As a startup founder, if you rely on manual processes like phone calls to increase bookings or use legacy systems to simplify your workflow, you risk losing market share and will struggle to scale—even if you have marketing funds to spend.
What if your customer base grows by 10% every day? While that's a significant problem, your outdated applications may not be scalable enough to meet the increasing demands. The result? Longer product launch times, frustrated customers, and reduced revenue.
Consider a grocery app without real-time tracking capabilities. Your customers remain unaware of their order status, and as a business owner, you have no visibility into where your delivery partners are on the road.
In the U.S., many local food delivery startups struggled early on because they lacked real-time order updates and efficient logistics management.
Customers quickly switched to the best on-demand applications like DoorDash and Uber Eats, which offer seamless tracking and timely notifications, setting a high bar for user experience.
In this blog, we'll cover everything you need to know about on-demand apps, including common features an app should have, a detailed checklist for creating a similar app, and its cost.
What is on-demand app development?
An on-demand application can be a mobile app or website that allows customers to request services whenever they want.
You can find on-demand apps in any field, ranging from education, healthcare, beauty, cargo, food delivery, etc.
These apps are on the rise because consumers can’t compromise with delays in products/services. On top of that, convenience is another driver that urges consumers to rely on such apps.
They order products using these apps because they crave instant satisfaction. For others, it can be time-saving with access to a wide range of products.
On-demand apps connect various service providers to customers. There is a certain fee that customers need to pay in exchange for the service.
Examples of on-demand applications include Uber for booking a cab, Airbnb for reserving accommodation, and Swiggy for ordering food.
Note: An on-demand application draws people’s attention if it’s easy to navigate and has a simple user interface.
Why should businesses create on-demand mobile applications?
On-demand apps are game changers for consumers because of their convenience, businesses that develop such mobile applications can expand their market reach, increase online visibility, and boost revenue.
By offering faster responses and modern ordering systems, they can avoid losing customers to competitors.
Let's talk about some popular benefits that on-demand platforms offer -
1. Increase user satisfaction
On-demand mobile apps, as the name suggests, are meant to satisfy the user's needs as and when they demand them. Best part? Users can instantly order products/services and get them right at their doorsteps.
Let's say a user orders a meal through a food delivery application and gets it instantly.
Similarly, there are on-demand doctor apps that allow patients to book an appointment with a doctor in advance.
If you're in the logistics and transportation space, you might add a real-time tracking feature that will help customers track the estimated delivery time. This will increase their satisfaction.
2. Reach your target audience on the go
On-demand delivery application increases your business reach and makes you a well-known distributor for products. It's like whenever a customer needs an instant service; they'd open your app and get the product delivered.
For instance – You may want to offer telemedicine and online healthcare services to the target audience, then you can create an on-demand health application.
3. Increases customer loyalty
Integration of features in delivery apps such as real-time order tracking, live customer support, and push notifications not only engages customers but also retains them for longer.
More than that, this app can be used as a marketing tool for promoting special offers or exclusive rewards that can turn your customers into LOYAL fans.
For instance – A user took a ride from Uber, and their experience was frustrating because they had to wait for long hours.
The rider posted a negative review and comments about the same.
The product team at Uber will work on this feedback and try improving or introducing a new feature in the long run.
4. Generate more revenue
The other benefit of building an on-demand app is that it generates a steady stream of revenue through subscriptions, in-app purchases, etc.
For instance – Spotify, a music streaming platform provides users with an ad-free music experience. They even introduced features such as listening to songs and podcasts in offline mode.
This on-demand entertainment app generates huge revenue for them from 239 million premium users. Customers pay a monthly or annual subscription fee in return for accessing thousands of songs and podcasts.
5. Low cost is involved
On-demand service applications require less investment than traditional software due to lower time and cost. If the app automates everything, like order tracking or order management, then your business requires fewer resources.
Fewer Resources = Lower Development Costs
One of the most effective ways to reduce your development expenses is by launching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Instead of building a full-featured app from the start, you focus on the core features that solve the main problem for your users.
For example, if you're building an e-commerce app, your MVP might include just three essential features -
- User Registration
- Placing orders
- Payment processing
By releasing this simplified version, you can quickly test how users interact with your app and whether it meets their basic needs.
This feedback helps you understand what features are truly valuable, so you avoid investing time and money into unnecessary functionalities.
As your business grows, you can scale your app by adding more features and allocating resources strategically, ensuring efficient use of your budget and development team.
6. Scale Your Services Efficiently
Like any technology product or platform, an on-demand app can scale flexibly based on your business needs.
When user numbers grow, the app should still deliver a smooth and reliable experience without lagging or crashing, allowing users to complete their actions seamlessly.
For instance, Dropbox started as a simple cloud storage solution and rapidly scaled its user base from 100,000 to 4 million in just 15 months.
Despite this explosive growth, Dropbox maintained performance and reliability, ensuring millions of users could access and share files effortlessly at any time.
This scalability is crucial for on-demand platforms to handle increased traffic while maintaining high-quality service.
What are the different types of on-demand applications?
On-demand apps have become essential for many businesses, offering instant access to services, products, or rentals.
There are three major categories of on-demand applications you can build for your business-
1. Service-Based Apps
These apps connect users with service providers, enabling easy booking and delivery of various services. The business acts as a platform facilitating interactions between customers and professionals.
Examples:
- Uber: Connects riders with drivers.
- UrbanClap (now Urban Company): Offers home services like cleaning, repairs, and beauty treatments.
- Netflix: Provides on-demand streaming of movies and shows.
2. Product-Based Apps
These apps allow users to order and receive physical products quickly, usually within a few hours.
Examples-
- Instacart is a grocery delivery service where a shopper picks items from local stores and delivers them to the customer's doorstep.
- GoPuff: Delivers daily essentials and snacks fast.
- Bloom & Wild: Specializes in flower delivery.
3. On-Demand Rental Apps
On-demand rental apps enable users to rent products or properties for a specific period, eliminating the need for long searches or complex negotiations.
Examples-
- Airbnb lets users rent accommodations for short stays. It offers easy browsing, booking, and communication with hosts. The app can also notify users when properties matching their preferences become available.
- Car rental apps: Allow users to rent cars for a defined duration within specific cities or regions, providing flexibility and convenience.
Rental apps extend beyond housing and vehicles, temporarily covering anything users need and streamlining access without ownership.
What are some popular examples of on-demand applications?
Let’s discuss a few examples of popular on-demand service apps-
1. Instacart
Instacart, an on-demand food delivery app (preferably popular in North America) allows customers to place orders for online groceries and receive them at their doorsteps within less than an hour.
It saves their searching time as they can browse the items, select them and add them to the cart. At the same time, it saves traveling time because they don’t have to spend countless hours visiting the stores in person.
2.UberEats
Uber Eats is another example of a successful on-demand food delivery application. It connects foodies with restaurants in one place.
Customers can enjoy their favorite meal at their doorsteps and restaurant owners can increase their reach by delivering the right food to the right customer at the right time. They do have Uber drivers who can handle the food deliveries.
3. Netflix
Netflix is an on-demand video streaming platform meant for entertainment purposes. Users can get access to a wide range of original series, films, documentaries, and more shows.
They just need to subscribe to any of their plans (basic or premium) and can enjoy the exclusive content on-demand.
4. Saucey
It’s an on-demand alcohol delivery app that delivers a wide range of alcoholic beverages (wine, beer, spirits, alcoholic mixers) to customers.
They can get the alcohol delivered within a few minutes. Users can either get instant alcohol delivery or they can schedule it at their convenience.
5. HBO Max
HBO Max is a leading on-demand entertainment platform that offers users access to an extensive library of movies, TV shows, and exclusive content. It’s designed to cater to the evolving needs of modern viewers who prefer flexibility and variety in their entertainment choices.
The best part?
Users can seamlessly stream content across multiple devices—be it smartphones, tablets, laptops, or smart TVs—ensuring a convenient and personalized viewing experience anytime, anywhere.
6. TaskRabbit
TaskRabbit is an on-demand home services platform that connects homeowners with skilled taskers who can help with everyday chores like cleaning, repairs, furniture assembly, and more.
Homeowners can browse profiles, compare pricing, and choose taskers based on their skills, availability, and past reviews. This makes it easy for users to find trustworthy help for their specific needs—whether it's fixing a leaky faucet or mounting a TV.
What are the common features of an on-demand application?
Before developing a fully-fledged on-demand application, you should have a clear idea as to who are the target users for this app.
Consider the parties involved in that, supposedly you develop a beauty or taxi app, then there are mainly 2 parties involved – one is a service provider, and the other is the customer. If you deal in food delivery applications – then a third party is involved, that’s the restaurant.
While creating an on-demand service app, keep a list of features handy with you for different app categories – customer app, service provider, and admin panel.
Features of on-demand application for customers
A customer-facing side of the app involves features related to browsing products, placing an order, making a payment, etc. Let’s discuss key features step by step –
1. Sign-up process/ Registration
This feature allows the users to register to the app using any of these methods – Google sign-up or log in through Facebook or Twitter accounts. You can even allow users to manually create their account through e-mail ID and password.
2. Notifications
An important way to hook the users on the app is by sending regular updates related to order delivery, payments, or completed orders. This way, they won’t miss any reminders from your side.
3. Geolocation
Geolocation is a must-have feature to track product delivery from the order confirmation stage to the delivery stage.
Customers can get an idea as to where the product has reached and when they will get it. Through real-time tracking, customers can have a piece of mind. You can integrate location services in iOS through the core location framework and Google location APIs in Android.
4. Payments
By adding multiple payment methods, you give freedom to users to make secure payments through any of their preferred payment choices such as PayPal, credit card, debit card, etc. The payments must be secure and end-to-end encrypted so no one can hack them.
5. Ratings and reviews
Through feedback, customers can share their experiences while using the app. This will help the future customers to make an informed choice. Thus, you can see which of your customers are satisfied and service providers can see whether they meet quality benchmarks or not.
6. Help desk support
Customers can reach out to help and support desk within the app if they face any problems. Such on-demand assistance increases your company’s reputation and enhances customer satisfaction.
To provide continuous support to your customers, you can integrate an AI-powered chatbot within the app.
Features of on-demand application for service providers
Here are some important features you can include while developing the on-demand app for service providers-
1. User registration
Service providers can sign up for the account by either logging through social media accounts or doing manual sign-up. Post that, they can enter the required brand information.
2. Push notifications
Just like a customer receives regular updates, service providers also need to be informed as and when the customer places an order.
3. Total earnings
The service provider can track the total earnings made from each order. This is an essential feature to include as customers receive orders using the app so they should know how much revenue is added to their earnings dashboard.
4. Accept/Reject service request
Service providers can either accept/reject the order request. It depends on them whether they have more capacity to take future orders or not.
5. Toggle between online and offline
Service providers can toggle between the online/offline buttons. They can enable the online mode when they’re ready to take orders. They can switch to offline mode when their working day is over.
Features of creating an on-demand service application for admin
An app administrator ensures that everything works smoothly between customers and service providers.
Let’s talk about the important features you should include in your on-demand app development process –
1. Intuitive Dashboard
The admin for the on-demand app can track and manage the activities of service providers and customers.
2. Manage users
The admin of the app should have access to the customer’s order details, payments, cancellation charges, or any rewards or offers.
3. Manage service providers
Here, admins can track the activities and monitor their performance on an ongoing basis. They can see their rates, how customers like it, and any bonuses they earn during a certain period.
4. Detailed reports
The admin can see detailed insights about customers and service providers such as accepted orders, canceled requests, total earnings of service providers, and how many repeated customers they have.
This feature can extract hidden gems that you won’t even know and it’s impacting your business operations. Thus, you can fine-tune the app and make strategies to increase user engagement.
5. Charges
Admin manager can change the rates and tweak the commission charges as per the current demand. If the current demand for a product/service is more, then they would increase the commission charges and vice versa.
What are the steps involved in on-demand application development?
To create a successful on-demand service application, you should keep a few things in mind such as who is your target customer, what customers struggle with, and how your app solves that problem.
Let’s discuss a quick walkthrough of how to create an on-demand application –
The first step involved in creating an on-demand app starts with doing market research. Mobile app market research involves defining your business goals, identifying your audience problems, and doing a competitor analysis to see how you can make your app stand out.
Identify who your target audience is. Know your audience demographics such as age, location, budget, interest, preferences, etc. You need to gather every minute detail about your audience so you can give them a personalized experience.
Based on this analysis, you can decide about the app design and features.
Ultimately, your goal is to create a 10x better product than your competitors.
2. Select a niche for on-demand app
The next step is about deciding a niche for your on-demand app. Don’t get lost in a niche that your competitors are in. Find the one which has a demand in the market and people love doing that.
You can find plenty of on-demand app development services such as food delivery, home services, healthcare, flight booking apps, video streaming apps, etc.
3. Decide the core features of your application
After picking the niche for your on-demand app, you can create a bunch of features that you think are important for solving audience problems. Here are some features you can start with –
- User login
- Ratings and reviews
- Customer support
- Payment gateways
- Push notifications
- Geolocation
4. Select the right technology stack
The next step involved is deciding the technology stack (programming languages, database, cloud services) for on-demand app development. The objective isn’t to create visually appealing apps, but rather make them functionally effective.
For creating the front side of things such as user interfaces, we use React, Angular, and Vue frameworks.
Our dedicated development team uses Ruby on Rails for handling backend or server-side things. For creating iOS apps, our software developers use Swift as their go-to programming language.
While we use Kotlin for creating scalable Android apps. For developing cross-platform apps, we use Flutter or React Native frameworks.
Cloud platforms such as AWS and Google Cloud will be primarily used to meet scalability requirements.
For third-party integrations, the following tech stack is used –
- Stripe and PayPal for payment processing.
- Twilio and Firebase for messaging functionality.
- Geolocation services can be integrated using Google Maps API.
5. Hire an on-demand app development company
Partnering with an app development agency is a game changer for your business as you get access to technical experts who’ve already worked in this field. You can get long-term support and maintenance services if your application faces technical glitches or bugs.
On top of that, hiring on-demand app developers saves you time and money. You’d have full control over the app development process. This way, you can use that saved time for doing strategic activities.
6. Create the MVP version of the product
Don’t jump to create a fully-fledged app. Instead, spend some time on creating MVP which is the sure shot way to validate your app idea. By creating a minimal version (addition of core features), you can get feedback from users as to whether your business idea is feasible or not.
Once you get the feedback, you can tweak the app features and enhance its functionality accordingly. You will save your funds for this project in the long run as you won’t spend extra time and money on adding unnecessary features that your customers won’t love.
7. Create the final app
Here, you need to create a final version of the app and launch it across various platforms (iOS, Android, and web). Test the app to resolve any bugs and issues that affect the app’s performance.
Once the app is free from bugs, you can deploy it on stores such as the App Store in the case of Apple and the Play Store in the case of Android.
How Much Does it Cost to Build an On-demand Service App?
The cost of developing an on-demand service application ranges between $30,000 -$150,000 and more than that. This is a rough estimate as development cost varies depending on how many additional functionalities you add.
The cost might vary depending on various factors such as the hours required to develop an app, the number and complexity of features you add, the location of the development team, and more.
Now, different apps are developed for end users, the cost might rise. It also depends on the case whether you want to develop a basic app or a complex on-demand service application. The cost varies in both cases.
The on-demand app development cost might increase if you add third-party integrations with your apps such as payment gateways, and geolocation services. Additionally, if you develop an app for a single platform, then the development cost would be higher.
Alternatively, if you create a cross-platform application, then it would be cost-effective for you. If you go with the MVP version, then the cost would be a little less than developing a full-fledged app.
How Much Time Does It Take to Develop an On-demand Application?
There is no fixed tenure in creating an on-demand service delivery application. The timeframe differs depending on how complex the application is, the design of the app, the features you add, and the size of the development team.
On average, it would require 3-4 months to create a simple on-demand application. While the timeline might increase if you plan to develop a complex application (somewhere around 6 to 9 months).
At the same time, you can’t skip the old-school development process which usually starts with market research, designing, development, testing, etc.
How BigOhTech can help you with on-demand app development?
Creating a successful on-demand service delivery application takes time, effort, and a clear understanding of user needs. Once you enter the market, you’ll have the opportunity to reach more users and generate higher revenue.
However, building a game-changing app isn’t just about writing great code—it’s about delivering an experience your users can’t live without.
If you don’t have an experienced team of on-demand developers with the right skill set, partnering with an app development agency can be a smart and profitable choice.
As an app development company, we create engaging and scalable on-demand applications for different industries such as logistics, aviation, healthcare, travel, hospitality etc.
For instance, we recently partnered with Careem, a cab-for-hire organization, to develop user-friendly Android and iOS apps. These apps enable guests and hotel lobby staff to book rides seamlessly, anytime, anywhere.
This project contributed to Careem’s rapid growth, ultimately leading to Uber’s acquisition of the company for its competitive market advantage.
If you too want to mark a presence in the digital world, then tell us your business requirements and we’d love to convert your business idea into reality.
