Founded in 2009, Uber has quickly got on the list of the most cloned apps. Apart from taxi applications, many other enterprises are looking to develop something similar to Uber business model with small adjustments to apply to other industries.
Uber changed the way of communication between the driver and the passenger and created a different atmosphere that can be called Uber philosophy. So, what makes Uber concept so attractive and how much would it cost to build an app like Uber? Before we proceed, keep in mind that no one can actually estimate the exact cost of developing an app like Uber. As it mostly depends on a vast variety of different aspects such as:
- Developers’ rate
- List of features
- App architecture
- And many others
So, in this article, we will break down the entire development process and thus the cost of the Uber-like application. To understand what makes the price, you need to know what makes Uber Uber.
How Does Uber Work
Uber is the app for ordering a taxi, used by millions of people all over the globe. One can book a cab in a couple of taps on their smartphones, and the nearest car will come in minutes. Just like other taxi booking apps with some Uber exceptions, the logic of the app consists of the following steps:
- Request
- Acceptance
- Ride
- Payment
- Rating
From the developer’s side the app is divided into two stand-alone apps that function differently but may have overlapping features:
- Passenger app – for users who order a taxi
- Driver app – for drivers who give you a ride
Uber Functionality
| Passenger App | Driver App |
| Registration/login: user can register with an existing social media account or create a new one. | Registration/verification: driver provides personal data and gets approval by an administrator. |
| Car booking: user enters address to call a taxi to, selects a cab type (or specific driver), sets a location for pickup. | Booking: driver can accept or deny the incoming order, see the customer’s location, contact information, booking history. |
| Tracking: user can track driver’s location, add a stop during a ride, change the route etc. | Navigation: driver can see the optimal route to the passenger (Google Maps or Google Places is used). |
| Price calculator: calculates the cost of a ride for a certain cab type before ordering. | Cost estimation: ensures the count of trip cost. |
| Push notifications: user can stay updated on order status, estimated time of taxi arrival, and other details like car model, license plate, etc. | Push notifications: driver gets for order alerts such as location, payment, route, order completion, etc. |
| Payment: user has an option to pay cashless via credit card or plain in cash, gets an invoice to e-mail/phone. | |
| Messaging, ratings, reviews, booking history. | Reports, messaging, support, history of booking. |
| Admin Dashboard Additionally, for managing all the processes and drivers from a central point, an admin panel is required. It is a web-based application that facilitates interactions with passengers, tracks drivers’ activity, manages ride routes, payments, trip invoices and all other data. The scope of admin panel depends on the requirements and can vary. | |
How To Make an App Like Uber
For that scope of work (even for MVP version) required for an app like Uber, native development is the best possible option. This means that app will be programmed separately for each of the target platforms, using native programming languages for development. This approach can ensure such essentials for an on-demand taxi service as security, stability, and access to such inbuilt capabilities as maps and geolocation.
For those, who want to develop their Uber-like app, Uber disclosed its API to the public and introduced its affiliate program. In order to deal with lots of user requests and huge data massive, you will need your own server.
App Components And Technologies
Omitting some optional but not crucial stages of pre-development, let’s briefly view the main aspects of the Uber-like app development with some technologies applied.
- UX/UI
- Native iOS application
- Native Android application
- Web and backend development (Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails)
- QA
| iOS | Android | |
| GPS | MapKit, CoreLocation framework, OpenStreetMap API. | Google Maps, Google Location Services API or OpenStreetMap API. |
| Communication | Apple Push Notification Service. For SMS Twilio or Plivo, Nexmo, Tropo. | Google Cloud Messaging Service, Google Firebase. For SMS Twilio or Plivo, Nexmo, Tropo. |
| Payment | Stripe, BrainTree, Paytm, PayPal mobile SDK | |
Ballpark Figures For Uber Development
The exact app development cost is hard to calculate as it depends on the general time spent on implementing the core functionality of the app. It might appear to be that some features are not applied to your version of Uber. So, detailed technical specifications are highly recommended before any line of code has been written. Below, we have tried to provide an average time required for Uber-like app functionality implementation.
Hourly rates may differ from the country of developer’s location. The cheapest rate you can get in Asia will be around $15 – 25, $40 – 80 for Europe and $100 – 150 in UK/USA/Canada.
| iOS application | Android application | |
| UX/UI | from 80 | |
| App Development | 200 | 220 |
| Backend development | from 250 | |
| QA / PM | from 200 | |
| Hours total | 740 | 760 |
To summarise
As you can see the total number of hours and thus the cost for Uber-like app implementation completely depends upon specifications. For such types of apps that are considered to be complex apps, it is strongly recommended to approach only professional, highly qualified companies. They often provide a wide range of service and can demonstrate a proven track record of delivered similar apps, which should be a starting point in your decision making.
