On demand Apps: Types, How to build, and Cost to Design Development

In less than a decade, we have seen a new kind of business model which has disrupted everything that we saw ever before! The On demand business model got popularity with the success of Uber and a spike is seen thereafter in On Demand App Development Companies for courier, food delivery, healthcare, field service, and delivery companies to manage on demand dispatch system. It has revolutionized the way people live their lives and the basic principles of Economics. The model is being termed as On Demand Service” or “On-Demand Economy at large.

According to a data, 72% of the Americans have used one or the other form of on demand online service or online crowd sharing service. This can be seen as a huge market and a business opportunity by an aspiring entrepreneur. Mobile applications have become the biggest platform for providing these services. And this is the reason why we are witnessing the increase in demand for on demand app development company.

What are On demand app solutions?

The concept of on demand apps is simple; provide a product or a service at the time when you need it and at the tap of your finger. On demand apps aggregate demand for a product or service online and act as a platform where the suppliers could come in contact with the needy. This reduces the wastage of time and energy it could take for both the parties to meet.

These include products and services like transportation (like Uber), Rental Property (like Airbnb), laundry and handyman services On demand.

Related: How to build an app like Uber delivery services.

Before these companies came into being, people had to look out for such services, contact them, and then compare them. Even the on demand service provider needed to go through a lot of trouble to develop a consumer base. But because of these services, all these processes take less than a few minutes.

People don’t get much time for themselves and on demand delivery apps have made a big change by making sure they get what they want even when they are super busy. There won’t be any over-generalization if we say; on demand apps platforms are taking center-stage in our lives now.

Type of On demand delivery app services

There are myriad of services which are now being offered by on demand apps. The following categorisation includes the top on demand service providing mobile apps:

1. Personal transportation: The topic of on demand service and personal transportation will be incomplete without the mention of Uber. The company is the biggest example of how on demand apps have transformed the personal transportation industry. Basically, these apps have made finding a taxi, reaching the right spot, and making payment a lot easier.

2. Food delivery: These apps have made getting your favourite food at your desired location and at the desired time possible with a tap of your finger. These apps just make sure the food is delivered. The one who orders the food can give his/her feedback and rate the restaurant as per their experience.

3. Housekeeping services: Service like doing the dishes, cleaning the house, and doing laundry sometimes need assistance. You cannot ask anyone to do these things for you but you cannot hire someone permanently for these chores. Housekeeping apps makes it easier for you to find someone who could help you out with these.

4. Handyman service: What happens when something gets broke? It may be your window or a kitchen sink pipe or an electrical switch. You need to find a handyman who could help you fix these things and have the right skills and tools to fix it. But you should worry since there are a few apps which can help you find a local handyman.

5. Delivery service: It is just like an on demand courier service but is really cheap and fast since anyone can enroll in this service and courier the article. These delivery services can include a wide range of articles.

6. Beauty services: Makeup artists, hair stylists, pedicure and manicure services, and massage services are now easily available in your home with on demand beauty service apps. These have made it possible for anyone to look their best, every time.

7. Rental properties and lounging: These apps make it easy for anyone to put their property or even one empty room in their apartment on rent. These have made finding accommodation in a city a lot easier. The place can be booked for a period as short as a few hours to months.

8. Laundry service: These apps have gained a lot of traction in the recent past. These make you give your clothes to professional laundry service with pick and drop facility. If you have this app, you don’t need to worry about your clothes anymore!

9. Healthcare: Health is an important issue for anyone. You need to visit a doctor to take their advice when you’re not well, failing which can lead to aggravation of problems. With healthcare apps, you can get a doctor on demand. You can even schedule medical tests from home, professional nursing, and medicines deliveries on these apps.

10. Parking space finder: Isn’t not-getting-a-parking-space the single most irritating thing we come across? But, if you have these apps, you don’t have to worry since they will find you a parking space. Some of these even give you the facility of valet parking!

11. Freelance: Finding any professional such as a programmer, designer, marketer or writer is never easy; especially, when you need them for a single job or just for a couple of days. Freelance apps do the trick for you. It lets you hire the professional as per your requirements with a few clicks.

12. Learning and educational: Learning something new can be difficult if you do it on your own. But don’t worry; there are apps to solve this too. Educational apps will let you find a good tutor who can help you with this. If you want to learn piano, dance, or learn cooking; now you know what you need to do.

The list doesn’t stop here. There are more and more types of on demand services coming each year which is making our lives a lot easier. Building on demand app doesn’t take much; all you need is an idea. Any good idea that makes people’s lives easier can make a successful business model now.

Also Read : Strategy and Steps of On-Demand App

How to build an On demand app?

Let’s see how one can make a successful on demand services app.

1. Idea phase

The first step of this process is quite obvious. You need to find a service that people need on demand but isn’t easy to find – both the parts are very much crucial and equally important. Notice the things that you come across from your day-to-day lives which bother you the most.

Develop your idea and make sure your app has clear and feasible profit model. Do research on the most popular apps available and figure out what are the features that make them better than others.

Characteristics of a successful On demand app:

  • Effortless for users: Make sure signing in, making a query, and booking an appointment is easy. It shouldn’t take long to do these things. Also, make sure that you provide many payment options.
  • Effortless for service providers: The same goes for service providers as well. It should be equally convenient for them too.
  • Flexibility: Provide flexibility to both the parties. Simply put a button in your app that gives them more flexibility or allow them more choices. This is an important characteristic of a successful app.

2. Design and Development

For design and development of an on-demand app, you need to hire a good on-demand app development company. For this, make sure the company has an experience in the development of on-demand apps. You must ask the company this before hiring them.

Features required in an On Demand app
1. Push notification: This will enable them to know what promotion or new services you have added to your app. You can also add reminders to this to help your consumers know about the services they had requested. Also, you must notify them about any change in the status of their orders.

2. Tracking: Tracking feature has become very important in on demand services. This will make them aware of the progress in the delivery of a service. This is really helping apps in increasing downloads.

3. Activity Logger: Your application must provide information like orders, previous search results, and similar information so that the user doesn’t have to take the pain of remembering things.

4. Favorites and Wishlists: Give your users the facility to add their famous services, products or shops to their list of favorites. This feature is very important for any on demand service.

5. Payment system: Mobile payment method is a must for any on demand service. Make sure that your app gives its users enough payment options.

6. Feedback and ratings: Users are ready to help you by providing ratings and written testimonials for the services that they have used for free. Make provision for this in your app. This will also improve the quality and user experience of your app.

7. Re-schedule or Cancel booking: In case of urgency, users must have the option to re-schedule or cancel their bookings as per their convenience. If they won’t be able to do this; it will lead to frustrations and they might give negative feedback to your app.

8. Multiple booking: Enable multiple bookings so that they can they can get the number of services. Also, store the addresses and other information so that making bookings doesn’t take long after the first time.

9. Store information of the service provider: You must always store useful information which will help users to book the right service provider. Information like the area of expertise and available hours are some of the information that you must store and share with the users.

10. Good customer service: This is the key to every business and on demand app service is no exception to it. Give enough customer service contact details so that your users can reach you without any inconvenience.

These features are important from the user point of view. There are a few things that you must take care of while developing an on demand app.

Features to look in an On Demand application

While designing and developing an on demand app, it is important to inculcate the following qualities in your app:
a. Customization
A good app has to give its users a fresh look and must have a customized design which gives it the feel of your business. It must give your users a rich experience that will make them come to your app again and again.

b. Scalability
The most important thing for an on demand app is its scalability. Applications like Uber handles hundreds or even thousands of bookings in a second. This is because it was designed in a way such that it could handle such a great amount of traffic. A small glitch can irreparably damage your app’s public image.

A good UX/UI design is also very important since it optimizes how a user can easily find what he’s looking for.

3. How does it work and what technologies are used?

An extraordinary on demand app needs a lot of cutting-edge technologies to work well. Here is a list of the technologies that are used to develop a good on demand app:

  • Push notification: Push.io or Twilio
  • SMS, Voice and Phone Verification: Nexmo or Twilio
  • Database: MongoDB or Postgres or Cassandra
  • Payments: Stripe, Braintree or PayPal
  • Cloud services: Google, AWS or Azure
  • Analytics: Hadoop, Apache Flink or Cisco

Having an in-depth working knowledge of these technologies is important because, without this, your app won’t work as intended.

4. How much will an On Demand app cost you?

It is pretty obvious that the level of complexity and the number of technologies used determines the cost of developing an app. The following is a bifurcation of the cost of on-demand development cost:

  • Technical Documentation: $1000 to $2000 (40 hours)
  • UI/UX design: $1500 to $3000 (60 hours)
  • Front-end and Back-end development: $6000 to $20,000 (400 hours)
  • Testing: $2000 to $4000 (80 hours)

The cost of development of an app is greatly dependent on the per hour development rate of a developer. This can be around $70 to $210 per hour.

Related: Tips on How to Reduce App Development Cost

If you keep all the above calculations in mind, an average on-demand app can cost around $8000 to $45,000. Considering the return of such apps, the amount can look really small. Many of the on-demand apps which have come up in the past couple of years are worth millions and some are even worth billions of dollars!

On-demand apps are the future. Gone are the days when people used to work for big companies and had to follow their instructions day-in and day-out. These apps have given immense flexibility apart from helping both the parties in saving huge bucks.

How i-Verve can help
As a leading app development company which has developed Uber-like on-demand apps (e.g. RideInBlack). We have aggregated a highly skilled team of on-demand app developers which has mastered the technologies which are needed to develop top-notch On Demand Apps.

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