With the advent of digitalization, the food industry is showing accelerated growth as customers prioritize convenient dining experiences, with just a few taps. All in the comfort of their homes! As modern-day consumers turn to mobile devices to order their favorite meals, there is a sudden surge of online food delivery apps in the food market. Prioritizing the evolving customer expectations has facilitated the dynamic shift in the food market. Now food businesses including global giants have entered the online food delivery app market.
The food delivery apps are an emerging trend with an estimated market size of a whopping 1.2 trillion $ by the end of 2024. The online grocery market is witnessing a notable growth of 20.3% by the end of 2025. To cater to this surge the right food delivery app can be a strategic move for branding your business.
KFC, a global food giant has tasted massive success by investing in developing a robust food delivery app. This strategic move uplifted the trajectory of more food delivery apps like KFC. However, this move needs meticulous planning and a decent investment amount. This might strike curiosity about the total cost of the food delivery app development costs.
Considering the massive success of similar apps like DoorDAsh and Uber Eats, it is no surprise that more entrepreneurs desire to embark on this journey. If you’re an Entrepreneur and are confused about the estimated development costs for your app, then this article can guide you on the same. It’s time you develop the best on-demand food delivery app.
Why Invest In a Food Delivery App like KFC?
Before delving deeper, let us understand why should one invest in an online food delivery app for your brand. The third-party platforms offer room for partnership but they do not offer hyper-personalized experiences for your loyal customers. It delivers a generic solution for a generic user base. It may not necessarily target your ideal consumers’ customized needs.
KFC food app understood the unique preferences of their customers and created unique solutions for them. The app expanded its market reach and boosted its sales revenue by 28%,merely from the app. Incorporating features like an easy customization option with a few taps, promotional offers, and discounts saved much time ensuring a quick delivery for their unique taste.
Having your digital footprint will allow food business to serve their target audience and improve customer interaction and engagement. It is a great way for businesses to identify the problem areas, and predict future market trends.
A robust food app like KFC can impact your brand in the following ways.
- Create a unique experience for your existing customer base– if you want to improve your relationship and interactions with your customer base, developing an app like KFC will take you leaps and bounds ahead. You can prioritize your existing customers’ needs
- Analyse market trends – can learn about market trends and be prepared to adapt to emerging trends swiftly. Business can create their digital strategy and manage custom relationships in a better way.
- Understanding the evolving customer Dynamics – As we all know customer preferences are a dynamic landscape that is consistently evolving! To cater to the ever-changing preferences having your digital app is an incredible digital branding strategy.
- Create customized features – Collaborating with third parties is good but it comes with its territory. To gain control over your brand, incorporating customized features that can serve your ideal users can raise usability here.
- Foster customer relationships and Boost sales – If you want to elevate your user journey with a personalized experience and manage customer relationships effectively, you should have your food delivery app.
Aspects that impact the food app development cost
To build your unique food delivery app similar to KFC, you need to analyze your requirements and opt for a professional food delivery application development company. The right guidance can take your app development to the next level. However, when it comes to the total cost involved, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
The cost of a food delivery app may start from 40,000$ and may exceed upto 3,00,000$ and even more. However, the costs revolve around multiple parameters like feature complexity and added functionalities and many others. It is important to understand that the exact figure depends upon multiple parameters including the complexity of your project. Depending upon the below-mentioned and the complexity of your app.
Some of the non-negotiable parameters include:
1. App feature complexity
The essential features like profile registration, and adding products to the cart are essential features that can cost you a decent amount. However, adding a set of complex features like automated suggestions, logarithmic recommendations, or an augmented experience might upgrade the overall cost.
Incorporating AI-specific and hyper-personalized features like automated recommendations and search filters and bars can raise the overall development to a significant extent. This is due to the incorporation of advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms encapsulating a large number of data.
2. UI/UX elements
A stellar user interface and an intuitive user experience can simplify the user journey to a great extent. A customer keeps revisiting the websites with an easy to comprehend user interface. Due to this, the custom retention rate is drastically increased. An easy-to-navigate intuitive design alleviates his overall experience reducing the overall bounce rate.
3. Platform-specificity
Choosing the right platform becomes crucial to attract your target audience. However, this cost may vary depending on the platform you prefer. For example, if you prefer an IOS and Android platform, brands have to pay a considerable amount as each platform has a dedicated team of app developers.
However, companies can opt for an optimized approach here by choosing cross-platform food delivery app development. The cross-platform will make the food ordering app platform compatible reducing the overall development costs. Developing a multi-platform compatible app will attract a wider pool of target users elevating the RoI to a significant extent.
4. Robust Tech stack
Selecting a robust tech stack can make or break the quality and performance of your app. The tech stack ultimately defines the programming language, software libraries frameworks and databases, and API tools needed to develop an app.
5. Third-party integrations and API tools
The third-party integrations and the API tools play a crucial role in optimizing the user experience and elevating the long-term performance of the app. Third-party integrations like payment gateway, google Maps API services, and CRM software integration can optimize end users’ journeys with a seamless and convenient experience.
6. Developers Rates & Expertise
The experienced full-stack developers bring a wealth of expertise and knowledge base to your plate. However, it comes with a price tag of upgraded rates. Choosing a rich framework like Flutter and Native app developers can expedite the overall cost of the development process.
Full-stack developers have real-life exposure to dealing with both the frontend and backend development process. Hiring full stack developers to build a like KFC can expedite the faster time to market by releasing an MVP. Also, they have a wide exposure to software development trends, and a thorough knowledge of the frontend, backend, and database management systems. A team of full-stack developers can quickly adapt to the dynamic software development cycle quickly.
However, the cost of hiring a professional team essentially depends upon several factors. such as development costs, hiring models, and the amount of expertise and experience that the developer brings to the table. It also differs depending on the geographical location and hiring model your business opts for. For instance, if you want to go budget-friendly then you can outsource the entire project to the development team. The strategic move can reduce the overall development costs to a considerable extent.
7. Branding and Animation elements
An aesthetically appealing interface and layout surely is an add-on. The high-end graphics and animation can raise the development costs in the process. The custom UI layout, and unique elements like custom icons, app logo, and color theme are set to add -to overall development costs.
Now we all know that developing an on-demand food delivery app like KFC depends on all the above-mentioned factors. Hence, there are no fixed costs but they vary depending upon the custom needs of your project. However, it is crucial to learn that Adding lucrative features like AI-based customer recommendations, customer support services, and CRM integrations can add to the already existing apps. But it also enhances long-term efficiency boosting revenue sales.
Hidden costs involved in food delivery app management
While the development costs may vary it becomes imperative that you learn about the hidden costs involved. This will ensure a surge in additional expenses doesn’t overwhelm you.
1. Quality assurance services
If you optimize the performance of your app, it is obvious that user retention goes up. To achieve that you need to rigorously perform the testing to deliver delightful and satisfactory experiences to the users. By delivering top-tier experiences, you are boosting the app’s visibility and appeal to a wider audience.
2. Maintenance costs
The maintenance process is an ongoing process that includes releasing feature updates with every significant update. The maintenance process is laser-focused on improving user experiences to identify market trends that stem from consistently evolving customer expectations. The maintenance cost assists in releasing new features to stay ahead of the competitive edge in the cutthroat competition. These costs include 20% of the overall development costs every year.
3. Third-party integrations
The third-party integrations offer a convenient experience to your end-users. For instance, to incorporate live monitoring and tracking you need third-party integration like Google Maps API. integrating it may add up to the development costs.
4. Marketing and advertisement
The fact that remains intact is no one is going to use your app if no one is aware of it. The marketing campaigns and promotional offers can invoke the element of curiosity. By investing in paid social media advertising, content marketing strategies, and SEO optimization techniques, you can expand your customer base.
5. Licensing expenses
Licensing fees are important when it comes to the regulatory norms and guidelines. These fees are largely dependent on the third-party services that companies are liable to pay for utilizing their services. For example, you have to pay the licensing fee depending on the platform or the app store on which it is published.
4 Ways to Optimize the Development Cost Like KFC
Focusing on the cost-effectiveness of your food delivery app needs effective strategy and adequate resource management. If you are tight on the budget and cannot aptly dive into the online delivery trends. Here’s a catch, a pool of proven tips that can help optimize the development costs saving you time and money. Follow the tips to develop the best food delivery app without compromising on quality.
Release an MVP
A minimum viable product is a great way to reduce the time to market your product. Releasing your MVP in the market with essential features will allow you to collect genuine customer feedback from your loyal audience. It will help you improvise your product.
Cross-platform development approach
Since there is a single codebase to maintain with a dedicated development team, it can significantly reduce development costs. This approach can improve device compatibility and reduce the dependency on a single platform.
The cross-platform approach expense will be slightly higher than other approaches but it‘ll be worth the overall investment.
Outsource to a development team
You can choose your Hiring model by outsourcing your entire project to a reputable third-party app development company. This will reduce your development and labor costs. Hence, it is an optimal solution to collaborate with a software company that has a
Open-source libraries
Leveraging open-source frameworks and libraries is a great way to go handy if you’re tight on a budget. It will assist you in developing a quality product as they are free to use. This can help you reduce the on-demand food delivery app costs to a significant extent.
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Wrapping Up – Get a Free Quote From Us
Do you wish to transform your food business or establish a grip with a digital strategy? Do you want to establish your digital identity with an expanded user base? To establish your foot in the digital world, you need a professional food delivery application development company. Our custom app development services can transform your idea into a full-fledged food delivery app.
Hiring our dedicated team of software app developers can assist you with groundbreaking solutions. Delight your users with a personalized and hassle-free online food ordering experience. Get a free consultation call from our experts who can navigate your path in the software development journey.
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