Food delivery app development cost
Three-sided: customers, couriers and kitchens. Priced as an app with similar functionality to DoorDash or Uber Eats, at US rates and launch scope.
Planning range, not a quote. Every figure comes from the same engine the calculator runs on.
What makes it expensive
Three client applications, each with a different user and a different job. Add courier dispatch, live tracking and a load curve that is entirely lunch and dinner, and the infrastructure has to hold a peak many times the daily average every single day.
What is in scope
- Customer app, courier app, merchant console
- Live order and courier tracking
- Two-hour demand peaks, twice a day
- Commission, payouts and promotions
Where the money goes
The six largest disciplines in this build. The calculator shows all 10, itemised down to individual features.
| Discipline | Hours | Share | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backend engineering | 2,350 | 38% | $350,000 |
| Cross-platform mobile | 980 | 15% | $135,000 |
| QA & testing | 980 | 10% | $95,000 |
| DevOps & cloud | 560 | 9% | $85,000 |
| Project management | 550 | 8% | $70,000 |
| UI/UX design | 370 | 5% | $45,000 |
The same product at four standards of finish
Identical answers, four levels of depth. This is usually the most useful comparison on the page, because it is the decision you actually control.
Standard is highlighted because that is what this example is configured at.
What it costs to keep running
Separate from the build, because operating cost scales with usage and development cost does not.
per month at 45,000 monthly users
20% – 27% of build cost
468 peak concurrent users