Updated Date: June 16, 2023 
People don’t hail taxis, they Uber. So, Uber is not just a company anymore; it has become a verb for grabbing a taxi. Uber has become the lifeblood of big metropolitan cities where commercial taxis are the best way to travel to and fro. And today we will be answering the question, how much did the Uber app cost to make and can you make such an app too?
It’s the perfect middle ground between owning a car and choosing public transports like buses, trams, or the subway. No worries about paying EMIs for a car, maintenance or fuel costs, and no need to wait for the next bus or subway train to come.
Book an Uber with just a few taps, and you will be picked up and dropped at your preferred location at your preferred time.
Let’s juice up our conversation with some interesting statistics about Uber.
- Uber serves about 93 million active users all throughout the year.
- 1.44 billion rides are completed through the app every quarter, and this number is rising each year.
- According to Grand View Research, the US market will grow at a 10.4% CAGR.
- Uber’s total market share in the US was 68% when this decade started. This will rise towards the decade continuing.
- 5 cities alone contribute 22% of Uber’s gross ridesharing bookings.
Uber’s monthly active user base has grown at a CAGR of 48.74%. This growth will decrease over time, but on the other hand, the ratio of active app users will see a steady rise.
All these numbers and growth ratios would be enough to make a blind man see how profitable the Uber cab business model is. But how could one launch an on-demand taxi service like Uber? And more importantly, what would it cost?
Let’s find out.
But first, let’s see if this idea is actually right for you.
Who Should Launch A Taxi App Like Uber?
If you consider investing your time, money, and every other resource behind a business idea, you should be really sure it’s what you would love to build and grow for years to come.
So, should you build a taxi app like Uber?
The first rule of entrepreneurship is to get only into a business that you know inside out. At least, if you have the right people who know the business and make it easy for you to understand and run the business.
So, do you know how taxi services work and all the intricacies of on-demand cab services? If you already own a taxi service that works on the offline model, you are the perfect candidate to launch a cab service app like Uber.
If you already own an active cab network in your city or state, you need to digitize it to access all the customers who prefer online taxi booking. It’s like running your business on steroids, some grade-A digital steroids.
In simple terms,
(a) If you already run a taxi service,
(b) Planning to acquire a taxi business,
(c) Partner with existing taxi companies
Launching a taxi app like Uber will be the best business move ahead. But what is the process and development cost of building an Uber-like taxi app? You’ll find out soon.
Note: If you own and run only a single taxi, you can collectively start an on-demand taxi service with your handful of fellow taxi driver friends. As the profits start to pour in, you can buy more cars and expand.
What Are The Development Phases Of Taxi App?
Now comes the most important section, which will answer your two questions, how and how much. How to make an app like Uber, and how much does it cost to build an app like Uber?
The entire app development process is divided into 5 phases, as follows:
Requirement Analysis
You may know the business, but do you understand every aspect of it and have you created a business and development plan for the project? To do all of that, you need someone with experience and knowledge in gathering, analyzing, and documenting your business requirements to draft an Uber startup cost breakdown.
Business Analysts are individuals skilled in converting your app requirements into a feasible project timeline calculating the hours required to meet your development needs and the cost per hour charged by the development resources or company.
Usually, the requirement analysis takes about 20 to 30 hours, multiplied by the per hour rate (Be patient, we’ll talk about the per hour rates in the next module.)
Designing A Taxi Service App
Once the technical document is done, next comes the officially first step of the app development process—the design of the taxi app like Uber. Designer(s) understand your vision for your taxi service app and draw it out on the digital canvas.
You are shown mockups and app wireframes, and after lots of discussions and debate, you finalize the best app UI/UX design. Designing is not just drawing out 5-10 app pages. Designing your complete app, dispatcher panel, admin dashboard, website, and even your logo, everything comes under design.
The app designers will be making every button, box, color scheme, dialogue box, and every single thing you see on the screen. And they do this for each and every screen of your app, whether it be 50 or 500. It’s a long and tiresome process but filled with creativity and ideas.
The hours taken in designing your app screens, logo, color scheme, etc., depends on the complexity of the designs and the number of screens you plan to have for your on-demand cab service app. The designing phase could take anywhere between 200 to 500 hours.
On-Demand Taxi App Development
Now we get to the crown of the jewel called mobile app development. It’s the development phase of this entire project. You need a team of seasoned developers (both frontend and backend) to develop your taxi app. Let’s explore both these segments of app development in detail.
-Frontend Development
The frontend development is realizing the app designs that the app designers create. Simply said, the app wireframe is developed element by element in the frontend development phase. Every button, dialogue box, everything that you can see is converted into a responsive element with frontend coding.
This development phase is not limited to just the app; it is done for the dispatcher panel, admin panel, and even your business website. All of these deliverables are first designed by the designing team. The frontend development team then codes and converts it all into an actionable digital platform.
The length and cost of the frontend development phase depend on how many deliverables are needed.
For instance, if you wish to develop the passenger and driver app only for the Android platform and an admin panel, there will be 3 deliverables. On the other hand, if you want apps for both Android and iOS, a dispatcher panel, an admin dashboard, and a website, then there are 7 deliverables.
So, the frontend of the low number of deliverables project could take anywhere around 400 hours to 600 hours, while the high number of deliverables could take 1500 to 1800 hours.
-Backend Development
You can consider that the mobile app is like the tip of an iceberg, which means a huge iceberg underneath keeps the tip floating above. That iceberg is the backend.
Just because you can toggle a switch from your app doesn’t mean it will work. The gesture needs a connected system that understands and responds accordingly. In simple words, when you press a button on your app, there needs to be a system that actually executes your command.
That system is the app’s back end, and it is developed by (you guessed it) backend developers. Backend development may not seem as cool as frontend, but it’s the entire base and structure supporting and holding the digital business entity together.
A taxi app’s backend development entails setting up servers, storing and retrieving data, and the interface that connects with the frontend app. So, the backend will be a single deliverable that is connected with all the frontend deliverables.
The time taken to develop the backend of a taxi app service like Uber will depend on the list of features and the standard of encryption, server capabilities, among many other factors. If we try to put a range, backend development could take anywhere from 500 hours to 800 hours.
QA Testing
QA testing is an important but often neglected phase in Uber-like taxi app development projects. It’s when professionals test your entire taxi service app solution to find any bugs or errors.
These tests are essential to ensure that the app works seamlessly and there is no issue that the users, drivers, or dispatchers will face. Usually, the development company that you hire will also provide their own tester if you choose to avail that service. You can also test your app from a professional tester of your own reference.
If the tester finds any bugs or issues, it is sent back to the developers for resolution and then tested again by the QA tester. Depending on the app’s size, features, and the number of app screens, the QA testing phase could take about 150 to 250 hours.
App Launch
Your on-demand taxi service app is ready for the world to see and avail. So how to make it happen? Launching an app is more complicated than just flipping a switch. You need to acquire various certificates from the app marketplace you plan to launch.
Also, you need to create a developer account for those app marketplaces. You need to upload the app to the store, actively maintaining the app connected with the backend servers. It’s a big task which needs to be done perfectly, and the team that built your app would be the best fit to help you launch it.
The usual time frame to launch a taxi app would be around 60 to 100 hours.
Which Are The Various Taxi Development Approaches?
Looking at the hours, you may be feeling a bit light-headed by thinking of the Uber-like app development cost. There is some good news here that we’d like to share. App development is not a linear process with just one path; you can develop your Uber-like taxi app in several different ways.
All the different ways of app development have their pros and cons. So, let’s take a look at them and then it’s up to you how you want to build your Uber-like on-demand cab application.
Custom Taxi App Development
First up on our list is the most popular approach, custom application development from scratch. If you have a good chunk of budget to invest into your on-demand taxi app development, this is the best option to go with.
With custom Uber-like app development, you hire an entire team of developers from a reputed app development company. This assigned team will do all the development work that we talked about above. All you have to do is provide them with your vision, pay them based on the decided project milestones, and attend periodic meetings to get the project updates.
In simple terms, it’s like outsourcing your entire technical app development job to a certified team of professionals while you can focus on your strong suit, your business. But how much does custom Uber app development cost? It depends on several factors, we’ll talk about it in the next section, but a broad range could be anywhere from $25 to $150 per hour for custom app development.
If you are a small business that cannot afford to have such costly resources for app development, there are a few other cost-effective options.
Hiring A Freelancer To Build Your Taxi App
So, custom app development seems too costly, right? Well, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. A very cost-effective approach to custom app development is hiring freelance developers and designers. There are several freelancing platforms online where you can look for coders and designers that can build your taxi service app. The charge of their freelance services ranges anywhere from $10 to $250 per hour.
You must know that a developer charging $10 will never be as good as one charging $250. So, although freelance development is cheap, you need to ask yourself is freelancing appropriate for your project needs.
There have always been some concerns with choosing freelance developers, like there is no guarantee of the app development completion within the decided project timeline. There have also been too many instances where some freelancers abandon projects in between the development and go off-grid.
Another big issue is that you will have to communicate with all the different freelancers that you hire. Meaning, you’ll end up leading the entire app development project, which will affect all the other aspects of your business handling.
If you are still comfortable risking money with a freelancer and hold the technical skills to lead the development team, you can go for this option. Personally speaking, only a handful of projects done this way do good, and the ratio is slimmer than a knife edge.
Uber-Like Clone App Solution
What if you wish to have a custom development service at the (approximate) price point of freelance development? There is an option that brings you the best of both worlds. Purchasing an Uber app clone solution is the best option for you.
With a clone app solution, you could cut down the Uber app development cost to probably a fraction of the custom taxi app development price. You must be scratching your head, thinking how it is even possible? Let’s put your doubt to rest.
Clone apps have a common code script based on the best app active in the market, in this case, Uber. It means that a large chunk of the code is pre-written and you just need to change and tweak the code as per your particular requirements and app vision.
This approach helps avoid hundreds of hours of coding that is the base of the app, as those basic code blocks are more or less the same. However, the trick is to find and get a reputed app development company to do this for you, probably a company like aPurple with precise clone app delivery process and years of experience, specifically with creating taxi apps.
Choosing the correct taxi clone app solution for your business would cost you anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000, depending on several factors (which you will find in the below segment).
Factors Affecting The Uber Like App Development Cost
We talked multiple times across the blog about some factors that affect the Uber app development costing. Now it’s time to learn about them.
Number of Deliverables
The first thing to consider is, what do you want from this app development project? Not metaphorically, but actually. How many apps, dispatcher panel, website, admin panel, etc. That’s deliverables.
For instance, Sam wants only two apps (passenger & driver) for Android and a dispatcher panel; that will be 3 deliverables. On the other hand, Dave needs four apps in total for Android and iOS platforms. He also needs an admin dashboard, dispatcher panel, and a functional website. This would take Dave’s deliverables to 7.
Naturally, Dave’s taxi app development project will cost much higher than Sam’s.
Resource’s Geography Location
The geographical location of the resources you hire depends a lot on the price. The cost of living and running a business is higher in countries like the US and UK, making resources quite costly to obtain from these places.
On the other hand, countries like the Philippines or Bangladesh may offer cheap resources, but their infrastructure is often not capable enough to host a project like yours.
India is one of the countries that offer the perfect balance to costing and services offered. It’s a country with a lower cost of living and a high educational background in technical streams like IT and computer engineering.
Resource Experience
Will a singer with no experience charge the same as a Grammy-awarded singer? Obviously not. So, the experience of the resource is also an important factor while calculating the per hour development cost. An experienced senior developer can resolve the same issues in an hour which may take a fresher two days. But this extensive experience will come at a significant cost.
App Design Complexity
Do you recall the massively wide hour range for the app design phase? The reason for that wide range is the app’s complexity. If you settle upon a straightforward and basic app design, then the hours will be less. But if your vision requires complex designing across several app screens, it will take a lot more hours.
In simple words, if your app only has five features and 15 screens, it will take a short time to design. But if your app has about 20 features, 80 screens, and all of them with high-end design, the designing phase will run long.
App Features
The number of app features and its complexity levels also play a huge role in total development hours and its cost. If your on-demand taxi service app only has basic cab booking and payment features, the cost will be low.
As you increase the complexity with features like live-tracking, in-app wallet, SOS feature, etc., the development will take longer. More complex logic needs to be applied, and more APIs integrated, increasing the work hours and, in turn, per-hour costing.
Besides all, there are many elements that add to the cost of your app development. However, we would suggest you get in touch with an app development company that can assist on your project needs and share with you an appropriate cost.
Cost to Build an App like Uber – Revealed!
Since you are convinced that going for Uber-like app development will help you make a good revenue, let’s dig deeper into this.
You will be able to decide your approach better by looking at the Uber app development cost below:
- Hire a freelancer – Every freelancer is different. Hence, the services can range anywhere from $10 to $250 per hour.
- Uber Clone app solution – $10,000 to $30,000.
- Custom taxi app development – $25 to $150 per hour.
However, these are tentative estimates. You can reach out to us if you have a different budget or any other concerns.
Conclusion- Time To Build Your Taxi App Like Uber
We hope this blog helped you learn everything that we aimed for. You must be familiar with all the app development phases and every major factor that affects its pricing. Now you know how much an app like uber costs to build.
The next logical step is to finalize your approach to app development and choose the right resources for your on-demand cab service development project.
