Cost of app like kite zerodha

Dear @nithin
Sorry for unusual questions!
I just want to know(just for curiosity) how much cost to create app like kite zerodha & it’s web version and also it’s annual maintenance cost.
Thanks.

Depends. Zerodha’s tech team has around 30 members, I think. So salary must cost them few crores. Then there is server expenses. Since Zerodha has millions of users, I can only guess, it must cost them another few crores.

My guess is, around 50 crores a year? Could be way higher or way less.

As a programmer, I am quite sure, one talented person can write the code to create app & website like Kite within 1 year. Obviously, it won’t be as good as the current app/website in terms of reliability, performance, optimization etc. But good enough for a non-technical user not to notice a considerable difference. Then server cost depends on the number of users.

I don’t know the cost that Zerodha pays to exchanges or OMS etc. Must be another few crores. Then there are other parts also like legal, accounting, support etc.

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May be you will find some insight here https://zerodha.tech

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You should definitely go through this https://zerodha.tech/

Firstly it isn’t as straightforward as spending money and getting a good product. If that was the case every business with lots of money would have built everything and there would have been no opportunity for startups. Even someone like Google with lots of money and access to the best talent in the world hasn’t been able to build a good social media app even after attempting multiple times (Google+).

A product takes time to evolve and what you see today is work that has gone in for almost 9 years (2013 onwards). Also what you see is just the front end which might seem simple to build, but what you don’t see is what is the most challenging aspect of building a trading app. The app has to handle millions of orders, run the orders through risk management checks, ensure it goes to the right exchanges, keep waiting for status updates on the orders, etc etc etc and do it in milliseconds. Something like streaming live market feeds to millions of customers without any delay, which is taken for granted is itself a technically challenging process at scale.

But yeah coming to your question, if money could buy it, all our very large competition would already have it. To build something like Kite, you need special folks like K (Kailash) and our entire tech team, motivated and camaraderie to slog it out through tough times. Also, a business that doesn’t interfere with tech. And a lot of luck.

That sounds like a sales pitch :wink: but just money can’t help build a good product.

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Thanks @nithin