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The online food delivery landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation. While the convenience of ordering meals with a few taps on a smartphone has captivated consumers worldwide, the market itself presents a complex and evolving challenge for businesses. The online food delivery market is booming. According to Statista, the number of users is projected to hit a staggering 2.5 billion by 2028 with revenue soaring to US$1.22 trillion in 2024. This surge in popularity is fueled by shifting consumer preferences, with increasing numbers of people embracing the convenience of ordering meals online. Customers value the ease of ordering, the diverse culinary choices, and the ability to track their orders in real-time. But what does this mean for businesses in the food industry?
This new reality pushes restaurants to cooperate with existing delivery services or create their own food delivery apps—causing slumps in sales or loss of business if they don’t adapt. In this article, we’ll delve deeper into the intricacies of developing a successful food delivery app like Uber Eats. We’ll explore the key features, functionalities, and considerations involved in creating a successful platform that empowers your business to thrive in the competitive online food delivery market. Read on to discover how a custom app can enhance your brand, optimize operations, and drive customer loyalty.
The grocery delivery market is poised for substantial growth, with a projected 20.3% revenue increase in 2025. Meanwhile, meal delivery services are expected to reach a significant user penetration rate of 27.5% in 2024, highlighting the growing popularity and adoption of these convenient services.
Third-party platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash offer a tempting gateway to a vast customer base, but they often come at a steep price. High commission fees can erode profit margins, while businesses sacrifice control over crucial aspects like customer data, branding, and delivery experience. Moreover, the competitive landscape within these platforms can make it difficult to stand out and build lasting customer relationships.
Beyond the challenges of third-party platforms, staying ahead of the curve requires a keen understanding of emerging trends. From the rise of ghost kitchens and virtual brands to the growing demand for sustainable and ethical delivery practices, the online food delivery ecosystem is constantly evolving. Adapting to these shifts and meeting ever-changing customer expectations is essential for success.
While the convenience of food delivery apps is undeniable for consumers, have you ever considered the benefits of owning one? It’s not just for industry giants like Uber Eats and Grubhub. A wide range of businesses can leverage a dedicated food delivery app to enhance their operations, expand their reach, and boost their bottom line.
Restaurants and caterers can leverage a dedicated app to streamline their delivery services, improve order accuracy, and enhance customer communication. By offering a branded app experience, they can foster customer loyalty and gather valuable data on ordering preferences. This data can be used to personalize marketing campaigns, optimize menus, and make informed business decisions.
Grocery stores and supermarkets can also benefit from a food delivery app. By offering online ordering and delivery services, they can cater to the growing demand for convenient grocery shopping. An app allows them to showcase their product range, offer personalized deals, and provide a seamless shopping experience that complements their in-store offerings.
Mid-size businesses may consider creating a food delivery app in their region to cater to local demand, bridge market gaps (when aggregators like DoorDash are not available in their area), and contribute to the local economy while providing convenience and innovation to consumers. Furthermore, entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on the thriving food delivery market can create niche apps catering to specific dietary needs or culinary preferences. Imagine an app dedicated to vegan cuisine, organic produce, or meal kits for busy professionals. The possibilities are endless, and a well-designed app can be the key to carving out a successful niche in this competitive landscape.
Startups may strive to create food delivery apps due to market opportunity, low entry barriers, and the ability to scale and innovate through tech and respond to changing consumer trends.
The model of a food delivery app can vary and depends on the business goals and requirements. Food delivery services can be local or worldwide, giving various opportunities to start or expand existing businesses. Below are the typical business models of food delivery apps.
The order-only business model сonnects consumers with nearby restaurants and enables interactions between them. This helps boost the food order rate of restaurants using the food ordering app.
This model entails that the restaurants pay various fees to the app owner for every order they receive through an app. It can be a commission fee—a flat percentage of the order cost regardless of the order amount—or a setup fee—an additional fee on top of the commission fee.
One more con, the owner of the food delivery platform can’t control delivery speed, service efficiency, or quality of the delivered food—these are the food providers’ responsibilities.
This business model implies delivery as a service—the app owner manages food orders and delivery in the application and receives a commission from the restaurants and a delivery fee for each order purchased through the app.
Plus, the app owner controls the delivery speed and management of couriers, which helps ensure a high-quality consumer experience.
The fully integrated business model implies that the application owner handles everything in the mobile app, from food preparation to delivery. Even though this is a costly model, the app owner controls delivery speed, service efficiency, and food quality, which creates high-level consumer satisfaction and more revenue.
Before diving into food delivery mobile app development, you need to choose the right food delivery model—whether it’s restaurant delivery (like Uber Eats), aggregator, or a hybrid. Conduct market research to understand your competitors, local demand, user preferences, and delivery logistics. Defining your unique value proposition early on helps shape your entire food delivery business strategy.
A modern food delivery application development project involves creating separate interfaces for customers, delivery agents, and restaurants. You may also need an admin panel for business management. Each panel should have specific features—like real-time order tracking for customers, delivery scheduling for couriers, and menu management for restaurants—ensuring your online food ordering app serves all users efficiently.
Your tech stack must support scalability, real-time updates, and geolocation services. For example, Firebase or AWS for backend, Flutter or React Native for cross-platform mobile app development, and third-party APIs for payments and maps. The right technologies ensure smooth performance and faster food ordering app development with lower maintenance overhead.
A clean and user-friendly design is crucial to ensure users can easily browse menus, place orders, and track deliveries. Consider personalized recommendations, one-tap reordering, and loyalty programs to enhance engagement. When considering how to create a food delivery app, remember: intuitive UX is what separates a good app from one that truly retains users.
Start with MVP features like user registration, restaurant listings, food menus, cart, checkout, and order tracking. Add advanced features like in-app chat, AI-driven suggestions, scheduled orders, and contactless delivery as your user base grows. These features are fundamental to modern food delivery app development and shape the customer experience.
Secure, multiple payment options are a must—credit cards, mobile wallets, and even cash on delivery. Use PCI DSS-compliant services to protect customer data and support fraud detection. Security is not only a legal requirement but a trust builder in your food delivery application development journey.
Use real-time GPS tracking and dynamic order allocation to manage delivery logistics. This improves delivery accuracy, reduces wait times, and increases satisfaction. It’s a must-have for any successful food business looking to operate like Uber Eats or DoorDash.
Thoroughly test the app for usability, bugs, performance under load, and device compatibility. Simulate real-life ordering scenarios to ensure the app behaves as expected. Reliable food delivery mobile app development depends on a robust QA phase to launch confidently.
Start with a soft launch or beta release to gather feedback from real users. Monitor how the app performs and iterate quickly based on insights. This agile approach is key in food delivery app development, especially when entering competitive markets.
Once launched, continue optimizing your platform with new features, partner restaurants, and marketing campaigns. Analyze user behavior, introduce performance updates, and consider expanding to new locations. Ongoing support is what transforms a basic food delivery app into a long-lasting food delivery business.
With a well-built restaurant app or grocery delivery app, businesses can serve customers far beyond their local foot traffic. This opens up new revenue streams by tapping into the growing food delivery app market and reaching users who prefer online convenience over dine-in experiences.
A custom food delivery mobile app helps automate the ordering process, reducing the risk of miscommunication or errors during peak hours. Whether it’s a restaurant delivery setup or grocery delivery services, automated workflows increase efficiency, minimize staff workload, and improve customer satisfaction.
Modern food delivery app solutions offer built-in dashboards that track sales, order patterns, peak hours, and user preferences. These insights allow restaurant owners and retailers to adjust menus, optimize delivery areas, and adapt their food delivery model for better performance.
Unlike third-party platforms, a custom-built app allows full control over branding, loyalty programs, and push notifications. An experienced food app development company or app development company can help integrate personalized deals and promotions that drive repeat business and create a direct connection with customers.
The food delivery industry is evolving fast, and having your own app helps future-proof your business. Instead of relying solely on aggregator platforms, businesses gain flexibility and independence by working with a food delivery app development company to create tailored solutions that grow with them.
The food delivery app’s functionality should be developed in the context of three key categories of users: client, restaurant, and courier.
Below we list the main functions of the client side of an average food ordering app.
Customers should be able to sign in and create their accounts to track orders, make secure payments, and leave reviews, along with email confirmation and password recovery options.
Ordering directly from the menu is a small but crucial customer-friendly option worth considering. You can implement filters so customers can search by food category or meal to make the selection even more comfortable. The cart should contain all the necessary information, including the total cost and payment methods.
Customers should be able to choose the estimated delivery time to receive the order when convenient.
With a map integrated into your solution, you enable users to find a restaurant or eatery nearby or in a specific location. The order tracking feature will add convenience, estimate delivery times, and help learn about possible delays.
The user needs to know specific details of the courier: name, vehicle, and phone number to contact if necessary.
For great customer satisfaction, let them check their order updates in the app, chat with customer support, or call them directly.
Convenience matters, so integrate the payment system through the application for fast and secure payments into your food ordering app. Integrate credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and more options for making payments. It’s always better to enable as many variants as possible.
This feature is essential for both customers and sellers, as well as for the admin panel, as it allows you to withdraw an order, check details, or find the name of a dish you require.
This feature allows users to choose from a variety of establishments based on honest and sincere user reviews.
Now let’s find out the necessary features of a food ordering app for restaurants.
Catering establishments should be able to include their name, location, opening hours, contact information, and menu on their profile.
Payment methods should be stored and managed in the admin panel, ensuring high accuracy and security.
This is integral to every admin panel and provides valuable information about the application’s performance metrics. It allows you to track inventory, orders, delivery times, marketing campaigns, revenue, and more.
Restaurants should be able to easily access orders to accept, change, or reject them. Consider the option of changing the status of an order.
The restaurant side should be able to add, remove, and edit menu items. Uploading photos is highly recommended, as people eat with their eyes. In addition, it’s essential to include descriptions and prices that complement the dishes.
Restaurants need to see upcoming, in-process, and already-delivered orders to allocate work and estimate delivery times properly.
To ensure fast and convenient delivery, the food service business must be able to find the nearest courier or the nearest one on the desired route.
All three agents—customer, restaurant, and courier—must be able to contact each other. Chat can provide smooth, real-time communication convenient for everyone.
Finally, let’s consider the functions of a food delivery business that are necessary for courier services.
Couriers should also be able to register with their email, phone, or social media. The account must be verified, as well as all required documentation and information provided.
Couriers should be able to change the status of an order when they arrive at the restaurant, pick up the order, and go to deliver it so that the customer is kept up to date.
Geolocation on the delivery personnel side of the application will allow delivery agents to find the best routes to customers. Make your map easy to use and interactive, like UberEats.
Couriers need to know order details such as delivery address and time, order contents, and username and contact information, so they need access to this information.
The cost of food delivery app development depends on its complexity, functionality, scale, and technologies used. So that these costs are not in vain, the project’s payback should be calculated in advance. As a rule, the following monetization options are used for online orders of ready meals the following ways:
Practice shows that the most effective strategy for making money on online food delivery is an integrated approach using all possible ways of monetization.
Once you’re finished with the food delivery app design, development of a food delivery app ensues. The following recommendations and best practices can be divided into user needs and tech requirements and can help you build a robust app for long-term success:
The client is one of the largest online food ordering and delivery marketplaces in Europe. NIX efficiently developed a food delivery app that allows users to order food from a favorite cafe or restaurant and covers all processes, from receiving an order to delivery. The app provides users with multiple functions to make the ordering and delivery processes as convenient as possible. Some of the notable features include restaurant recommendations, search filters, customizable delivery details, and real-time order tracking.
The developed food delivery app has a particular user flow:
You can read more about the online Food food delivery app here.
A comprehensive project requires a holistic business approach that will help enhance the business’s performance and profitability by providing full-fledged support.
The essential team for building a food ordering app from scratch includes:
Choosing an outsourcing company with extensive expertise in diverse business domains and tech solutions can be a good-fit solution for a restaurant app creation since it appears less costly than an in-house team.
In-house food delivery app development suggests a closer connection to the team and a better understanding of corporate culture but requires intensive cash flow for recruiting, maintaining an entire department, and bearing all costs associated with it.
The next step is summing up the advantages and disadvantages of development types and picking the most fitting for your future project.
Let’s look at the priority features of the on-demand food delivery service and how much it costs.
An app like JustEat provides ordering and delivery from restaurants in many cities with a food catalog, order management, and 24/7 customer support.
The first version of the food ordering app with customer and admin roles and no payment processing or geo-tracking features can be developed within two and a half to three months.
If you choose the Eastern European development team, it would cost roughly $57,000–$65,000 USD.
An app like UberEats covers multiple restaurants, allows ordering food, and provides delivery services. It’s usually an excellent choice for startups if they have competing features to stand out among the current players on the market.
With a full cycle of service providing and managing various restaurants, the first version of the app can be developed within three and a half to four months.
If you choose the Eastern European development team, it would cost roughly $77,000–$90,000 USD.
An app like EatPurely includes one restaurant chain and covers a whole cycle of ordering, preparing, and delivering to the nearest locations with the support of clients, partners, and couriers. Individual businesses and restaurant owners usually choose this type of app.
The app’s first version with the restaurant chain’s infrastructure, payment processing, and geo-tracking support can be developed within three to four months.
If you choose the Eastern European software development team, it would cost roughly $67,000-$75,000 USD.
NIX experience developing IT solutions for businesses gives us an edge when developing modern applications of all kinds. Let us help you plan your food delivery app development for your business, deliver an outstanding service—and enter the market with a bang!
To overcome the competition, you should consider your solution’s elements in detail and entrust its development to professionals who know how to make a delivery app. You can always contact us to get a robust, feature-packed, and visually appealing application within a reasonable budget.
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Speaking about how to make a delivery app, a modern one is expected to have key features including GPS tracking, multiple payment options, an in-app messaging tool, search filters, and push notifications. Companies also offer additional incentives like bonuses, loyalty programs, and cashback to retain customers and improve their experience. Ratings and reviews can also help app users evaluate the market’s offerings and choose high-quality products. Finally, the best food delivery apps have easy onboarding, intuitive navigation, and an elegant design that shortens the learning curve for users.
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There are multiple factors that influence the overall food delivery app cost. The food delivery app idea defines scope and features of the application, technological stack, design complexity, and labor rates will determine how much you will end up paying. For example, developer rates in Eastern Europe and Asia are on average significantly lower compared to North America and Western Europe. For comparison, creating an average food delivery app will cost around $70,000 USD in Eastern Europe versus $90,000 in the US.
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Custom food delivery app development involves four main elements: customer app, courier app, restaurant app, and admin panel. Each element requires different sets of features and may vary in complexity. For example, the admin panel is the administrative side of the product, while the courier app offers couriers access to customer and restaurant information. End users need food options, payment gateways, GPS tracking, messaging, and more. Finally, the merchant side is for restaurant owners who can set up their accounts, manage food options and pricing, etc.
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Development of a food delivery application, much like the creation of other app types, requires a few important steps. The first vital phase is information gathering, market research, competition analysis, target audience setting, and other steps associated with product discovery. The second phase includes the building of a prototype and minimum viable product (MVP) with basic features, design, and navigation to test the idea and collect initial feedback. Using the gathered responses, you can fine-tune the design and features and continue the coding process. Later, companies move to the quality assurance phase and release the product to their audience. However, food delivery app development is an ongoing process that requires continuous revision and maintenance, even after launch.
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The best way to stand out from the competition is to make a food ordering app that users genuinely enjoy. To achieve this, invest some time and money into minimum viable product (MVP) development that will allow you to test your idea in real-life settings. An MVP is a basic, functional app version that users can actually interact with and provide feedback about its strengths and weaknesses. This step will give you a significant advantage and help you launch a product that your user base will like. Another tip is niching down and making a unique tool that will appeal to a specific demographic.
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If you’re wondering how to make a food delivery app that reaches your audience and attracts customers, focus on both development and marketing. Make sure to extensively test your product for errors and smooth operation. Besides that, invest a portion of your resources into marketing activities such as app store optimization (ASO), social media growth, digital advertising, etc. Another best practice is to identify your unique selling proposition and market your own app accordingly.
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Your food delivery app development time is contingent on the complexity of the product and your expertise. Besides core features like registration, maps, and payments, you can extend your app functionality with additional options for real-time GPS tracking, social media integration, reward systems, personalized recommendations, voice instructions, etc. On average, the entire app development takes a year or longer.
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