When many of us are at home, food delivery is the only way to eat food from our favorite restaurants. As a result, the food delivery market today is experiencing an unprecedented rise.

According to analysts, the size of this market will be $ 182 million in 2024.

The market is full of different food delivery applications, and each region has its own leading companies. However, in this article, we will look at the food delivery app development process, the main features of such applications, and ways to monetize so that you have all the necessary knowledge for food marketplace development. Without further ado, let’s get started.

A Proper Way to Build a Food Delivery App

First, let's go from afar and say that in order to create a quality food delivery application, it must have 4 main components that make up a single ecosystem:

Client application. Application for users that allows you to order food.

Restaurant application. An app for restaurants that provides eateries with the ability to process and track orders.

Courier application. An application that allows couriers to receive notifications about incoming orders, delivery addresses, and other useful information.

Admin panel. An app for product owners that allows you to add restaurants and control the rest of the ecosystem, add users, and more.

Let's now take a closer look at each application.

Client App

As we wrote above, this application is completely intended for ordinary users and, at the same time, is a very important part of the ecosystem, because orders are made from these applications.

These applications have their own important features that you should implement in your solution:

Registration and login. The user must be able to create an account and log into the application through a standard mail and password, as well as through various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and others)

Restaurant search. An important feature through which users search for their favorite eateries. To improve your search, you should enable filters by various parameters (type of food, prices, and much more). In addition, it is worth adding detailed information about each restaurant.

Location tracking. A feature for tracking the orders’ delivery in real-time on the map.

Order placement and payment. The process of order confirmation and payment should be intuitive in order to reduce the abandonment rate.

Push notifications. A useful feature in order to always be in touch with the user. You can notify the user about various discounts, order status, and much more.

Restaurant App

A restaurant app can look like a regular web page where diner administrators will take orders, send them to the kitchen, send notifications to couriers, and much more. In addition, these applications have their own set of features:

Registration and login. This feature is designed for restaurant employees and allows them to log in to track orders.

Menu management. This feature is necessary to update the menu of dishes that ordinary users see.

Order management. Without this feature, working with incoming orders is simply impossible.

Rating and reviews. The restaurant owner should be able to see customer reviews of dishes and also respond to reviews personally.

Courier App

This application is as simple as possible as it is intended for courier work. The set of features is not very large, but each is strictly necessary for the correct functioning of this type of application:

Registration and login. Like other types, this feature is required to register a courier and enter the application.

Navigation. Navigation helps the courier deliver the order to the address and not get lost along the way. This feature should be done with the introduction of the map and automatic route building.

Order detail and status. This feature includes all the necessary information about the order: the composition of the order, cost, delivery address, and additional information from the client.

Order history. All orders completed by the courier are saved here.

Admin Panel

So we come to the core of the entire ecosystem. The admin panel is a command center that allows the owner of the application to manage it from the inside. This type of application also has its own useful features:

Admin login. It is important to provide login with ID and Password for maximum security.

Restaurant manager. This feature is required to add new restaurants to the app's assortment. In addition, restaurants can be deleted through this feature due to expired cooperation or bad reviews about the service.

Analytics. This feature is important for business development, as it can contain various data such as the most popular restaurants, dishes, the number of orders made, and much more.

Payment manager. An extremely important feature that allows you to assign delivery fees through the admin panel.

Discount and coupons manager. Discounts and coupons drive sales and new audiences.

Delivery App Creation Cost

Once you write down all the necessary features for each type of application, it's time to contact a development company that will turn your idea into a working product.

However, you should understand that developing this type of application is quite expensive. In addition, you will know the exact development price only after the vendor company finishes the discovery phase, in which it fully examines your requirements for the food delivery application.

In turn, we can only say the APPROXIMATE mobile app development cost. We took an average hourly rate of $50 and multiplied it by the approximate number of hours it takes to develop each application (including all features we’ve mentioned in a previous section). As a result, we got the following numbers:

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App type

Development hours

Development cost ($)

User app for iOS and Android

1,206 hours

$60,300

Courier app for iOS and Android

914 hours

$45,700

Web-based solution for restaurants

182 hours

$9,100

Web-based admin panel

257 hours

$12,850

Total

2,559 hours

$127,950

Business Nuances

It's not enough just to create a food delivery app. You also need to run your business correctly in order to stand out among competitors and reach new heights. We've put together three top tips to help you succeed.

Don’t Neglect Market Analysis

To successfully operate in the market, you must know it perfectly. Your analysis should include the most popular food in the region and city, popular restaurants, other courier apps, their services, pricing, and more. This information will help you come up with a unique offer for your customers.

Attract New Users and Retain Them

At the beginning of the journey, it is worth testing your application in a small city or region. This will give you some initial feedback on your product and point you in the direction of developing collaborations with various eateries and improving your service.

The wide range of restaurants in the app will attract new customers, and the first-class service will keep the existing ones.

Retain Your Couriers

Without couriers, your app won't make sense. That is why you should offer favorable terms of cooperation for couriers. For example, it can be high salaries depending on the number of orders delivered or flexible working hours. Encourage your couriers, and you will not need to look for new ones.

Delivery App Monetization

Any application should generate income for the owner, and in order for this to happen, certain monetization strategies should be applied to the application. You have several ways to monetize your food delivery app:

Restaurant fee. This is one of the most common practices among popular food delivery apps. For example, Uber Eats takes 15% from the order subtotal. At its core, restaurants pay you a certain price for what's in your app. In addition, you can add an additional fee for restaurants to appear in the "recommended" column or on the first search page.

User fee. This strategy is that the user is charged a shipping fee for the order.

Advertising. The most common strategy among any application on the market. You serve different ads to users and receive money from advertisers.

Peak hours. With the maximum load on the courier system (for example, lunchtime), you can slightly increase the cost of delivery, thereby receiving additional income.

 

Wrapping Up:

As you can see, developing a food delivery application requires some training and knowledge. You need to take care of the correct list of features, a competent selection of a monetization system, and a business plan.

However, you are now armed with the necessary knowledge and ready to start developing a custom food delivery application for your business.