How Much Does Food Delivery App Development Cost?

With the increasing demand of getting everything at doorstep, food delivery apps have become crucial in modern life. Whether it’s a busy professional who does not have time to cook meals or a family planning to go out for dinner, everyone now wants a hassle free and real time solution to their favorite meals. For business and startups, this provides a great opportunity to invest, but also raises an important question “How Much Does Food Delivery App Development Cost?”
 

From choosing the right tech stack, features and platforms to selecting a dedicated development team, several elements affect the final cost to make a food delivery app. In this blog, we’ll take you through the key features, cost of returant app development, compare different development approaches, and give you a clear picture of what to expect when creating a food delivery app from scratch.

Market Overview: Why Invest in Food Delivery Apps?

Before diving into cost of developing food delivery app, it’s important to understand why food delivery apps are a smart investment:
 

• Market Size: The global food delivery market is projected to reach $320 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 10.4%.

• User Growth: Over 1.5 billion users globally are expected to use food delivery services by 2025.
   

Revenue Potential: The average revenue per user (ARPU) in the USA exceeds $300 annually.

Types of Food Delivery Mobile Apps: Business Models

Before entering the food delivery app development market, it is important to understand the types of food delivery apps that power this industry. These apps are classified based on their business model and interaction process between users, service providers and businesses. Here are the three primary types of on-demand food ordering apps.

1. Business to Consumer (B2C) or Aggregator Apps
 

Also referred to as Enterprise to Person (E2P), these apps facilitate direct transactions between restaurants or food service providers and individual customers. Aggregator apps list multiple restaurants, offer a seamless ordering experience, integrate payment gateways, and provide real-time order tracking.
 

Key Features:
 

• User-friendly interfaces

• Multiple restaurant listings

• Single-tap order placement

• Live delivery tracking
   

Examples: Swiggy, Uber Eats, Domino’s, McDelivery, Starbucks

2. Business to Business (B2B) or Delivery Service Provider Apps
 

Known as Enterprise to Enterprise (E2E), these apps enable transactions and partnerships between businesses. B2B food delivery apps are often used by catering companies, wholesale suppliers, or delivery service providers that serve offices, events, or other food businesses.
 

Sub-types of B2B Apps:
 

• Vertical B2B Apps: Target a specific industry or niche, such as office catering or event management.

• Horizontal B2B Apps: Serve multiple industries or business types across a broader range of services.
   

Key Features:
 

• Bulk order management

• Scheduling and recurring deliveries

• Business account integration

• Inventory and logistics support
   

Examples: CaterNation, Emerge, ezCater

3. Consumer to Consumer (C2C) or Full Stack Food Delivery Apps
 

These platforms allow individuals or small-scale restaurant owners to sell directly to other consumers. Often managed and operated by companies offering full-stack solutions, these apps handle everything from food preparation to delivery and customer service.
 

Key Features:
 

• Peer-to-peer food sharing or selling

• Platform-managed logistics

• Ratings and reviews system

• Community-focused UI
   

Examples: Zomato (with home chef services), Munchery, Frichti

How Much Does it Cost to Create a Food Delivery App?

The food delivery app development cost also depends on several things such as the complexity of the application, necessary features, application design, platform used, and time required for the application to be developed. 

Overall, the cost of food delivery app development can be $10,000 to $100,000 or more.

For instance, a simple food delivery app may take about $10,000-$50,000 to develop, a more complicated one, where features are customized, multiple platforms are used, and integrated into others, may cost $100,000 and above. 

From this point of view, it is also necessary to take into account both certain specific expenses for the development of such an application and potential further expenses for its maintenance.
 

Factors Affecting the Cost of Developing a Food Ordering App

1. App Features

The cost to create a food delivery app depends on the features you wish to incorporate into the app.

Some of the simple functions like order placement, payment, gateway options, and a restaurant menu are more affordable.

However, features like real-time tracking, ratings, push notifications, etc, will add to the food delivery mobile app development cost.  

Custom elements take longer to design and integrate and therefore increase the total costs for production.

2. Design Complexity
 

The complexity of the design of your app has a huge say in the Cost to build a food delivery app. 

Design is cheaper when it comes to creating a standard design, but if you desire a spectacular layout that stands out from the rest of the market in terms of UI/UX, this will be more expensive.

Customized, sophisticated, and logical structure is friendly and easy to handle, and in most cases, they need talented and professional UI UX designers for hire, so the price is relatively high but for the efficient operation of the users is important.

3. Platform Choice
 

Deciding which stations to go for, directly affects the overall cost of food delivery mobile app development.

Targeting the development for one specific platform, iOS or Android, will be cheaper.

If however, you want to create a food delivery application for both interfaces the cost will be considerably higher since you have to design and maintain two apps.

Currently, the support of multi-platform needs more coding, testing, and update costs makes it costly.
 

Read More: - How To Create A Food Delivery App?

4. Integration Requirements
 

The added features from third-party API services have a considerable influence on the cost to make food delivery apps.

Such linkages are time-consuming to integrate and the complexity increases the development cost of food app.

And every integration results in additional testing and debugging, which drives up the cost even more.

5. Development Team Location

The location of your development team also plays a role in the cost that is necessary to build a food delivery app; in essence, development costs of food ordering app can be quite different depending on the location of employees.

For instance, if you hire dedicated teams in North America or Western Europe, they will cost you more than those in Eastern Europe or India.

Offshore outsourcing of your project can easily reduce your overall food ordering app development cost of the project while at the same time helping you employ competent developers.

6.  Geographic Market
 

The cost to create a food delivery app depends on the market you are interested in.

For instance, developing an app that is going to be used in a single market with few functions will cost less than an app that is designed for many regions or countries with different languages, currencies, etc. as well as different regulations.
 

Such as Zomato like app development cost can be cheaper than DoorDash like app development cost. Simply, DoorDash covers a huge target audience of different countries than Zomato. 

7. Technology Stack
 

The cost also depends on the choice of the technology stack applied to the creation of the apps.

If you want to integrate the latest technologies such as AI for recommendation or end-to-end encryption for food delivery app security, then the cost to create a food delivery app increases.

A more classic app tech stack will be cheaper in many cases but will not allow many applications.
 

Read More: - The Ultimate Guide To Food Delivery App Development: [Right Tech Stack And Features]

8. Payment Gateway Integration
 

The inclusion of multiple payment gateways for secure transactions in multiple currencies also increases the cost to build a food delivery app due to the level of integration involved. 
 

Features such as including a wallet, application for payment through mobile, or banking services always demand more development time as well as security issues which automatically add up to the cost.

With this out of the way, remember you will need an expert by your side to keep the cost under control without compromising quality. 

Stages of Food Delivery App Development
 

Developing a successful app involves multiple stages, each with its own cost implications. Let’s break it down:
 

1. Planning and Research

• Key Activities: Competitor analysis, defining target audience, feature list creation, and market study.

• Cost Range: $3,000–$5,000

• Tips to Save Costs: Use existing market data and analytics tools to minimize research expenses.

2. UI/UX Design

• Key Activities: Wireframing, prototyping, and creating an intuitive user interface.

• Cost Range: $5,000–$10,000

• Best Practices: Focus on user-friendly navigation and visually appealing designs to ensure higher retention rates.

3. Development

• Key Components:

  • Customer App: Browsing menu, placing orders, and tracking delivery.

  • Delivery Agent App: Delivery assignment, navigation, and status updates.

  • Admin Panel: Managing orders, users, and analytics.

• Cost Range: $30,000–$70,000

• Factors Influencing Costs: Tech stack, platform (iOS, Android, or both), and third-party integrations (e.g., payment gateways, maps).

4. Testing and QA

• Key Activities: Identifying bugs, ensuring app security, and optimizing performance.

• Cost Range: $5,000–$10,000

• Importance: A thoroughly tested app reduces the risk of post-launch failures.

5. Deployment

• Key Activities: Publishing the app on app stores, server setup, and final optimizations.

• Cost Range: $1,000–$3,000

Tips: Follow app store guidelines carefully to avoid delays during approval.
 

Develop a Cost-Friendly Food Delivery App With IMG Global Infotech

IMG Global Infotech has a reputation in the market as a top food delivery app development company. 

Our team of ideation, design, development, and deployment specialists assists you in constructing a business app that addresses your vision.

In creating your app, we employ modern systems to make your app easily scalable, more responsive, and secure.

This means that depending on the complexity of the application you require, we have quality and pocket-friendly solutions for your development needs.

How to Optimize Food Ordering App Development Costs?
 

1. Start with an MVP: Launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with essential features to test the market.

2. Outsource Development: Partner with experienced app development companies in cost-effective regions like India.

3. Use Off-the-Shelf Solutions: Leverage pre-built modules for features like payment gateways and analytics.

Conclusion
 

Some people may think that developing a restaurant reservation application that will deliver food is quite an interesting idea that can hold good business value.

As much as it is true. The expenses that go into the process of creating a food delivery application are relative to several factors, however, with proper strategy and the proper choice of a dedicated development team for hire, IMG Global Infotech will turn your idea into reality within the budget. 
 

By correctly defining features and making the right choice of platform, you can strengthen the defense of your app and meet the needs of customers in this competitive environment.