How Much Does It Cost To Make An Mobile App Like UberEats and Deliveroo
By: Sophia Martin
Tags: Mobile App Development, Mobile Apps, Technology, Startup, Business

How Much Does It Cost To Make An Mobile App Like UberEats and Deliveroo Sophia Martin Follow Aug 17 · 10 min read

Have you been into the food industry and planning to take your venture to the next level with on-demand food delivery apps? If yes, then your very next question will be, how much does it cost to develop a food delivery app? How to set a task for the developer and what functionalities you need to consider first in your app? Let’s follow the app clone of the top food delivery apps including UberEats and Deliveroo to understand their background and what exactly makes them successful in the competitive market.

Before jumping on the features and functionalities of the app, it is worth understanding the background of the food delivery apps and their scope.

Why On-Demand Food Delivery Apps Have Become So Demanding?

Have you noticed that food delivery companies like UberEats and Deliveroo have become dominating names in the food industry today- just because of convenience and maximalism. And its impact on Americans is, 60% of US consumers order delivery or takeout once a week.

In this fast-paced life, food delivery apps are a true blessing for everyone. The on-demand food delivery applications are one of those techniques that have created a platform where customers and chains of restaurants can easily meet to quench their needs. But here are the few reasons that make sense in increasing the popularity of online food ordering apps and making it an ideal choice for the startups.

Raise the Business: The restaurants are finding online food delivery apps are a much more straightforward and convenient option to get delivery orders than taking orders from the wild calls. Moreover, 60% of restaurant operators say that offering delivery has lifted up their sales.

Improve Customer Relationship Management: 43% of restaurant professionals said that they believe third-party apps help in building a direct relationship between a restaurant/bar/pub and its customers. The seamless online food ordering solutions have actually modernized customer relationship management and can offer all the required services right from food ordering to quick delivery at their home.

Enhance Restaurant Business Promotions: Undoubtedly, on-demand applications are integrated with multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and provide a great platform for seamless business promotions. The various types of online promotions help in attracting a large number of people to the app.

Expand Customer Base: According to the survey, the customers who place an online order with a restaurant will visit the restaurant 67% more frequently than those who don’t use the app. Moreover, working with a third-party delivery service has been found to raise restaurant sales volume by 10 to 20%.

Additional key facts and some insights portraying how powerful online food ordering apps have become:

63% of customers agree that ordering food from the online food app is more convenient than dining out with a family.

According to the studies, UberEATs grew by 230% last year, with its average customer spending more than $220 annually.

New food delivery platforms are sticky, once users sign up the app, an average of 77% of customers never or rarely leave the platform or switch to another app.

Digital Ordering and delivery have grown 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014.

It is estimated that mobile orders will make up close to 11% of all QSR sales by 2020.

GrubHub, UberEATS, DoorDash and Postmates have become the most powerful food delivery apps in the industry and acquiring the largest share of the market.

Now the central question is, why food delivery apps like UberEats, Postmates, DoorDash or Deliveroo are booming?

What Makes UberEATS and Deliveroo a Leading Food Delivery App?

There is no doubt in this fact that people always go for the one that adds convenience and comfort to their life. And this mantra applies to everything from the live movie streaming apps to music listening apps, and the games that we play to food that we eat. And there are multiple factors behind the boom of food delivery apps like Deliveroo and UberEATS.

So, before learning the process to develop a successful online food delivery app, it is worth understanding the great blend of technology that UberEATs has used to add a great level of comfort:

For Payment integration: UberEATs use Braintree, Stripe, E Wallets along with the payment on cash.

UberEATs use Braintree, Stripe, E Wallets along with the payment on cash. Database Storage: UberEATs use AWS, Google for a better cloud environment, storage and backup.

UberEATs use AWS, Google for a better cloud environment, storage and backup. GEO tracking: Since UberEATs is using Google Location API for Android and Core Location Framework for iOS, therefore offers you seamless location tracking experience.

Since UberEATs is using Google Location API for Android and Core Location Framework for iOS, therefore offers you seamless location tracking experience. Navigation: UberEATs using Android Maps API and Mapkit for Apple devices.

UberEATs using Android Maps API and Mapkit for Apple devices. Listing or Menu: To display the list of the menu as per the location, the developer can use any popular API like Foursquare.

To display the list of the menu as per the location, the developer can use any popular API like Foursquare. Analytics: To review the performance and analytics of your business, UberEATs use Google Analytics or Mix Panel.

In the Nutshell: The UberEATs clone may sound excellent for any food delivery app, but the performance of the app is depending upon the mobile app development company you hire for the app development. So before getting collaborated with any mobile app developer, it is worth discussing your app plans and needs.

How To Develop A Food Delivery App Like UberEATs and Deliveroo?

There is no doubt in this fact that developing food delivery apps like UberEATs, Postmates, DoorDash or Deliveroo required a huge investment. The upfront cost of the app development from scratch can be starting from $25,000 per project, which is quite expensive for the startups. So, what if you don’t have that kind of budget, should you drop the plan to hire an app developer?

Well, everything has a solution. Today even some small businesses are coming up with something similar to the UberEATs at a fraction of the cost. There are many app development companies that usually make use of existing APIs to lessen the app development process and cost. All you need is hire the right app development team that can understand your business requirements and be able to build an app under the limited budget.

Here’s what exactly you need to focus while developing a food delivery app like UberEATs:

Understanding the Key Components of the UberEATs

Key Features to Build an App Like UberEATs

App Technology Used For Android/iOS/Cross-Platform

Monetizing Strategy to Make Profit From the App

Let’s dig deep in each point for better understanding:

1. Understanding the Key Elements of UberEATs

Today, UberEATs has become the fastest-growing food delivery app and has collaborated with more than 50,000+ restaurants and provided the end number of food options. Moreover, with a $2.8 trillion addressable market, it is making up 22% of the company’s total bookings in 2019. Now the central question is, how do they manage everything right from the heavy traffic on the app, orders, courier to restaurant partners?

Well, the food delivery apps like UberEATs have 3 major elements:

For Customer: This version helps customers to choose from the extensive list of offerings in terms of restaurants as per their location and menus. All the food deliveries are made as per the customers chosen time.

This version helps customers to choose from the extensive list of offerings in terms of restaurants as per their location and menus. All the food deliveries are made as per the customers chosen time. For Courier partners: This type of app is for the Uber drivers, who have been signed up or registered as a part of a delivery network. Once the order is made, it has been allocated to the driver as per the location. With the courier app version, both restaurants and customers are notified with the approx delivery time.

This type of app is for the Uber drivers, who have been signed up or registered as a part of a delivery network. Once the order is made, it has been allocated to the driver as per the location. With the courier app version, both restaurants and customers are notified with the approx delivery time. For Restaurants Partners: Restaurants will get detailed order information and they are responsible to update the order status and send a notification to the customers & drivers. They have access to the list of the current orders made every day.

2. Key Features To Develop An App Like UberEATs

When it comes to developing a mobile app, it’s features and functionality can make a great difference in how it is acceptable in the market. Moreover, mobile app features and functionalities can easily eat up your budget, therefore it is important to set your budget and accordingly make a choice of features that you need to integrate in the application.

Since UberEATs clone is layered with different app versions, therefore we have categorized the major features required for customer and courier app version along with the estimated development hours.

If you are a startup and planning to enter the food industry with the lowest budget, then you can consider developing an app with the MVP or basic features. Here’s the breakup of basic food delivery app:

In case, if you are looking for the food app with advanced features, then the development cost of the Customer app version will be starting from $20,000+ and can go to any expensive price.

You can check the break up below:

And, here’s the necessary features required for the courier app version which is starting from $10,000 and can go to $35,000+ depending upon the choice of features and complexity of the app.

3. App Technology Used For Android/iOS/Cross-Platform

The tech side of the app is depending upon the choice of operating system you choose to launch your app. If you are targeting a native app, then for Android app development solutions, it is worth hiring a mobile app developer expert in Java, Node.Js, whereas Objective-C and Swift can be an excellent option for iOS app development. In case, if you are targeting a large number of customers through multiple platforms then developing hybrid apps using Flutter or React Native can be an optimum choice.

4. How To Make Profit From Your Food Delivery App?

No matter how amazingly you have designed your app, but there is no use of developing a beautiful app or hiring the best software development company for the project if there is no scope of making a profit from the app. So here are the few best app monetization methods used by UberEATs:

Commission from Restaurants: This is one of the most common and efficient ways to earn profit from your app. UberEATs earn itself 15% to 40% commission from the orders fulfilled by UberEATs.

Advertising Income From Restaurant Partners: UberEATs charging their restaurant partners a promotion fee to increase their visibility on the app’s listing. And with the increasing number of restaurants, it becomes important for the restaurants to invest in marketing to make their name visible to customers on the app.

Delivery Fee From Customers: Charging plus surcharges for the food delivery during peak hours including lunch and dinner time is one of the worthy ways to make a profit from the app.

5. Hire a Development Team

To build an app like UberEATs, you need a professional IT team that can understand the app clone and able to develop an app that can help you launch a successful food delivery app.

Basically the mobile app development team should include:

Business Analyst

Project Manager

Backend/Frontend Developer

UX/UI designer

Quality Analyst

There are two ways to hire a team of app developers, either look for an in house app development team or look for an offshore app development company. On one side, communicating with in-house mobile app development team is easier whereas outsourcing a mobile app development company can be a cheaper option for you. Moreover, you can hire a mobile app developer at a price of $15 to $50 per hour in India whereas $150 per hour in the US and $100/hr in the UK.

Cost to Build Food Delivery App Like UberEATs

Estimating the overall price of the food delivery app can be a complicated task as there are a number of factors affecting the development cost. Right from the features, functionalities, complexity, size of the app, development team and its location, to technologies, there are a plethora of factors influencing the cost of app development.

The average cost to develop a food delivery app can be starting from $15,000 to $25,000+ with the basic features, but the price can go to any expensive figures depending upon the choice of features and functionality. The complex the app structure is, the higher the app development cost will be. So if you want to calculate the exact price of the app development, then you need to follow this simple formula:

Developer’s per hour cost * Total Development Hours = Total cost of the app development

Conclusion

To wrap up this blog, it is worth mentioning that the mobile food ordering business has become a fast growing trend in the food industry. Since the technology behind the entire food delivery app system continues to grow, the value of food delivery apps like UberEATs and Deliveroo are definitely soar to higher than expected. If you also want to be a part of this growing market, then it is the best time to get started with the online food delivery app.

To help you understand the app clone, we have tried to cover every major aspect of the food delivery app, but if you still find yourself stuck anywhere in between the app, then it is recommended to get in touch with experts to discuss your app plan and get the right solution. Moreover, as the cost of the app development is the concern, so we have mentioned the rough estimations based on various surveys. But, again, we suggest to get real cost estimations from the mobile or software development company after discussing your app idea and business needs.