Answering the question ‘how much does it cost to build an app like Uber’ is impossible without analyzing its features and their development cost.
Let’s review some of the key features that you’ll need to create for the riders-facing part of your app and how much money you’ll need to spend on each.
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. The best option is to allow social login by integrating your app with such popular social media platforms as Facebook and Instagram. Adding Google to the equation is always a smart idea.
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.
You can speed up the development process by integrating your app with Google Maps SDK for Android and MapKit for iOS.
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. For example, Uber relies on complex algorithms to calculate the ride price, including the base fare, type of vehicle, cost per minute, cost per mile, safe ride fees, and so on.
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. You can use notifications to keep users up to date with the latest updates of your application, discounts, special offers, and overall company changes.
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. That’s a useful feature that can save time when emergencies occur.
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.
Developing an MVP, you can go without this feature. But you’ll probably need to consider adding it during later development stages.
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. This is a nice-to-have feature that will be useful in cases when users need to cancel a rider or delay it.
Development time: 30-60 hours