The rise in on-demand food delivery apps has wholly transformed the food industry. Mobile apps like DoorDash, Grubhub, Zomato, and UberEATS provide maximum convenience and transparency to users when it comes to ordering food online. According to TechCrunch, if the demand in online food delivery apps keeps growing, then it will surpass the offline food delivery demand within a few years.
Since UberEats has gained popularity in a shorter time zone, hence, many business minds seem rivalry to build an app like UberEATS, whereas some enterprises are still figuring out how much it would cost to develop an app like UberEATS.
Well, we also came across this question when we were planning to build a similar food delivery app. So, we created this blog to help you learn about the UberEATS business model, features, and the cost to build a similar app.
In August 2014, Uber entered the food delivery business by launching the UberFRESH services in Santa Monica, California. However, it was renamed to UberEATS in 2015, and since then, the number of users on the platform is increasing rapidly – as per a report by Verto. It is now available in more than 200 cities across 20 countries.
UberEATS works on a dual business model – it plays the role of both aggregator as well as delivery agent, which means it gives access to restaurants to list their food items via a single online food delivery app, as well as provides delivery services for those restaurants via its own logistics network. UberEATS offers plenty of features to customers, which include tailored restaurant recommendations, customized delivery details, smart search filters, and easy order tracking.
Apart from that, there are four essential components of UberEATS, which makes it a successful competitor of other on-demand food delivery apps. Let’s have a closer look at these components:
It allows customers to select from a list of flexible restaurant menus, timelines, and locations. In this case, UberEATS works similar to other food delivery apps. However, the number of Uber riders available in different areas makes it an advantage for the business.
In custom orders placing, customers can choose their specific food items, delivery time, and location as per their requirements. In short, everything related to the order delivery is decided by the customers.
Now, this is the unique component of UberEATS. It doesn’t hire delivery guys separately; instead, the delivery of the product is performed by Uber riders who have registered or signed up as a part of the delivery network. The orders are allocated to Uber riders based on the restaurant, the customer, and their current location.
With the increasing demand in online food delivery, it has become crucial for restaurants to partner with almost every on-demand delivery mobile app that offers convenience and fast delivery, which makes UberEATS an ideal choice for them.
Most food delivery apps earn their revenue by charging delivery fees from customers and commission from restaurants. But, UberEATS also earn from advertising their restaurant partners as top searchers. Below is a clear overview of the UberEATS revenue model.
UberEATS charges a nominal commission from restaurants for fulfilling their orders via the app. This commission ranges between 15% -40% depending on geo locations it serves, time zone or the demand of the food items of restaurants.
The final price of the food items on UberEATS consists of a base price and the surcharges, which are taken by the app from customers. The surcharges are often high during lunch and dinner hours, as these are the peak hours with limited restaurants and menus.
UberEATS charges a marketing fee from the restaurant partners if they want to show themselves in the top search when a customer looks for any food item. And due to the increasing number of vendors, restaurants must gain more visibility on the app.
Various components can be included to get a clear estimation of mobile app development costs. Usually, the cost of building a food delivery app like UberEATS depends on the features and functionalities included in it. You can hire experienced mobile app developers to build either a native or hybrid food delivery app like UberEATS.
if you hire a mobile app development company like Infoxen, then the estimated cost of developing an app like UberEATS will cost you $20 per hour approximately. This cost will include an end to end mobile app development for both Android and iOS platforms concluding app testing and app launch as well.
However, if you hire Infoxen for your mobile app development services, then you will also get continuous support from a team of experts until your app is stable and running successfully in the market.
Note: This is an estimated cost, the accurate prices of developing an app like UberEATS could vary depending on the features you want to add to it.
Conclusion
The on-demand food delivery business will be skyrocketing in the upcoming years. So, enterprises who are planning to enter in this market should know about the varied costs of developing a food delivery app. In this article, we talked about the business model of UberEATS and provided an estimated cost of developing a similar food delivery app.