implemented.

Choose Development Team

Hiring an app development team would ease half of your aspiration of building a remarkable solution like Clubhouse. Once you are done with analyzing the market, gaining insight into your target base, and sketching out functionalities with impressive visual design, the next crucial step in your how-to-build an app like Clubhouse enigma should be – to find a team of talented mobile app developers who can make your app go viral in a jiffy. 

However, the decision of employing a development team should be taken after a thorough inspection in which you should know whether the company can meet your and the user’s requirements or not. Not every developer is skilled in building messenger-based apps. And apps like Clubhouse are more complex than usual chat-based apps. Therefore, it is important to consider every possible aspect before you settle your decision on one mobile development team.

Read about – How to hire a mobile app development team

Build an MVP

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. The final part of mobile app development is MVP where the product, with essential features, gets launched for a few users so that they can use it for a while and provide their honest feedback. MVP is a kind of mock paper and a practice match that is evaluated before the final release of the product. 

While building an app like Clubhouse with similar but extended features, it is important to check with the enhancement of the same so that the developers and testing team can further identify the issues if any, and work towards rectifying them. 

How Long Does It Take to Develop an App Like Clubhouse?

Those who are so keen on using social media platforms always look for intuitive feature-rich apps that could be counted as a new paradigm in the marketplace. The launch of apps like Clubhouse and Signal has already shaken the foundation of established rulers like Whatsapp. With the number of similar apps mushrooming day by day, you need to deeply probe into your features and how complex it could be for the developers to build such an app. 

How much time it takes to develop an app relies much upon its complexity. The low-complex apps are built within 3 months, the medium-complex apps like Whatsapp take 4 to 5 months and high-complex apps like Clubhouse require at least 6 months to get developed. Hence, if you are considering employing more functionalities in your Clubhouse doppelganger app, you can estimate the development period based on the features, functionalities, design, and other technical aspects.

How Can Appventurez Help to Build an App Like Clubhouse?

The wide expansion of Clubhouse, that too within a short span of time, has caused havoc in the app marketplace reeling budding big-shots in to invest in an idea that is already successful. How to build an app like Clubhouse is no big deal to crack now. The app idea bearer is thinking of uniting with those who have been excellent in developing social media apps. It would definitely not be easy to surpass the rivals with the Clubhouse-like app but if you hire a development team that can put their heart into the product, it would not be that difficult. 

Being a leading mobile app development company, the experienced team of developers at Appventurez has taken the chair of building social media apps with indispensable features. When it comes to developing complex apps like Clubhouse, you can’t trust amateurs but just connoisseurs. With the pool of talented peers who have 10+ years of experience, we make sure that no hooks and corners are missed out on your app no matter how complex the design is and the technical functionalities it carries.

Do you want your social media app to outshine the success of Clubhouse? Get in touch with our experts.