Uber is not just an inspiration for startups and aspiring entrepreneurs, its miraculous success is so infectious it provoked many market learners to think of going Uber way. The billion-dollar taxi booking startup Uber was founded by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp eight years ago in 2009 thought they might have felt shocked upon experiencing such a gargantuan success from their joint digital venture.
No wonder young talents are impelled to recreate the same magic by developing Uber-like app for taxi booking. Ola and Grab has already made their mark on the map. Splendid! This is the reason why young startups are fanatically seeking affordable mobile app development companies who can calculate estimate cost to develop Uber clone to join the revolution of unique traveling. Let’s explore how you can approach cost calculation for developing the app.
The main factors that determine app development cost are:
- Platform choice
- Basic features
- UI/UX design elements
- Target demographics
- Product maintenance and QA
- Frequency of security updates
You need to build two separate apps to develop an Uber clone for any given platform. One for drivers and one for users (passengers). Both versions will house slightly different set of features. Check out these common features for both the apps that you can customize later to your requirements:
Passenger’s App:
- Register & login: Login and registration via Email or social media accounts, credit cards
- Booking user interface: An interface on a screen to enter details needed to call a taxi such as pickup address, cab type or a specific driver, etc.
- Tracker: A feature to track driver’s location and progress as they are en route to rider.
- Price calculator: To estimate the cost of a ride from point A to point B before finalizing it
- Payments: Debit and credit card, in-app and cashless, automatic debit, email invoice or directly on phone
- Push notifications: To update users on order status, taxi arrival time, cab details, offers and more.
- Preferred driver: To pick specific driver based on personal experience or ratings
- Booking history: To view previous taxi booking instances
- Ratings & reviews: To view and leave personal opinion and experience
Driver’s App:
- Register/profile/login authentication: Registration and log in feature with detailed verification (tax number), profile authentication and approval by an administrator and status
- Booking: Options to accept or deny the incoming booking requests from users, customer location details, and destination of a ride along with plus booking history
- Push notifications: To receive alerts on taxi booking which includes data’s like pickup location, payment mode, destination, order updates, etc.
- Navigation: Use of Google Maps or Location services or iOS Map services to get clear directions to a customer and the ultimate destination, added voice-enabled services
- Reviews, messaging, route selection
Admin Panel
You need a central control panel to administer and manage all the ongoing activities, requests and processes from a single point. This is called an Admin panel, a web app that facilitates crucial engagement between riders and drivers, and later on processes data regarding ride routes.
This mainly consists
- Interactive dashboard
- Customizable capabilities
- Driver details
- Manual Allocation of drivers
- Manual driver alerts
Now, the next process of calculating the entire app development cost involves gathering knowledge about approximate time and development charges for each phase.
We have divided the complex process in an understandable break-up to comprehend the budget estimate easily.
1) Leading Cost Components
Considering the general major aspects of Uber-like app development, we can narrate the most common cost drivers as:
- Backend development
- Web development
- UI/UX Design
- Third-party service APIs integrations
- Native experience qualities (Android/iOS)
- Post-deployment maintenance & Quality assurance
2) Technologies and tools required to build the app
Uber has unveiled its unique API for developers. Hence, if you are planning to clone Uber you must tailor your own version to introduce original elements of server, maps payments. Having a viable server is key to efficiently processing thousands of user requests, driver routes and data everyday.
As for programming languages, we recommend the following:
Backend: Java, Node.js, Python, PHP.
GPS: OpenStreetMap API or iOS and Android
3) Platform-specific APIs for Native use
For Android: Google Maps and Google Location Services API
For iOS: MapKit or CoreLocation framework
4) In-app Payment solutions
Uber has robust In-app Payment solutions for credit cards and Wallet.
For third-party gateway integrations, you can choose Stripe, Paytm, PayPal Mobile SDK, BrainTree
Push notifications: Google Firebase (Android), Apple Push (iOS devices)
SMS notification services: cloud communication platforms like Twilio, Tropo, Plivo, Nexmo and more.
5) Programming the Backend Infrastructure
Writing a perfect architecture of the taxi booking mobile app backend is the foremost goal for the effective functioning of the app. Developers invest extra care and efforts while programming the backbone that creates immaculate poise and connections among its critical backend elements. This is where the story of success if essentially written and managed by enabling all the stunning features described earlier.
The skilled knowers of JavaScript, Python or CSS languages will work their way through building the app’s core and connecting it to UI of both rider’s and driver’s versions of the app. Database system like MySQL, PostgreSQL may come handy for storing crucial app data with emphasis on future scalability.
| Domain | Similar App | How To | How Much | Our Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food Delivery | Uber | Create an app like uber | Uber app cost | View price |
The total amount of time and resources required to shape the entire backend is a little challenging question itself as the job is fairly prone to a lot of brainstorming and successive changes, which makes it an arduous task.
However, on an average estimate, it may consume 100-200 hours feature-wise though the process can be accelerated by putting highly experienced agile developers on the job.
6) Platform-specific estimation: Native iOS/Android
It is a general belief that developing a native app experience for any single platform leads to double the benefits and also helps curb overall cost. An app expressing simplicity with uninterrupted performance like Uber is what you target customer would wish.
Therefore, for your goal to align with end users, you should be clear about opting for iOS and android apps separately as this preference boosts usability of your mobile app.
Software development companies are capable of building native apps with native experience and feel for both platforms. With same backend and functionality in place, your iOS and Android will perform equally well.
Of course, tools and framework technologies used will depend on the target platform. Time taken to address each platform may vary from 200 to 250 hours.
Finally, the total cost
In this section, the entire discussion on how and what factors influence the cost of Uber-like app development gets summarized. Hourly rates are sensitive to country’s respective economy and commerce practices.
For example, in USA, the rate is nearly $100-$200 and $50-$100 in European continents. In Asia, things appear affordable and the development fee may come down to $50 or $40 per hour.
The major cost belongs to the most time-eating phases of app development and QA where driver’s version and admin panel play a dominant role. Finally, to sum up in one sentence, the approximate cost range to develop the most fundamental Uber-like app in India falls to $25000 to $30000 for a single platform, considering $50 of medium hourly rate.
The total cost for developing Uber clone for both apps may boil down to $50000 or a little more depending on the demand and specifications from the client.
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