How Much Does It Cost to Build an App Like Uber

Functionality is the main factor that influences Uber-like app development cost. What looks for end-users like a single app is a combination of different services. The more platforms and features you add, the higher the development cost.

When you decide to create an app like Uber, you might not even suspect that you’ll need to create three different apps. Surprised?

Answering the question ‘how much does it cost to build an app like Uber’ is impossible without analyzing its features and their development cost.

UBER-LIKE APP DEVELOPMENT COST: FEATURES FOR PASSENGERS

REGISTRATION & LOGIN

Customer registration is the most essential of all features. Make sure that the registration process is straightforward and doesn’t take a lot of time.

Development time: 60-150 hours

USER PROFILE

Users should be able to edit their personal data, such as phone number, credit card information, profile pictures, and so on, depending on the final set of features.

Development time: 50-60 hours

GEOLOCATION, ROUTING & DIRECTION

Applications like Uber heavily rely on GPS technology. Geolocation is used for a number of tasks, such as tracking the driver’s location, automatically detecting users’ location, tracking car movement, determining the distance between a user and a driver, and identifying pickup location.

Development time: 120-500 hours (depending on the final features set)

PAYMENTS

Working on your Uber-like application, you’ll need to roll up your sleeves and determine the payment strategy for your app. You can integrate your app with a number of solutions, such as Stripe, Braintree, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

Development time: 100 hours

NOTIFICATIONS

Push notifications is a must-have feature for any mobile app. To build the features, you’ll need to use Apple Push Notification Service (APN) for iOS app development and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) for Android app development.

Development time: 80-120 hours

RIDER-DRIVER COMMUNICATION

Calling or texting the driver right from the app will help users find the booked car or help drivers find the pickup location.

Development time: 60-120 hours

SCHEDULING RIDES IN ADVANCE

This is one of the advanced features introduced by Uber later in development. The feature allows users to book rides in advance with a timeframe spreading from 30 minutes to 30 days.

Development time: 120-160 hours

BOOKING RIDES FOR OTHERS

This is another advanced feature that allows booking rides for other users. After the ride is successfully booked, the app sends a notification or SMS to both the rider and driver.

Development time: 300+ hours

SPLITTING A FARE

Users may prefer to split the ride fare when sharing a ride with someone else. You’ll need to think out the algorithms of such payment and implement functionality to support it.

Development time: 120-150 hours

PENALTY-FREE RIDE CANCELLATION

Uber allows riders to cancel a ride within 2 minutes without paying any penalties and cancellation fees.

Development time: 30-60 hours

UBER APP DEVELOPMENT TIME: FEATURES FOR DRIVERS

An app for drivers is another part of Uber-like app development that you’ll need to take care of. Creating such an app can significantly add up to the app’s price.

REGISTRATION

Signup and sign-in are two must-have features for taxi booking applications. Just like for passengers, you can integrate the drivers’ app?

Development time: 90-150 hours

PERSONAL PROFILE

All driver’s information will be stored in a personal profile, where drivers should be able to update personal data, upload and change profile photo, and so on.

Development time: 50-70 hours

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Push notifications are used to notify drivers of any changes within an app, such as new taxi requests, changes in the status of the order, payment processing, and so on.

Development time: 80-120 hours

RIDE COST ESTIMATION

This is one of the must-have features that allow drivers to decide whether to accept a booking request or not.

Development time: 20-40 hours

DRIVER REPORTING

This feature is useful as it allows passengers to rate drivers based on their experience? Based on the number of such reviews, the admin can even ban a driver. Also, drivers with the highest reviews would get more rides.

Development hours: 20-40 hours

ROUTE OPTIMIZATION

An app can assist with the task by providing route optimization recommendations based on the analysis of traffic data received in live mode. That’s why an app should be connected to maps services.

Development time: 30-70 hours

ACTIVE/INACTIVE OPTION

Drivers should be able to choose the inactive option if they are not available for rides and switch to the active status when they are ready to take new orders.

Development time: 30-60 hours

DRIVER REPORTS

A dashboard with all rides and earnings allows drivers to view historical information and check how much they’ve earned with your application.

Development time: 70-120 hours

DRIVER-PASSENGERS COMMUNICATION

A direct line of communication between drivers and passengers is what will make your app stand out among the competition.

Development time: 50-100 hours

UBER app DEVELOPMENT TIME: FEATURES FOR ADMINS

In addition to two applications for passengers and drivers, you’ll also need to build the control center of your application – the admin panel. This is the place where you can control the whole application and its users. You can implement various features based on your business needs, but you’ll need to pay more with every new feature.

Development time: 300-600 hours

BACK-END DEVELOPMENT TO CREATE AN APP LIKE UBER

Back-end development can cost a few times more than the development of all features together. Applications like Uber use a complex back-end that connects the driver app, passenger app and the admin panel.

Back-end application is responsible for information exchange between all parts of the platform. It should be designed with scalability in mind to avoid situations when you have to change the whole app architecture because scalability wasn’t a part of the development process.

Usually, backend is responsible for such tasks as:

• Users’ authentication and authorization
• Algorithms controlling ride cost, driver recommendation system, etc.
• Data and file storage
• Management of payments, subscriptions, premium status, etc.

Development time: 2,500-3,500 hours

Location to which you outsource app development highly influences the cost you’ll need to pay. For example, the average hourly development cost in the USA is around $150-200. In Europe, you can find companies providing the same services for $50 per hour.

Multiplying the number of hours needed for development by 50, we can get the Uber app development cost.

Uber app development cost ranges from $100,000 to $150,000 for one platform (Android or iOS). If you decide to add another platform, it will multiply the cost at least by two times.

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