Do I need an app, or a website?
The site, in almost every case. The reason is not cost: it is that somebody has to install an app before it can do a single thing.
A real Clay site, built from a Google listing
Somebody has quoted you for an app, or a competitor has one, and the question feels like a question about ambition rather than about customers.
An app is a thing a person has to decide to install, and installing is a bigger ask than most small businesses can make. A website is open in the time it takes to tap a link, and it does the four jobs an app would have done for you anyway: hours, prices, booking and directions.
Ask these four before anybody quotes you
-
1
How often does a customer come back?
An app earns its place with weekly habits. If somebody visits you four times a year, the icon on their phone is a reminder of a decision they regret.
-
2
What would it do that a page cannot?
Notifications and offline use are the two real answers. Everything else on a typical quote is a website in a frame with a longer delivery date.
-
3
Who installs it, and when?
The honest answer is at the counter, by staff, one customer at a time. If that is not going to happen, the app has no users on the day it launches.
-
4
What happens when it needs updating?
Two stores, two review processes and a developer on retainer. A page is changed from a phone in a minute, by you.
A card in the phone's wallet does most of it
The usual reason for an app is a stamp card, and a wallet pass does that without an installation, without a store and without a monthly bill.
It also survives a phone change, which a paper card does not, and it turns up in the wallet where somebody is already looking at the counter.
They search your name and read four things
Hours, where you are, what it costs and whether they can book. Every study of small business web traffic says the same thing, and every app quote proposes to hide those behind an install.
So build the four things, at an address anybody can open, and spend the app budget on the photographs.
When an app is genuinely right
What the site does instead
Booking without an install
Somebody books from the page they landed on, in the same minute they decided, which is the entire point.
Orders taken on the page
A basket that hands you the order rather than a store listing, and no cut of the sale.
Saved to the home screen anyway
Anybody who wants an icon can add the page to their home screen, and it behaves like an app without the store.
What it looks like when it is live
Drawn rather than described, the page, the address, and what it can switch on.
Questions
My competitor has an app. Am I behind?
Ask how many people they think use it weekly. The answer is usually smaller than the number who read their opening hours yesterday.
What about push notifications?
That is the strongest argument for an app and it is real. It is also the thing people turn off first, and an email list reaches more of them for less.
Can a website work offline?
Partly, and it rarely matters for a local business. A customer with no signal at your counter is a customer standing in front of you.
How much does an app cost to keep?
Not just the build: two store accounts, updates when the operating systems change, and somebody to do them. That is the part quotes leave out.
Can people put my site on their home screen?
Yes, and it opens full screen with your icon. It is the useful half of an app and it costs nothing.
What should I build first?
The four things people search for: what to put on a small business website.
Can I take bookings without an app?
Yes, on the page itself, with no commission: how online booking works.
Try it with your business
Search your business and see your site in seconds, free, no signup.