Cost of Developing On-Demand Food Delivery Mobile App

Grubhub and UberEats- foodies across the world must have used these apps for ordering their favorite food. These on–demand food delivery app like UberEats offer convenience and delicious food at your doorstep. Irrespective of regions, the food delivery apps have become an instant hit as they enable users to order any food they like from any of their favorite restaurants using a few clicks. What’s more, the pandemic age has increased the popularity of such apps manifolds in a short time.

It is expected that orders placed using mobile apps will cross USD 38 billion by the end of 2020. In such a scenario, it is obvious that single restaurants, takeaways, and restaurant chains will like to make the most of this trend. However, as a restaurant owner, you will be more interested in knowing the cost of an on-demand food delivery app development in the first place. This article discusses various cost-determining factors. But before digging deep into the cost of a customized on-demand food delivery app, let’s find out how it works.

How On-demand Food Delivery App Works

The home screen of a tailored food delivery app is shared based on the user’s location. The user can select any of their favorite restaurants from the list of nearby restaurants. After selecting the restaurant, the user needs to select the food items and place an order using a few clicks. After receiving the payment, the app notifies about the order to the respective restaurant. Upon completion of the order or after delivery, the app owner and the restaurant owner share their profits.

Which Factors Determine the Cost of On-demand Food Delivery Apps

The on-demand food delivery app development is a complex process that involves multiple factors. When you want to come up with an on-demand food delivery app like UberEats, you need to consider a number of aspects while estimating the app development cost. Here we give a brief introduction to all the necessary app development aspects.

It starts with the number of app features. It determines the complexity of your app and the mobile app development company will assign resources based on the app’s complexity. Another major cost-determining factor is the hourly rate of developers because these rates are different in various countries. For example, in countries like India and the Philippines, the hourly rate remains around $30 to $60, whereas the US or the UK-based app developers charge anywhere between $80 to $180 for an hour.

Other factors include UI/UX design and the platform on which you want to build an app. For example, an app with a simple design and basic features costs less but an app with an impressive interface and many user-friendly features costs high. Platform selection also plays a vital role in determining the app development cost. Android app development is the costliest than iOS app development and cross-platform app development because it involves more extensive testing.

Considering various cost-determining factors, the approximate cost of developing an on-demand food delivery app like UberEats or Zomato would be around $15000 to $25000. If you want to include additional features to make your app stand out from the crowd, then the charge may go up to $45000. A reputed mobile app development company can give you a quote based on your feature requirements and business model.

Technical Information and Basic Cost Calculation for On-demand Food Delivery App

Every food delivery app consists of four panels- Customer Panel, Delivery Person Panel, Restaurant Panel, and Admin Panel.

The customer panel has features like the login and profiles creation, restaurant list, favorites, re-order, and secure payment. You can also integrate features like Reviews, Help Desk, and Reward Program to attract and retain more customers.

The delivery person panel consists of the profile, accept or reject order requests, booking completion, payout details, and history. It is better to integrate instant messaging or call features in both the customer and delivery person’s panels.

The restaurant panel consists of order receiving, delivery management, customizable food menu, and location management. You can also provide your partner restaurants a facility to set up discounts or dynamic, customized offers. Restaurants can also view and download daily, weekly, and monthly data of orders and customers’ preferences. They can also send notifications to their regular customers.

The admin panel has multiple features including restaurant order management, delivery management, promoting business through in-app advertisements, order history, push notifications, refund or order cancellation, and reviews or ratings for partner restaurants. The admin can either approve or disapprove the delivery person and the restaurant’s registration.

Technology Stack

• Restaurant Listing- Grubhub API
• User Location- Google Places API
• Directions- Google Maps
• Payment Gateways- PayPal, Stripe
• Cloud Storage- AWS (Amazon Web Services)
• Analytics and Reporting- Google Analytics

Like other on-demand delivery apps, the food delivery app development process consists of four steps- ideation and design, development, testing, and deployment. The design phase takes around 60 hours and costs between $1500 to $3000. The development phase is the longest and takes around 400 hours. It costs you anywhere between $7000 to $15000. Here, if you want to add more features, the charge can be increased significantly. MVP testing takes around 80 hours and bug fixing needs around 40 hours.

Wrapping Up

The future of online food ordering and on-demand food delivery app development seems bright with the current trends and people’s preferences. All you need to consult a reliable and experienced mobile app development company to leverage the benefits of on-demand delivery apps and grow your business by increasing revenue. With a seamlessly-running on-demand food delivery app, you can not only expand your operations but also integrate new food ordering channels to keep your business ready for the future.