Food Delivery App Development Cost & Features (2024)

Thanks to online food ordering apps like Postmates, Grubhub, Doordash, Zomato, Uber Eats, and others they are making life so simple and easy. Simply log in to any of these applications, scroll through a variety of dishes, and place an order for whatever you want to eat. If you are a restauranteur and looking forward to digitizing your business partner with a food delivery app development company today. We will discuss here the food delivery app development cost with features.

With technologically advanced food delivery app development, you can manage your business expenses easily.

Market Statistics of Food Delivery App

• In 2022, the global online food delivery market was worth $130.2 billion. This figure is expected to grow to 223.7 billion U.S. dollars by 2027.
• Statista claimed that the current surge in the market of food delivery apps is growing. With revenue of $401 B by the end of 2025, with an annual rate of 10.4%.
• During the pandemic, the user base percentage had a penetration rate of 23%.
• In the recent years, the number of people ordering via these online food delivery apps is double the figure, 625 M in 2020 & growing. And it continues to grow.
• The concept of dine-in is falling. The food app delivery market crossed $24.4 users by 2023.
• The digital ordering platform and delivery options have faced an enormous growth of 300% in the last few years.
• Depending upon the project’s scope, the cost to build the food delivery app will be decided.

The fact is that these food apps deliver food fast and instantly. This is tempting for customers to get food with comfort.

Read Also: Cooking Food Recipe Mobile App Development

How Does Food Delivery Mobile App Work?

User Search:

The user looks through the list of restaurants and dishes and chooses the one they wish to order. Our experts add various filters to the application to ensure the choice-making process becomes easier and better.

User Confirms Order:

The user confirms the order and chooses the mode of payment. Any method like COD, Credit Card, Debit card, Ewallet, or integrated in-app wallet. All such options are used to make payments.

Restaurant Confirms the Order:

Once the user completes the process, the restaurant confirms the order and shares an estimate of how long it would take for them to deliver the food.

Restaurant Prepares the Food:

The restaurant prepares the ordered food for delivery.

Valet Is Assigned:

The delivery guy is assigned.

Valet Collects Order:

As the order is prepared. The valet collects the respective order and sets it out for delivery.

Order Delivered:

The valet delivers the order to the destination.

With in-app features like calls, order tracking, and location tracking services. It becomes more accessible for the valets to deliver food quickly.

Soon there would be a time when Artificial Intelligence solutions would take up the charge. Robots and drones will deliver the food. With the world going contactless and cashless, It is becoming quite important for businesses to bring in picture delivery alternatives. Drones need fewer instructions and can deliver food as soon as possible.

Once the order is delivered to the customer. The profit margin is split between the app owner and the restaurant owner.

The work process is easy, but there are a few more challenges that you, as a business owner, may face when talking about home delivery application development.

Visit Also: Top Food Delivery App Development Companies

Food Delivery App Business Models Types

Food Delivery App Without Delivery

Here the food delivery app acts as a platform where the user and restaurants meet. The user can place the order in the app. Restaurants can deliver the order. Delivery is not the app’s responsibility. cost of developing a food delivery app also depends on these prominent models which we have discussed here.

For example, if you place an order via Domino’s app. The rider assigned by Domino’s delivers the order.

With Logistic Food Delivery App Model

One of the most essential food delivery app features is the rider. If you can deliver the food on time, you are already ahead in your game. This app model helps customers connect with the restaurant and place their orders. Further, they assign a rider to collect food from the restaurant and deliver it to the customer.

Important Features to Incude in Food Delivery App Development

Food Delivery App – Restaurant Panel

Restaurant owners will also have to go through a registration and login process from the app itself and submit extra for the authenticity of the business. The developer will share a document detailing the functioning with the restaurant owners.

Dashboard:

Once the restaurant owner sets up an account. They go back to the home page or dashboard. Here they can keep track of the pending orders, completed orders, and ones on the way to delivery for better insight and summary of what is going on.

Accept or Decline Orders:

This is an essential part of on-demand food delivery app development as delivering the food on time is a significant concern. Users may cancel the order if it takes longer than the estimated time, and it will count such delay as a loss and can leave a negative impression.
Since not all restaurants can offer delivery on their own, it depends on the availability of the rider to accept or reject the order.

Manage Restaurant Account:

Each restaurant owner can set up an account by adding their restaurant pictures, name, logo, food images, hours of operation, minimum order quantity, and all the menus available, along with the price and expected delivery time. They can also mention discounts from their end for any particular item.

Payment:

In the payment section, the users would have the option to transfer the money to banks or any other platform like PayPal or Wallet app as per their preference. Showing daily revenue reports can also be an added feature along with all the history.

Read More: Most Popular Food Delivery Apps in UAE & Dubai

Food Delivery App-Rider Panel

When an entrepreneur comes to us with questions like how to make a food delivery app in India, we first ask them to confirm whether they want to have a rider’s panel.

Login:

The rider will receive login credentials from the admin to enter the application.

Order Request:

When the customer places an order, it will be auto-assigned based on the location. Each order will appear with the order ID, customer name, and delivery address. The rider can accept or reject the delivery request on the home delivery application. Also, if permitted, he can let the customer view his details.

Order Delivery:

When the order is ready. He/she will deliver the order to the customer’s location and make the order completed. Driver changes order status like placed, packed, on the way, delivered, etc.

Order History/Logs:

This panel lets the delivery boy check past orders. When discussing developing an app like Zomato, each element of the app must be well taken care of.  Filters like date range, status, and ID can make the verification process easier.

Call/Chat:

Zomato app development cost includes the price of integrating an in-app calling and messaging feature. This makes it easier for the customers and delivery person to communicate.

Push Notifications:

The delivery boy will get a push notification for any update from the customer or restaurant panel if required.

Wallet/Get Paid Offline:

Admin pays delivery guy monthly or weekly. Admin pays the delivery guy weekly or monthly. If the delivery boy has an in-app wallet, then he can receive payment in his wallet. Otherwise, the payment would be transferred to a bank account.

GPS Tracking:

It is significant for the customer and the restaurant to track the delivery boy’s location.  Also, with GPS tracking, the customer can guide the delivery boy to their exact location.

Transaction History:

They must mention this in their food ordering app documentation. Here the delivery boy can check past transactions and see his total income in just a click.

Online Support:

It is essential to include this feature in your app. If the delivery boy faces many issues, he can contact the support team to get instant help.

Google Map Navigation:

As the delivery boy will be responsible for delivering the order if he accepts, he can view the customer’s address on the map and can be navigated to the designation through Google Maps.

Visit Also: How to Build Food Delivery Apps Like Doordash

Food Delivery Mobile Application – User Panel

After successfully downloading and installing the app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, the customers need to log in and register.

Login:

With simple social media integration of Facebook, Gmail, or just a single OTP confirmation on the user’s mobile number, the login process can be completed.

Location:

When talking about the food delivery app development, one important feature is the pick location. The list of available restaurants is shown based on the user’s location, and the estimated delivery time is also calculated.

Homepage:

When developing an app like Zomato, the relevance and the features of its homepage must be well studied. Let your app show nearby restaurants, the most ordered dishes, and other things that your customer wants handy.

Menu:

This is another prominent feature of an on-demand food aggregator mobile app. Let the customer review his order and other details before making the final payment.

Set Pickup on the Map:

Either let GPS pick up your address so that the app recognizes your exact location or manually set your pickup location on the map.

Payment:

Once everything is checked and verified, it is time to make the final payment. Let the user choose from various payment methods the one that suits them the best.

Review Screen:

Developing a review section would already be a part of the cost of developing a delivery app. Let users write reviews and comments in the section for each restaurant in detail.

Past order:

Let the app show past orders to make re-ordering easier.

Offers and Discounts:

Let your users be updated about the offers and discounts their favorite restaurant is offering. Push notification is an important feature your delivery app developer needs to include in your product.

Contact Information:

It could be that the customer needs to connect with the restaurant or the rider or the rider needs to connect with the customer or the restaurant. Make sure the information for each is updated and shared for clear communication.

Track Delivery Boy:

Track the exact location of the delivery boy and see him coming in real-time.

Search:

The section is placed on the top of the home page’s home screen and is mandatory for the on-demand food delivery app. When talking about the best food delivery apps, price comparison is a critical factor. Let users search by the food names of all the restaurants that deliver a particular dish at various prices.

Refine Search:

As a firm or an entrepreneur, one can keep an option for filtering things like delivery time, reviews, and offers and sort the list by user’s preference of ascending and descending price.

Some Advanced Features to Include in Food Delivery App

The cost to develop a food delivery app is a little bit if we include this kind of advanced features in our food app.

Queue Algorithm

Order assignment will be processed through the queue algorithm in which the system will auto-detect the delivery boy’s current location and assign a nearby delivery boy. The admin can set the location to what range it will cover for queuing.

Push Notifications-

Push Notifications are one crucial feature that the Mobile Application Development Company should not skip. The user must be notified about the order status timely. Regular updates help users know when their food is arriving.

Real-time Analytics-

Real-time Analytics Panel powered by DB infrastructure and algorithms. It keeps you in control of your operational data and helps you reach time-sensitive events to build projections. With the Analytics Panel, you get real-time revenue reports and projections, drive your business by numbers, and much more.

CMS for News & Articles-

The developer can focus on various aspects of the app. The admin can share articles and news about the new restaurants in the area, or they can feature a dish.

Checkout More: Top Mobile App Development Company

Some Value Added Features Can be Included As Well

• Coupons and Vouchers for more discount
• The floating window for live tracking (P2P)
• Smartwatch extension
• Lock Screen Widgets
• Option to share in the food order Social Media
• Schedule delivery and pick up
• Check out what nearby friends are ordering
• Booking tables in nearby restaurants

Find By Meal Type-

Let your app developer make it easier for your customers to navigate through the app by simply showing options like breakfast, lunch, evening, snacks, and dinner instead of nearby restaurant lists. The app must provide different sections for food types and users’ interests.

For example, a section for fast food can be prepared and delivered within a few minutes. Another section of the app can be for healthy diet-conscious people. After selecting the main item from the menu, the user should be shown options to choose complementary dishes and added beverages. Along with that, the user can also keep an option for customizing the meal. It will give the user more flexibility in what they are ordering and leave a good impression of the app.

Major Challenges When Developing Food Delivery App

One more factor other than the cost of food delivery app development may give you second thoughts about your business is the fundamental challenges that come with the project. The food delivery app development team has worked on and deployed various food delivery applications. According to their experience, they share here the challenges they have faced. These are some major challenges that affect the food delivery app development cost.

• Growing Competitive Market
• Partnering with New Restaurants
• Building a Simple Yet Impressive UI/UX
• Choosing a Unique Feature Set to Engage Users
• Finding the Right Food Delivery App Development Partner
• Choosing the Right Business Model to Monetize

These challenges and solutions would help you ace the food delivery app market like a pro.

Read Also: Challenges Faced by Food Delivery Apps like UberEats, Postmates & Swiggy

How Monetization Models Can Help Food Delivery Apps to Generate Revenue

Promotion and Ads:

these revenue-gaining models help to promote their food-relevant ads, like cuisines, on their platforms of the niche restaurants.

Surcharge:

the restaurants charge an extra fee to their customers for the food they have delivered to their doorstep. Logistics service providers use this model.

Revenue Share:

for completed orders with the restaurants, the business has charged a small recurring fee to take some profits.

Required Tech Stack to Develop Food Delivery App

The food delivery app development cost is also affected by the technology stack used. Before developing the final app working on a prototype would be a great idea.

Payment –

Square API, Braintree & PayPal, Netbanking, Stripe, EWallets

Cloud Environment –

AWS, Google, Azure

Platform –

Android and iOS have their development framework, so that will not be an issue.

Location –

For GPS tracking, the business entity can use the Core Location Framework for iOS and Google Location API for Android.

Real-Time Tracking –

For real-time direction tracking, it can use MapKit for Apple devices, and for Android, Google Maps API is more than sufficient. The app developer can use GrubHub API and Foursquare’s API to list the restaurants as per the range or location.

Social Login –

The registration procedure can be simple by the Facebook SDK login system or any social media login.

Cloud-

One can rely on Amazon Cloud Storage and auto-scaling web servers for storage.

Data Storage –

Amazon S3 Bucket and Cloud Front for data backup will be good options.
The app developer can try Google Analytics or Mix Panel for analytics and performance comparison. Making your API for data handling from the database is the most efficient way.

Recommended Read: Grocery Delivery App Development Company

Cost of Developing Food Delivery App With Required Team Structure

The first thing that makes a good impression of the On-Demand Food delivery app development is the sleek and clean user interface. Hiring an experienced UX/UI designer is a necessity rather than a choice. A team of two backend developers, two Android developers, and two iOS developers is enough for a successful food app development. It is also essential to have a team of testing and quality assurance professionals in case of a major breakdown of the App. To minimize food delivery app development costs you will need to hire a dedicated app development team.

• Project Manager
• UX/UI Developers
• Android/IOS developers
• Backend Developers
• QA Teams
• Delivery Manager

Cost to Develop a Food Delivery App like Uber Eats

Well, the cost to develop a food delivery app largely depends on the functionalities and features you wish to implement in your app. However, to give an approximate value, the simple cost of developing food delivery app is around $12,000 – $20,000, whereas a more sophisticated solution may go beyond $40,000.

• U.S.-based developers:  $50 to $250 per hour
• Eastern Europe-based developers: $30 to $150 per hour
• Food app development cost in India: $20 to $80 per hour

And the below-defined estimate for your app as well (For developing a reasonable app with limited features and Android coding, the cost of building an app like Ubereats can be calculated based on the below bifurcation of involved activities).

• Technical Food Ordering App Documentation (40 hours – $1000 to $1500)
• UI/UX design (60 Hours – $1500 to $3000)
• Front-end and Back-end development (400 Hours – $7,000 to $ 15,000)
• MVP testing (80 Hours – $2000 to $4000)
• Polishing and bug fixing (40 hours – $1000 to $2000)

Another significant point to remember is that developing an iOS app costs slightly less than an Android app, as that needs rigorous app testing, which involves an enormous sum of money. We hope we have discussed all major factors related to the cost of developing food delivery app.

Related Blog: How to Develop a Food Delivery App like GrubHub?

Sneak Peek into the Future of Food Delivery App Development

The scope of food delivery applications isn’t just restricted to the present day; it has a greater prospect too. With various technologies assisting humans with various functions, the face of almost every industry is bound to change by the next decade. Here, let’s explore the technologies expected to expand the scope of the industry.

1. Mixed Reality:

With augmented and virtual reality in action, you only need to push yourselves further and let the users have the real-life experience of watching their food being prepared.

Exactly what Domino’s did for kids!

2. Expansion of Business Model:

The scope of expansion is vast when discussing the business model. New partnering solutions, better collaborations, fascinating food journeys, etc. can make you stand out from the competition. Considering expansion scopes is a must if you are looking forward to investing for the long term.

3. New Delivery Options:

Drones have entered the delivery market with the pandemic outbreak. Cool! Who knows what the future holds for us? Automated vehicles and drones are on their way to gaining popularity and claiming their market stature.

4. Big Data:

Customer data and analysis are a major part of the game. With advanced big data solutions, customer information can be easily explored. You can use predictive analysis to see if you can understand your customers better and use their working process.

5. Crypto Food Ordering:

With blockchain app development gaining popularity, isn’t it interesting to use it to place your orders? This is just anticipation. You cannot be sure what to expect in the future. Being hopeful about future trends and upscaling your business to walk with the trends is essential.

If you are looking forward to investing in the business, the cost of food delivery app development would surely include integrating the basic models of these technologies with your application.

Summary:

The market of online food delivery apps has faced succinct growth in recent years. That is why the cost of developing food delivery apps is enhanced. For businesses, this is high time to develop a food delivery app. The food delivery business works on two business models; the logistic support model and the aggregator model. Well in this article we have shared food delivery app development cost, features, required tech stack, etc.

For restaurant owners, you must use the aggregator model to build a specific app for your business. As a service provider, you can choose to develop the logistic support food delivery model which the food ordering app development cost is low. App to tie up with the ordering app businesses. In short, the cost to develop a food delivery app is between $12k-$20k. However, the cost may rise as per the model. So you have to opt for food delivery app development and the app’s complexity. It is wise for business owners to choose an optimum model for their app monetization. The app generates revenue through promotion, ads, revenue share, or surcharge. That involves four stakeholders; the restaurant, the delivery partner, and the user.

This blog serves for

• Restaurant owners; to build their app instead of paying for the other aggregator apps.
• Entrepreneurs; develop their food app-building to avoid any hurdles of the aggregators.
• Startups; should start their on-demand food delivery apps to satisfy the customer’s needs with their services.

Conclusion About Food Ordering App Development Cost

We hope this article will help you take your business to new heights and earn significant revenues. Zomato and similar apps have been in the business for a long and entering the market with something similar would be a great challenge. This article has explored how can you minimize the cost of developing a food delivery app.

Hire mobile app developers who can blend creativity with innovation to make your food delivery app stand out from the crowd and take your business to new heights.