How Much it Will Cost To Make an on-demand Food Delivery App Like UberEats, Just Eat

On-Demand Food Delivery App Development Overview

Start-ups have coaxed giant enterprises to shift their focus; with the start-ups being more concerned about user experience and quality services; giants are forced to re-examine their course. A lot of enterprises are either aiming to buy these start-ups or bootstrapping their own on-demand delivery services like Food delivery, Grocery delivery, etc, and shipping service to counter the effects of these start-ups.

On-demand food delivery services may not have been the start-ups that acquired the best headlines but they have challenged and changed a few paradigms for better. They certainly have paved the way for other start-ups. Real-time delivery makes these on-demand food delivery mobile applications the Industry Leader everyone was looking for.

While we as end users are only able to see what happens on our end like order received, order confirmed, order picked-up, and order delivered but what goes behind the curtains is no less than magic.

Robust and dynamic technologies have made it easier for us to have our favorite food ordered and delivered at our doorsteps but if you look at the intricacies involved in the making of on-demand food delivery app development, you will be left awe-struck.

Popular food delivery companies like UberEATS, Deliveroo, Swiggy, and Just Eat all of them have spent cash like a stream of flowing water to have the dynamic application that allows thousands of people every day to have their favorite food delivered without any hassle. While the investment ranges somewhere between $12000-$15000 but the effort, the brain-storming, overcoming complications and leveraging users with an incomparable experience is something that can never be measured or totaled against money.

What are the Must-Have Features of an on-demand Food Delivery Mobile Application?

A well built on-demand food delivery application like UberEATS or Just Eat must have the following features embedded into their platforms:

A payment gateway capable of receiving money from Debit Card, Credit Card, e-wallets like PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Stripe also the evergreen Cash on Delivery option.

A Profile section where all the history of the transaction, records of food ordered, details of restaurant, delivery guy, and timing of delivery are recorded and displayed to the user on request.

Intellectually enabled filters that always vegetarian and non-vegetarian to only a few their kind of food.

A location-based search and sort option

Customer relation segment that allows the users, restaurant owners, and the delivery guy to get in touch.

Developing the Three Apps of an on-demand Delivery App Like UberEats:

Yes! An on-demand delivery start-up needs to have an application with three Apps and an Admin panel, each of them catering to a totally different audience. These three apps setup of food delivery apps can be classified as:

The customer side App Delivery Boy App The Restaurant Dashboard Admin Panel(Additional)

These three apps setup will come together to leverage the users with an exceptional user experience like Just Eat or UberEATS.

1. The Customer Side Application

This is the face of the on-demand delivery application that will bring in business hence it needs to be at its best at all times. A customer application that makes it easier for users to search, order, and receives their favorite food with great ease is the need of the hour. Building a customer side application from scratch not only requires funds but also industrial food delivery app builder expertise. Without an expert guiding the processes, it is not only tough but impossible to build a restaurant application that will beat giants like UberEATS mobile app.

An industrial expert can help to bootstrap on-demand delivery start-ups to overcome the issues faced by giants and help them be market-ready from day one. An industrial expert will also help you instill features that make future clairvoyant and hopeful.

1.1 The cost of building the customer side application:

Since this is going to be the real face of your business, it will require the best UI and UX. The cost will increase with the inclusion of every new feature that works on APIs and KPIs of varied popular tools.

1.2 Some of the most important features of User side food ordering app to be included:

Sign-in/Sign-up

Search/sort

Cart

Payment Method

Real-time Tracking

Rating and Reviews

Customer Support

My Orders- To view and reorder old orders

Rewards and Coupons

The inclusion of the listed features will prepare the on-demand delivery application for introduction to the market. An application with the listed features can cater to masses with great ease.



1.3 The cost of food apps developer for customer side application:

A reputed freelancer developer or an agency will charge somewhere between 15-40USD per hour for building the customer side application for an on-demand delivery application. The additional cost of a graphic designer who can help the developer with a unique and impressive UI will also add up and make it somewhere 500-600USD per month.

2. The Delivery Boy App

The good thing here is that the same code for “Customer’s side app” for sign-in/sign-up and real-time tracking features can be used.

Not really the mammoth of a task but requires extra attention due to the involvement of APIs of Google Maps, Payment Gateways, and a lot of another SaaS. Some of the other important features must be included are:

2.1 Common features of Food Delivery Boy App:



Active/Inactive Status

Navigation

Reports

Activity Alerts

Payment Report

Estimation

3. Restaurant App Panel:

Businesses need to deal with a lot of other businesses in order to run smoothly and the Restaurant dashboard is nothing but an exquisite composition of all these invariably related tools and technologies.

A developer with decent developing skills can develop these dashboards, which can be later integrated with the customer side application. The whole start-up application must be tested vigorously before it is switched open for the market and regular users.

3.1 Common features of Restaurant Dashboard:



Invoicing

Payment Retrieval

Complaint Support

Orders Tab

Canceled Order Tab

Order Processed Tabs

Customer Review

Tax Information and Liability

4. Admin

Below are some must-have admin features on the food App.



Admin login

Restaurant Management

Application Management

Offer Management

Payment Management

Technical Support

Team Structure Required For Restaurant App Development:

To build the best food ordering mobile app, you will most likely to need a below-mentioned team structure;

Project Manager

UI/UX Designer

Android Developer

iOS Developer

Backend Developer

QA Team



Gathering Cost or the Cost of Hiring an Industry On-demand app Builder Expert

Start-ups in nascent segments have to rely a lot on surveys and user feedback for building an application that suits the cause and serves the requisite. The gathering cost sometimes crosses $1000 mark and end up of no use to the developers.

Hiring an industry expert instead can work in the favor of bootstrapped start-ups. An industry expert is now available on a freelance basis; they can guide businesses to make a wise decision for a nominal fee. A lot of these industry experts can be found with a few Google searches. They write detailed blog posts and help entrepreneurs believe in their capability before getting hired for the full job. One can always negotiate on their basic fee of 200USD per month.

Testing and Publication:

This where things get interesting. While in the Beta Stage, everyone closely associated with you and the application we feel that we have created a great application but as soon as it is available for people to Test; reviews like “The App looks way too engineered” and “the app has a nerdy feel to it” will start knocking the brains of developers and entrepreneurs.

The applications need to customer-centric and not necessarily the engineering marvel; an application that serves the purpose, is easily used by customers but has fewer engineering medals on its shirt is a good application but the vice versa is certainly not.

What are the Other Costs That an on-demand Food Delivery Application Will Incur?

1. Licensing: Yes! To have an operating license is actually the basis of building an on-demand food delivery application. One needs to have the requisite GST (if liable) registration and other property-related licenses issued before starting or catering to customers. Any violation will only lead to more expenses in the form of fines.

Licensing will cost something between $200-$300 and make it easier for these start-ups to cater without worries of getting into a legal battle with local or central authorities.

2. Domain Registration, App Hosting, and Publishing: While an on-demand food delivery business can do well with the application but it simply cannot market itself with a full-fledged website. One needs to have a website because it is where all the campaigns will be redirected to, which will lead to more app installations.

Domain Registration, App Hosting, and Publishing are few recurring costs and must be followed up on a regular basis. Some of the hosting provider’s charges on the basis of traffic you receive, which is quite an economical option to go ahead with.

3. Operating Space: Availability of services like freelance developer and industry leader will definitely allow the start-up to save cost on Operating Space but the need for an official space will always be there.

A place, where entrepreneurs can sit and discuss customer feedback, cater to customer support tickets and also handle real-time problems and customer complaints is not just required but extremely important as well. The cost of an operational space can go somewhere between $200-$1500 in countries like the United States.

What is the Final Conclusive Price that Developing an On-Demand Food Delivery App will Incur?

Well, the on-demand food delivery app development cost goes as following:



Developer’s cost for 500-650hrs: $7500-$12000

$7500-$12000 Designer: $500-$600

$500-$600 Licensing and Hosting: $1000

$1000 Testing and Launch: $900-$1200

Well, it will be a good idea to start with a budget of $9500-$15000 when building an on-demand food delivery app like UberEATS, Just Eat, Grubhub, and Deliveroo.

Are you running an on-demand delivery business like a restaurant, cafe, and home delivery business? Contact us to get a free quote for your next app project.