Guide to Build a Food Delivery App For Startups

In recent years, food delivery apps have revolutionized the way consumers order their meals. According to Grand View Research, the global online food delivery market is projected to reach $ 505.50 billion by 2030, at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4 % between 2025 and 2030. These figures highlight that demand for app-based ordering and delivery is increasing rapidly. This significant growth is attributed to rapid urbanization, the availability of high-speed internet, an increase in mobile phone usage, and a wider range of choices.

Startups or foodpreneurs can capitalize on this rising demand, provided they address the complexity around deliveries, user experience, scaling, and monetization. Furthermore, a food delivery app not only provides convenience to users but also presents several benefits for the business owner as well.

If you are one of the entrepreneurs planning to launch your food delivery application, this guide will help you explore how to build a food delivery app, covering key features, different app types, key considerations, and much more.

Different Types of Food Delivery Apps

Food delivery apps cater to the needs of various types of customers and operate under different models. Thus, these applications can be categorized by their focus, such as on-demand delivery, bulk order, meal kit, and many more.

Mentioned below are some of the popular types of food delivery apps:

1. Hyperlocal Food Delivery Apps

Hyperlocal food delivery apps connect customers to nearby restaurants and food outlets. It works in a limited geographical area, generally, within a few kilometers.

Example: DoorDash

2. Cloud Kitchen Apps

Apps that facilitate the connection between cloud kitchens (also known as ghost kitchens or dark kitchens) and customers are known as cloud kitchen apps. These apps focus entirely on delivery, as cloud kitchens operate without having a storefront.

Example: Reef Kitchens (Reef Technologies)

3. Subscription-Based Food Delivery Apps

These apps work on a subscription model, meaning customers have to pay a recurring fee to leverage the free deliveries, exclusive discounts, and other benefits.

Example: UberEats (Eats Pass)

4. Corporate Food Delivery Apps

In particular, corporate food delivery apps provide services to businesses and office employees. These apps take bulk orders for meetings, corporate events, and more.

Example: Coles for Business

5. Meal Kit Delivery Apps

This model delivers meal kits with pre-portioned ingredients instead of ready-to-eat meals. Other than that, for hassle-free cooking, a recipe guide is provided to the customer. These apps often work on a subscription model and deliver meal kits to customers as per their dietary requirements.

Example: HelloFresh

Why Should You Invest in Food Delivery App Development?

Investing in food delivery app development is a smart move for foodpreneurs and restaurants looking to enter this rapidly growing sector. Changes in consumer preferences and advancements in mobile technology have opened up several opportunities for expansion and profitability. Further, some of the key reasons to invest in a food delivery app are mentioned below:

1. Increasing Demand

Due to a busy lifestyle and increasing demand for convenience, more people are choosing to order their meals via apps. Moreover, food delivery apps provide diverse culinary options, which help attract more customers and retain the existing ones on the app. Thus, this growing demand presents lucrative opportunities for startups and helps existing businesses remain in the industry. Moreover, it helps maintain long-term stability.

2. Global Expansion Opportunities

Unlike restaurants and offline food outlets, food delivery apps are not limited to a certain area. By leveraging technology and partnering with new and exclusive restaurants globally, food delivery apps can grow easily and expand their services. Many existing players, such as DoorDash, UberEats, and many more, are operating in countries such as the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and have become household names everywhere.

3. Diverse Revenue Streams

Food Delivery apps present multiple revenue streams, including delivery fees, commission on sales, in-app promotions, and many more, to generate revenue. Additionally, subscription plans offering exclusive discounts, free delivery, access to premium restaurants, and priority customer service can be introduced on the app. These diversified revenue channels enhance profitability and help in long-term stability.

4. Wider Customer Base

Online food delivery apps can cater to a wider customer base compared to a traditional restaurant. Hence, enabling restaurants to cater to the needs of customers beyond their geographic capabilities.

5. Boosting Customer Retention

Features provided by food delivery apps, such as live tracking, personalized recommendations, loyalty programs, and more, encourage repeat orders on the app. Moreover, it boosts customer retention and helps expand the customer base.

Key Considerations for Startups Before Building a Food Delivery App

For already existing businesses, aspiring entrepreneurs, and startups ready to enter this thriving industry, building a food delivery app presents a lucrative opportunity. However, to build the app, startups must decide on a development approach. Ready-made software solutions and Custom development are the two most popular approaches. Furthermore, several factors need to be considered before selecting the right development approach. Hence, some key considerations are mentioned below:

1. White-Label

The selected approach should allow startups to launch their app under their branding. Businesses should be able to add their logo, colors, and unique features to make their app stand out from other competitors. Hence, selecting a readymade solution provides all these benefits. Moreover, with their pre-built modules, they significantly reduce the deployment time and allow quick entry to the market.

2. Customizability

The ability to adapt the platform to your unique business model, target audience, and brand identity ensures long-term flexibility. Startups should look for solutions that allow visual rebranding, feature additions, and integration with third-party services like payment gateways or loyalty programs.

3. Scalability

Scalability determines how effectively your app can grow alongside your business. As order volumes increase and new restaurants or delivery partners join, your platform should be able to handle the increasing traffic seamlessly. Thus, a scalable food delivery app development framework ensures consistent performance.

4. Multi-Vendor Support

Multi-vendor support is a cornerstone feature, which enables your platform to host an extensive network of restaurants, food outlets, cloud kitchens, and more, each managing its own menus and orders. Thus, if you want to offer choice to customers and boost revenue potential on your app, multi-vendor support becomes non-negotiable.

5. Pricing Model

The pricing model significantly impacts financial planning during food delivery app development. Startups should analyze both upfront costs and long-term value. A one-time payment model in a self-hosted white label food delivery app proves to be more sustainable compared to recurring subscription models, as it provides complete autonomy. This cost-effective structure allows greater control over budgeting while ensuring a high return on investment.

6. Ownership and Control

Ownership and control are critical when you create a food delivery app under your own brand. The selected approach should grant complete data ownership, which helps maintain transparency and security in user transactions, vendor information, and finances.

7. Support & Maintenance

Long-term success in food delivery app development depends on continuous technical support and timely maintenance. For startups planning to make a food delivery app, having access to dedicated technical support helps maintain seamless operations. Self-hosted solutions often come with customizable support packages that allow you to choose the level of assistance required, ensuring operational stability and customer satisfaction at every stage.

Step-by-Step Guide to Build a Food Delivery App

Whether you opt for a white label food delivery app solution or build a food delivery app from scratch, strategic planning and execution are essential. Hence, a step-by-step guide is provided below to help you understand the important steps to create a food delivery app that stands out.

Step 1: Validate the Idea

Before diving into the industry, conducting thorough market research regarding several factors becomes crucial. Market research helps you understand the industry dynamics, trends, requirements, and much more.

Some of the important factors that need to be covered during research are listed below:

• Existing market gaps
• Research about the target audience
• Big players in the industry
• Pain points within the industry
• Cost to build the app

Step 2: Must-Have Features for a Successful Food Delivery App

A food delivery app primarily connects three types of users: customers, restaurants/food outlets, and delivery partners. To offer a seamless experience to each user type, you must incorporate an essential and advanced set of features in your app. Furthermore, respective apps for restaurants and delivery staff, along with a robust admin panel, enhance efficiency and ensure smooth operations. Thus, the app-wise feature list is given below:

Customer App

• Advanced Search and Filtering: Using this feature, customers can easily find their preferred restaurants and dishes in the minimum time, with specific keywords.
• Multiple Payment Options: Food delivery apps provide multiple payment options, such as credit/debit cards, internet banking, eWallets, UPI, and much more. Customers can pay using any of the methods as per their convenience. 
• Self-Pickup: To provide convenience to customers, your food delivery app should allow self-pickup of the order placed. 
• Real-Time Order Tracking: The order tracking feature provides real-time updates to the customer from the time the order is placed till the delivery of the order.
• Location-based Restaurant Search: Based on their location, customers can search for nearby restaurants or food outlets.
• Rating and Review: This feature enables customers to share their reviews and ratings based on the food/dishes or service quality provided by the restaurants.

Restaurant App

• Restaurant Management: Multi-chain restaurants can efficiently manage all the outlets from one platform. Further, they can update operational hours and business-related information. 
• Menu Management: Restaurant owners can update the menu based on the availability of dishes and demand. 
• Payment Tracking: By leveraging this feature, restaurateurs can keep track of their payments. Moreover, they can also view the payment history to check pending payments and more. 
• Instant Updates and Alerts: Restaurant owners get updates about every order placed, order delivery, and payment received. This helps them keep informed about every order placed using the app. 
• Sales Report: Using this feature, restaurants can get their sales report and keep an eye on their performance. Additionally, it helps restaurants take strategic and data-driven decisions. 

Delivery-Staff App

• Delivery Management: Leveraging this feature, delivery personnel can manage multiple deliveries at the same time. It allows them to schedule the deliveries according to priority.
• Route Optimization: This feature streamlines the delivery process by navigating the delivery partner to the fastest route possible.
• Push Notifications: The delivery partner gets notifications about the assigned deliveries. Further, they can also accept or reject the order as per their convenience.
• Availability Toggle: This feature enables delivery partners to update their availability status.
• Earning Tracker: Using this feature, delivery personnel can keep track of their earnings. Also, it helps maintain transparency.

Admin Panel

• Report Management: This feature allows admin/s to analyze the overall performance of the app and make decisions accordingly.
• Commission Management: Admin/s can set commission rates for partnered restaurants, including all kinds of taxes, to maintain transparency in the transaction process.
• Offers/Discount Management: To retain customers on the app, providing discounts and offers becomes crucial. Thus, using this feature, admin/s can manage all kinds of discounts and exclusive deals on the app.
• Robust CMS: To maintain online presence and increase customer engagement on the app, adding, updating, and managing the content is necessary. This feature enables admin/s to add or update content, including blogs, FAQs, banners, and more.
• Notification Management: Admin/s receive notifications regarding all the activities, including new registrations, affiliate requests, and more, taking place on the app.

Step 3: Choose the Right Business Model

Selecting the right business model is crucial for any food delivery startup. The selected business model defines operational flow, shapes your revenue streams, overall customer experience, and much more. Therefore, understanding how each model works becomes necessary.

Let’s explore some of the common food delivery business models:

1. Delivery Only Business Model

This model involves partnering directly with restaurants that prepare meals, while your startup manages the delivery process or facilitates direct delivery from the restaurant.

Pros:

• Simple Business Setup: This model is easy to implement since delivery logistics revolve primarily around nearby restaurants.
• Direct Control Over Delivery Quality: You can ensure timely and quality delivery, which boosts your reputation.
• Strong Restaurant Partnerships: Close collaboration strengthens the local ecosystem and loyalty.
• Lower Initial Investment: Compared to other models requiring infrastructure like kitchens or platforms with vast logistics, the investment required for this model is moderate.

Cons:

• Limited scalability: Growth depends heavily on expanding restaurant partnerships and delivery radius.
• High dependency on restaurants: Restaurant operational inefficiencies can affect service negatively.

2. Aggregator Business Model

Apps based on this model partners with various restaurants from multiple locations, and enable customers to browse their menus and place their orders. Generally, these apps partner with third-party delivery services to streamline the delivery process.

Pros:

• Easily Scalable: By leveraging robust technology and partnering with more restaurants, your business can grow easily.
• Wide Selection: A larger number of restaurants offers a wide variety of dishes, which helps enhance user retention.
• Commission-Based Revenue: The platform earns revenue by charging a commission from restaurants on each order placed.
• Lower Operational Costs and Risks: By not managing inventory or physical assets, entrepreneurs face lower operational risks and upfront costs.

Cons:

• Complex logistics: Managing multiple restaurants and delivery partners requires sophisticated systems.
• Intense competition: Market giants such as UberEats, DoorDash, and more, based on this model, dominate the industry. Thus, differentiation can be challenging.

3. Fully Integrated Marketplace

In this business model, from preparing meals to delivering them to customers’ doorsteps, everything is managed by the app. However, apps operating on this business model can hire or partner with culinary experts/chefs to prepare the meals.

Pros:

• Full Control: From meal prep to delivery, you will be in control of everything, which provides full control over the business. 
• High Efficiency: Automated processes, such as order processing, inventory management, and more, help enhance the efficiency of the marketplace. 
• Connected Ecosystem: As all the process is controlled by the marketplace owner, it creates a connected ecosystem that streamlines the user experience on the app.
• Real-time Data Access: All the business is centralized, which provides access of data to the entrepreneurs. Moreover, it helps make strategic and data-driven decisions. 

Cons:

• Increased Complexity: Management of everything, from cooking to delivery, can be complex, especially if you do not have a strong build app. 
• Market Volatility: Being responsible for more stages of the value chain increases exposure to market changes. Hence, a single negative event can impact your business significantly.

These are some of the popular business models prevailing in the online food industry. However, some other models, such as BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In Store), a scheduled delivery business model, reservation or table booking business model, can be integrated with any of them to provide unmatched convenience to the customers.

Step 4: Select a Development Approach

After deciding on the business model, the next move is to choose the right development approach to build your food delivery app. Entrepreneurs can either build their app from the ground up or leverage a readymade solution, based on their requirements. Let’s explore both approaches to gain more insights about them:

Custom Development

To build the app from the ground up, entrepreneurs can hire a team of developers or partner with a food delivery app development company. Although this approach offers flexibility and control, the financial investment and time required to build the app using this approach are high.

Readymade Solution

A readymade solution comes with pre-built modules, essential industry-specific features, and allows quick entry to the market. Compared to custom development, readymade solutions require less time and financial investment to build the app. In addition to that, a readymade solution provides all the benefits of custom development, including control, ownership, and much more.

Created by FATbit Technologies, Yo!Yumm is one such solution that allows foodpreneurs to launch their food delivery app in much less time and financial requirements.

While selecting the approach, factors like business requirements and budget should be kept in mind. That being said, after finalizing the development approach, the next crucial step is deploying your app and promoting it.

Step 5: Launch and Promote the App

The final step is launching your food delivery application. To maximize the reach potential, it becomes necessary to deploy the app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Additionally, to attract customers, you can provide some lucrative offers, such as a 20% discount on the first order and referral points.

Furthermore, you can leverage social media and start promotional campaigns, such as paid advertisements, influencer marketing, and more. In addition to that, pre-built SEO and marketing tools help you promote your app after the launch.

Cost to Build a Food Delivery App

The cost to build a food delivery app varies widely based on factors like feature complexity, platform choice (iOS, Android, or both), UI/UX design, third-party integrations, and development approach (custom or readymade).

The most significant factor affecting the cost is the approach you choose to build your app. As mentioned above, building an app from the ground up can cost a fortune, whereas a readymade solution proves to be a cost-effective solution.

Let’s have a look at the estimated cost and time taken by custom development:

App Complexity Level	Estimated Cost	Development Time
Basic App	$20,000 – $40,000+	6-7 months
Medium-Complexity	$40,000 – $80,000+	8-10 months
Complex App	$80,000 – $2,50,000+	More than 1 year

Comparatively, selecting a ready-made solution will save you time and money. With their pre-built features and functionalities, these solutions reduce development time. Moreover, readymade solutions offer customization that allows you to integrate specific features required to stay in this competitive landscape. Additionally, in terms of cost, by leveraging a readymade solution, you can launch your food delivery app under $10,000.

Yo!Yumm: A Cost-effective Software to Build a Food Delivery App

Developed by FATbit Technologies, Yo!Yumm is a versatile and 100% white-label food delivery software that helps startups and foodpreneurs launch their on-demand food delivery mobile application seamlessly. It is a self-hosted solution that enables entrepreneurs to host the application on their server, which provides full control over data and infrastructure instead of relying on a third-party provider.

Additionally, Yo!Yumm supports diverse business models and caters to various niches. Further, it comes equipped with industry-specific features, such as geolocation, real-time order tracking, catalogue management, order management, and more.

Key Advantages of Yo!Yumm:

• Fully customizable
• Multiple Payment Gateways
• 12 months of free tech support
• Free Personalized Demo
• Available at a one-time payment
• Integrated with 12+ APIs
• User-specific readymade mobile apps 
• Lifetime ownership
• Equipped with Industry-specific features

Case Study: Fresh Eats (UK)

Fresh Eats, founded by Ahmad Jamal Tariq, aimed to link local restaurants with customers on a fast and simple digital platform designed specifically for the UK market.

Challenges:

They needed intuitive food delivery apps for customers, restaurants, and drivers. Additionally, features sucha as simple search methods, dependable order tracking, and simple business management tools were required to distinguish Fresh Eats from the competition in the market.

Yo!Yumm’s Solution:

With Yo!Yumm, Fresh Eats was able to deploy a scalable and feature-rich app that provides an exceptional user experience and brand growth. Delivered intuitive mobile apps for customers, restaurants, and drivers, along with an easy search for restaurants, cuisines, and location-based filtering

Explore more about Fresh Eats

Conclusion

Creating a successful food delivery app requires the strategic combination of an appropriate business model, features, and the ability to scale. This rapidly growing industry provides substantial growth opportunities for startups. However, addressing some of the operational hurdles and creating a seamless experience for customers, restaurants, and delivery partners is essential to stand out in this competitive space and maintain long-term stability.

Although custom development is an option that provides control and flexibility, it proves to be costly and time-consuming. Hence, opting for a white-label solution such as Yo!Yumm is an excellent alternative for getting your app to market quickly, without cutting corners on quality. Moreover, by leveraging technology and smart planning, entrepreneurs can transform this opportunity into long-term success.

Food Delivery App Development FAQs for Startups

Q 1. Is it right for Startups to build a functional food delivery app from scratch? 

Ans. Building a functional food delivery app from scratch is not optimal due to high costs, longer timelines, and complex integrations. Thus, for startups, a more strategic option is to select an off-the-shelf solution. These solutions require less financial investment, allow quick deployment, and come integrated with third-party APIs. Additionally, they enable entrepreneurs to scale easily, offer full control, and ownership. 

Q 2. How long does it take to develop an on-demand food delivery app like DoorDash & UberEats?

Ans. Developing an app like DoorDash and UberEats typically takes a few months to a year, depending on complexity and features required. However, leveraging a clone script or launching an MVP with essential features may take one week or more, depending on the customization requirements. 

Q 3. What are the challenges in building a food delivery app?

Ans. Key challenges in building a food delivery app include:

• High development costs
• Scalability
• Complex third-party integrations
• Efficient delivery logistics
• Regulatory Compliance Requirements (Food Safety & Data Privacy)
• Effective Marketing 

Q 4. How can I make my food delivery app profitable?

Ans. To make your food delivery app profitable, you can leverage diverse monetization strategies such as commissions from restaurants and delivery/service fees from customers, subscription plans, in-app promotions, and much more. Moreover, loyalty programs and referral points can be introduced to retain existing customers and attract new customers on the app.

Q 5. Is Yo!Yumm, the perfect food delivery software for startups to build a food delivery app?

Ans. Yes, Yo!Yumm is a well-suited and robust solution for startups looking to build a food delivery application. It is a feature-rich and scalable platform that supports multiple business models and niches. Moreover, it is a fully customizable and white-label software solution that allows you to launch your app under your brand. Further, it is available at a one-time cost that makes it a cost-effective solution.

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