In 2015, small business owners may have been asking, “Do I need a mobile app for my business?” If you do nothing else in 2016, answer that question! From beating the competition to gaining loyal customers, you know mobile is the preferred platform. There’s a huge opportunity for small and mid-sized businesses to reach and engage customers with an app.

For example, a restaurant app could include a store locator, menu, and an order-and-pay-ahead feature. A retail shop app might help customers find, save, share and buy products when and where it’s convenient. Even health and wellness providers use apps to make it easier for clients to schedule appointments as well as send push notifications for reminders or announce new products and services.

So, here are 5 key areas to consider before you get started.

When it comes to creating an app, you’ll need to decide between custom built apps vs. a white label app maker.     Spending thousands of dollars to rebuild what you can have and customize, for a fraction of a cost is just bad business! There are five really good reasons to keep your money in your pocket, and use a white label solution for your mobile needs.

1. Avoid drawbacks of development: App development takes time, and money. During the process of development, you will have ups and downs—adding more work to your plate. There are periods of testing and revising that will require you to step away from the day-to-day responsibilities of running your business to work with your developer.App development requires a phase called post-development crash reports. What that means to you, as an entrepreneur, is that part of your development is looking at how your app crashes when being used by customers. So, in essence, your product has to break for your customers so you can make it correctly.White label app makers have already been through this phase, so by using one, you can save face with your customers and deliver a quality product right out of the gate.Furthermore, post-crash reports are not the only pitfall of custom development. There are plenty more that will remove your focus from your business to your app development.

2. Develop much quicker: Time is another major factor in app development. The average amount of time to develop an app is intense. Depending on what you want to do, some apps can take over a year to develop. If there is a solution for your needs, and you can have it in a fraction of that time, it makes no sense not to use it.

3. Stay focused on your company: As stated, your focus needs to be on running your company, not on the complex phases of app development. White label app makers offer a plug and play; quick solution that will meet your needs is a short amount of time. This keeps you free to manage your company, not a development team.

4. Save money: You can’t overlook the cost of developing an app either. White label app makers are much less expensive than custom apps. You can brand white label apps to meet your needs. And, to top it off—you can use a white label solution’s platform to manage your app—saving you additional funds.

5. Customer satisfaction: If your end goal is customer satisfaction, the risk involved in creating a custom app is much greater. White label app makers have not only been tested for user experience (UX) and user interface (UI), they’ve also been tested and retested for bugs.While a custom solution may seem like the ideal choice for you, keep in mind that you will need to go through your initial release, which could easily bring about new problems with your custom app.If your customers become frustrated with your app because it hasn’t been tested enough, there is a chance that they will remove it, and you could lose some of the opportunities you are building your app to capitalize on.White label app makers have been through a battery of tests to ensure customer satisfaction. In fact, white label apps have teams of developers working around the clock to ensure they work right, and they work well all the time. Your customers deserve that type of commitment.

A mobile app will help your business in countless ways. From providing instant communications with your customers to providing you with real-time data about your client’s using behavior, an app is a huge asset to any business. A mobile app can even be a way to grow your business without having to add staff or increase the size of your location. There is no need to spend thousands of dollars developing a custom app when a white label app maker can do everything a custom app can at a fraction of the cost.