How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Delivery App Like Postmates? by Alexey Porubay

09.11.2018

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How To Make An App Like Postmates And Find Out Its Cost

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Contents A word about Postmates Steps to undertake ﬁrst Building an MVP of your app Pitfalls happen

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO DEVELOP A DELIVERY APP LIKE POSTMATES?

Ways of monetization Food delivery app developme

22 february 2017

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 14 min

We are living in a wonderful time. In a time when a food delivery app replaces a trip to the restaurant, when we can put the entire shop in our pocket having no need to go to an ordinary mall, when we can watch 3D movies without leaving the sofa. Digital products are no longer locked up in our devices. On the contrary, they extend beyond the screens and start moving forward, gradually catching up with the demand for physical services. It is a kind of evolution. This digital evolution gives us new products that, in turn, encourage the development of specialized delivery. That's because everyone wants to get their stuﬀ as soon as possible and digital services open up new opportunities for that.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Delivery App Like Postmates?

How Much Does It Cost to Develop an App Like Postmates?

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A word about Postmates What is a Postmate app? Actually, it is a courier service. The concept of delivering goods is not a new one. However, everything goes digital and our connectivity through different technologies allow us to bring new life to the logistics industry. That's what guys from California did. Having combined technologies with shipping, they created a digital version of on-demand delivery. Their distinctive feature is that everybody can have a try at working as a courier. All you need to do is to fill in a simple form on their app or website. Moreover, the presence of a vehicle is irrelevant since the company is ready to hire different people from pedestrians to van owners.

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Diving into the features, the process of ordering is as simple as the app itself. After an order is made and paid for - one of the nearest couriers to the place accepts it and starts working. All the shipping details are straightened out directly with the user by means of a call or a text message.

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What's new? The company has managed to organize on-demand food delivery app development, creating well-paid workplaces with a ﬂexible schedule and providing its users with doorstep delivery within 1 hour.

Postmates interface

4 crucial steps to start development with Before you start the development of an app like Postmates, you should study and analyze your idea, ﬁnd out how feasible it is. If you perform it wisely, you will be able to create a really ﬁrst-rate app, so follow these steps in order to achieve success.

Market research comes first You should conduct market research and analyze your competitors that are engaged in on-demand service for food delivery. UberEats, Bootler, Postmates, and others are your direct competitors, so see how they became successful and what they did to promote themselves. Keep in mind to check out the main statistics of these apps, metrics they use, speciﬁc ﬁgures and so on. Remember that only detailed https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-an-app-like-postmates-

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research can help you compete with such giant like Postmates and others. This information will let you ﬁnd out how to make a food delivery app like Postmates.

Use business model canvas What is it? It is a means of visualizing your business model. The canvas itself is divided into several segments, digging into problematic areas which you can ﬁnd, and work on them. This model is especially useful for startuppers since it helps them reach a deeper understanding of their business from diﬀerent sides.

Before the app development itself, you need to think through all the possible issues connected with the physical part of your app. Talking about a Postmates-like app and it's cooperation with shops and restaurants. Of course, big chains with their own delivery service may reject your proposal, so for a while, you need to focus on those ones without own delivery. Explain all the benefits of your service and give them figures showing the profit that they will be able to gain by cooperating with you. One more thing you need to take into account is payment. Since in Postmates all the payments are done with credit cards, the question about how the courier should pay for the goods can appear. I mean it is reasonable to build inner payment system with your partners. This way, restaurants will get money for the goods and the cost of the service will be sent to company's bank account. To avoid costly development of one more payment system, you may simply provide your employees with cards they will be able to buy goods. However, there is a security question since you need to make sure your employee can purchase only those goods that were really ordered and only in those restaurants or shops which have been specified by the user when ordering.

Make a unique offer Do you want your app to become something unique and competitive? When you realized how to create a food delivery app similar to Postmates, you should offer your users some unique features or bonuses that your competitors lack. To implement this, it is highly recommended to conduct a research and find out what your target audience wants to get in the app most of all. Using such unique features, you can achieve success much faster and turn a unique offer into your app's personal gimmick.

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This step may help you build a unique oﬀer, so they are tightly connected. Modern trends are designed to enhance diﬀerent software, make it up-to-date and attractive. The following trends may be your good assistants in the development of an app like Postmates.

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Artificial intelligence. Chatbots, speech and voice recognition technologies are always welcome since it motivates people to use the app with modern digital technologies. Such innovation will affect the cost of a Postmates-like app, but the game worth the candle; Convenient personal service. It would be better if you offer people different types of delivery and it is better to elaborate a user experience design both for customers and for restaurants as well. When both parties will get a high-quality UX, they will have more trust towards your app; Augmented reality. This trend is not so important, but its visual effects can also help build more trust and enhance the search-and-delivery experience.

As you can see, 4 simple steps may just help you turn your startup into a stunning app

Building the skeleton or MVP of your app The success of any app depends on the set of features it oﬀers. Let's consider the primary components of the app, split them into features and ﬁnd out the appropriate cost of Postmates.

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Sign up to get your food Registration is an integral part of the majority of apps. Especially, of those ones having built-in payment systems or in-app purchases. Modern apps could have a dozen ways to sign up - from ordinary login & password methods, to registration via social networks or a phone number.

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Postmates made a very smart step here. Since their business is currently working within the USA, they implemented an opportunity to register via the social network where 58% of Americans already have an account in - Facebook. Those ones without a proﬁle there or a desire to link it with Postmates are welcome to register through a good old-fashioned email address. Thus, they have saved some money on development. Before converting everything said above into dollars, it is worth mentioning that the price fully depends on the number of development hours. Accordingly, the more methods you would like to add - the more money it will cost you. For our estimation, we will take an average price - $50 per hour. Based on the Postmates methods, we will get the following. Development hours: up to 125 hours Development cost: up to $6,250

Geolocate your food When you create a food delivery app, it is tightly connected with logistics, so it is essential to conduct a proper work with maps and geolocation. You need to think through all the possible features allowing your users to make and track orders as convenient as possible. Considering the example of Postmates, we can see that users are able to track their orders immediately after the payment is made. To be exact, they see all the movements of a delivery guy even before the food was taken from the restaurant. Also, based on the location, this food delivery app calculates the approximate time needed to get to your place. FREE QUOTE

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This feature demands interaction with a built-in GPS chip in order to locate the courier by means of satellite data and keep calculating until the destination is reached. It's worth mentioning that tools for geolocation features diﬀer depending on the platform. Android uses Google Maps while iOS - MapKit. Thus, development hours for it may vary a little. Development hours: 57 hours Development cost: $2,850

Pay for the goods The process of payment is vital for any on-demand service. It is in your best interest to provide users with a quick and convenient method to pay for their hamburgers and salads. However, integration of a payment system is a serious task since the safety of your users is at stake. In order to secure their transactions, you should follow data security standards and be PCI DSS compliant. If you are going to sell physical products, both Android and iOS platforms recommend using readymade solutions like PayPal over building your own. It allows you to not only apply a trusted and secure gateway provider but also to cut on hundreds of development hours and reduce the cost of Postmateslike app as well. In Postmates there are several ways to pay for purchases - via credit card, Android Pay or Apple Pay. Keep in mind that you must think through the delivery fee when you build food delivery app like Postmates. In a variety of apps, including Postmates, it depends on the distance. Also, give your users an opportunity to leave tips. All that is needed to be paid for in one transaction. Development hours: 100 hours Development cost: $5,000

Get your food at a discount Discounts and diﬀerent bonuses are always nice. Being a successful marketing trick for physical businesses, such things as gift cards and promo codes (also known as coupons) have gradually migrated to digital shopping. In delivery apps like Postmates, users may send promo codes to their friends. As a result, both sides get free delivery. Such widespread things in the world of shopping such as gift cards are also present within the platform. Development hours: 6 hours Development cost: $300

Building additional features What does it mean? During the time of your food ordering app development, diﬀerent situations may happen. Some problems with a budget or a lack of time to deliver a product are common practices in the IT ﬁeld. Thus, we have already discussed features forming the "quinta essentia" of this app and now let's consider those that are quite interesting but not vital.

Share the heart of your app Do not be confused, I am talking about API. Roughly saying, it is a set of ready-made code that can be adjusted to certain needs of developers and communicate with other programs. FREE QUOTE

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Practically each of the delivery services like Postmates offers its own API versions with different aims. What is it for? Of course for mutually beneficial cooperation. Integrating an API of delivery service into someone's e-commerce product will be able to increase the number of orders on one side and the number of purchases on the other. Talking about Postmates' API, it is offering their delivery service within another company's website or an app. Among big companies using their delivery service with the help of API are Apple, Starbucks, Curbside, and others. How does it work? During the ordering process, users may choose in the shipping details 'courier delivery'. That's it. Development hours: 350 hours Development cost: $17,500

Two apps are better than one Companies like Postmates should think not only about their users but their employees experience as well. Thus, they have implemented an assistant app for couriers. This app allows delivery guys to accept or skip orders, inform clients when the order is taken and show the way to the destination. You may say that this is mandatory for such kinds of service and cannot be regarded as 'additional'. Well, you are right but in the case of a strict budget, the courier side of an app may be integrated into the main one. This way, you may cut on development hours for this feature. However, talking about a separate app for this purpose, we got estimations that you can see underneath. Development hours: 110 hours Development cost: $5,500

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Pitfalls happen The world of IT is acquainted with thousands of cases of failed startups. In order to avoid going down that road, every startupper should be aware of similar projects' failures.

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Discover main tips to increase use engagement

In 2014 a startup called PepperTap was launched. It was on-demand Indian grocery delivery service. Raised over $51 million and in just 2 years it was closed because the technology of their product could not match the growth they wanted to see through promotions. That is how India's largest grocery service with more than 1000 employees shut down because of growing competition and the decline of demand. Note: Remember, the market is full of competitors dreaming about how to grab your clients. You should always be aware of every single change somehow related to your niche. If you do not keep up with the times - your competitors will definitely do it. So, never stop growing and developing. Another example is Dinnr. It is not just one of the delivery services like Postmates but a startup offering users to select a recipe and deliver all the goods needed to cook it. Seemingly, an interesting idea but what went wrong? It failed because there was not any market need for it. Nowadays, not so many people have time for cooking. Moreover, not everybody is willing to go out of their apartment to eat somewhere outside. People want doorstep delivery and want it to be fast. Note: Creating an on-demand service, make sure it is really demanded. Learn more about your audience - their needs, preferences etc. Every detail matters when it comes to any service. Thus, detailed target audience analysis is the first step on your way to a successful on-demand service creation.

Ways to monetize your food delivery service Of course, when you create food delivery app, you will need to think about monetization methods if you want to earn on your new app. Let's ﬁnd out main monetization ways for your Postmates-like app.

Courier fee

You can get your reward for each courier delivery, and the percent of this reward should be ﬁxed (or it may vary depending on the overall delivery cost). This is the way how Postmates is monetized.

Advertising

This monetization method is used by the majority of mobile and web apps. Add advertising to get a revenue from it, but mind to work with target advertising which is connected with food delivery or other food services. But don't overload the app with advertising, people won't like it, so you may fail.

Collaboration

Discuss with restaurants and cafes how you can promote them using your food delivery app. If people will find specific restaurants in your app, their popularity may rise. In turn, you will get a fixed fee for each delivery from the

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restaurant. Such an oﬀer can be mutually beneﬁcial for both parties.

Premium

Your paid app version can be modified with some premium features and be completely ad-free. So you will offer people new additional features for a fixed cost, a profit for everybody!

The final price of Postmates Unfortunately, app development is not like a Lego. You cannot just take separate features and turn them into a well-running app. It demands certain architecture that also needs some time to be developed. In order to make our calculations more useful for you, in our ﬁnal estimation, we have considered not only the app's main features but the whole architecture of a Postmates-like app. So, how much is Postmates worth? We can say that Android developers will need approximately 400 hours and iOS developers 460 hours. Back-end works will take approximately 350 hours and design for both platforms - 190 hours. It's worth mentioning that the ﬁnal price depends not only on the scope of the features but the size of the development company as well. You can see our detailed estimations underneath.

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Infographics - How much does it cost to make an app like Postmates

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Drawing the line, we would like to say that it is hard to reach success with a cloned app. You have nothing new to oﬀer your clients. It would be much better to weigh all the pros and cons of already existing apps in your niche, improve their drawbacks and power them with new features. Eventually, this principle will help you to build something new, step-by-step. If you need a reliable partner to arrange food application app development - contact us. Let's build your ideas together. Don't forget to subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel in order to stay tuned!

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