How Much Does It Cost to Build a Restaurant App?
If you’re a restaurant owner, you must take into account consumer behavior and adapt your marketing strategy to a mobile-friendly environment. About 83% of adults across the globe use their mobile devices to search for restaurants, and locations, directions to the venue, and hours of operation. This makes it crucial for restaurant owners to have a mobile app to increase brand awareness, improve customer engagement and build loyalty. If you’re still not convinced, have a look at these statistics by AppInstitute:
Once you have decided to invest in mobile app development, the first question that pops up in your mind is; How Much Does It Cost to Build a Restaurant App?
Here’s the short answer:
A simple restaurant app costs anywhere between $2,000 to $20,000, while a complex restaurant app with features like loyalty programs costs about $10,000 to $50,000. A restaurant app project takes about 8-36 weeks to complete.
However, every business has its unique needs, and the cost may vary greatly depending on the individual app requirements. The app development cost generally includes code writing, app design, app testing, and marketing. The overall cost is calculated as an hourly rate of the developer, UI/UX designer, architect, tester, and so on.
Getting into It a Little More:
Many factors influence the cost of a restaurant app development, such as:
- App Features and Functionality
- Number of Platforms
- App Design
- Location and Structure of the App Development Team
- App Maintenance Cost
App Features and Functionality:
Based on the complexity of features and functionality, we can divide apps into two groups:
Basic Restaurant App
The core features that a basic restaurant app typically contains are:
- Menu
- Order Placement
- Payment Options
- Push Notifications
- Geolocation
- Social Media Buttons
- Comment and Reviews
A basic app for a restaurant containing the features mentioned above requires a small team including a couple of developers, a designer, and a quality assurance engineer. Depending on the number of hours spent by the team collectively, a basic app project for a small restaurant will cost around $5,000 – $10,000 and a timeline of 4-6 days to complete.
Complex Restaurant App
A high quality, innovative, and complex app typically contains a number of features in addition to the features mentioned under the basic restaurant app:
- Pre-order meal
- Online Table Reservation
- Minimum order & Order Status Tracking
- Social media integration attracting more traffic
- Reviews and ratings
- Customized and eye-catching design with retina-ready pictures
- Menu with pictures, prices, and reviews
- Loyalty Programs
- In-app calling & Direct interaction with the restaurant
Developing a top-notch complex restaurant app requires a larger team including several developers, designers, architects, and a project manager, along with a quality assurance engineer. The development of a complex restaurant app takes about 2-3 weeks to complete. The cost of building such an app can range from $20,000 to $100,000, given the average rate is $70-$250 per hour.
Number of Platforms:
The number of platforms you use for your app impacts your app development cost significantly. Whether you want your app to be compatible with Android or iOS, each of these platforms will incur different costs to you. Native development is used for apps that are compatible with either of the platforms, whereas hybrid development is used for apps that are compatible with both platforms. In order to reach your target audience, it is important to have an app on both iOS and Android platforms. Therefore, it is suggested to use hybrid development for restaurant apps to save the cost as native development will require two different teams to build an app compatible with two different platforms.
App Design:
Restaurant apps, precisely, are highly dependent upon the design and attractive visuals. It must tempt the customers to order the food or reserve a table. The most crucial element for increasing user engagement is UI/UX. The UI/UX should make it easier for the users to interact with the app and enable the users to enjoy all the available features of the app.
A basic app design like Waiter Genius App can take about 97 hours to complete, while a complex restaurant app design like Can Tho can take up to 713 hours to complete. If we assume the hourly rate to be $30, a simple app design would cost about $2,910 while a complex app design would cost somewhere around $21,390.
Location and Structure of the App Development Team
The location and structure of the app development team influence your cost greatly. In some states of the U.S., app development rates are higher than in other states. The structure of the team defines how many people are involved in the team such as developers, architects, quality assurance engineers, and so on. The more the number of people, the higher the cost will be. It also depends on the team’s level of expertise and experience. Most U.S.-based developers cost around $107,000 per year, while in some countries like India, it only costs around $4,400 per year to hire a developer.
App Maintenance Cost
App maintenance cost should be taken into account while estimating the app development cost. It is important to consider app maintenance cost even if you do not wish to update your app because app maintenance includes crucial aspects like hosting, engagement, monitoring, updates, marketing, and licenses. Typically, the average cost of app maintenance is about 15-20% of its original development cost.
Conclusion
Restaurant app development cost depends upon a number of factors, such as app features and functionality, app design, app developers’ structure, and location and app maintenance cost. For a restaurant app to be successful, it is essential to keep the target audience in mind while developing the app and making it compelling and user-friendly. It should include features such as an attractive menu, online order placement, table reservation options, easy payment options, deals of the day, and so forth. The cost varies greatly depending on the complexity of the app.
To sum it up, a small restaurant app development costs between $1,000 and $10,000, medium restaurant app development costs about $2,000 to $20,000 and a big multinational restaurant app costs around $10,000 to $50,000. These figures are only rough estimates to provide you some clarity about the cost of your app. If you wish to get an exact estimate, get in touch with our consultant today.
