Summary: In the era of smartphones, convenience is key. The evolving grocery apps are a part of it. These grocery apps changed traditional shopping methods and introduced new smart shopping. Read the article to know about the cost to build a platform like Instacart.

Introduction

Anyone can get their desired groceries or other household items from local stores without visiting the store. Users can just browse and pick the groceries they need.

Without leaving home, users will get the groceries they want with just a few clicks. Users can browse through different local stores and pick the product they want. It would be delivered at a time that users choose.

This convenient shopping saves the time of users in their busy schedules. This is an advantage to people who want to avoid the crowded billing line. If you want to launch a feature-rich platform like Instacart, then this article will be your helping guide.

The rapid grocery delivery is way more convenient than the conventional delivery. Read more to know about on-demand delivery app development.

How does Instacart work?

For users:

Ordering

The user opens the Instacart app or website and browses through the product list of their favorite grocery stores.

Checkout

Once the user is done shopping, they can proceed to checkout. After users can review their order and choose the desired delivery time.

Shopping

A shopper or a delivery person assigned by Instacart, will receive your order and go to the store to pick up your items. The delivery guy will go through users’ orders and pick the products that the user wants. If the user mentions any special requirements the delivery guy will take note of it and do it as per the user’s wish.

Delivery

After the shopper completes shopping, they will deliver the groceries to the user’s doorstep within the chosen delivery time.

Convenience

Now, the user receives their groceries without leaving home. It saves the users time and effort. Users can unpack their items and enjoy their fresh groceries right away. This delivery is completely optional. Instacart enables users to pick their offer from the store without wasting time by waiting in a long line.

How does Instacart make money?

Instacart has diverse revenue streams. But it won’t demand any commissions from the stores for the orders placed through the app.

Markup price

Some stores sell groceries at the same price they offer in-store. But few shops markup 15% more than the actual price. The profit from this goes to Instacart to help buy its products.

Delivery price

Instacart delivers orders with a value of at least $10. Also for same-day orders above $35, Instacart charges $3.99. But it is an exception for Instacart+ users. Users that have Instacart+ subscriptions don’t have to pay these extra chargers.

Membership fee

The well-known Instacart membership program saves time and money. The users of this program don’t need to pay delivery orders above $35. Also, the service fee is lower. This program comes with a 14-day free trial. After that 99$ charged annually to the users.

Service fee

Instacart charges service fees to cover a wide range of operating costs. This covers insurance, background checks, customer support, and shopper operations. It is crucial to address that pickup orders have no service fees to pay.

Pickup fee

Apps like Instacart make money out of the pickup fees they collect from consumers.

Certain retailers demand pickup fees just like delivery fees.

Partner payments

Instacart also makes money by charging from its partner. To integrate with Instacart’s services, businesses like Kroger, Costco, and many more have partnered with Instacart. Every partner platform generates revenue through the commissions per order.

How much does it cost to develop grocery app like instacart?

While building an app the complexity and the available resources are the cost-determining features.

The cost of building an app varies based on the demographics. Check out below for an example of country-wise grocery develivery app development.

USA -$70-150$ per hour 

Europe-$30-100$ per hour 

Asia -$10-40$ per hour 

In total, to build a platform like Instacart can cost $50,000 or higher if you consider 30$ per hour. Moreover, the complexity of the platform and the location of the development team determines the cost of the development.

The process of developing an app like Instacart

The development process for creating a feature-rich grocery delivery app involves several stages. Each stage is aimed at bringing the app from an idea to a fully functional product.

Here’s a simplified explanation:

Ideation: This step involves market research, knowing the customer needs, and identifying the special features that will make you stay ahead of your competitors.

Planning: Start planning after identifying your requirements. Choose an iPhone app development company  If you want to launch your app on the Apple platform.

This step includes deciding the app’s features, user interface, and customer strategy of Instacart app, and planning the technical requirements.

Design: This stage is dedicated to the UI and UX designs. This step involves creating visuals like layouts, colors, and fonts which will make the app easier to use for customers.

Development: The development phase is where the app is built. This step involves writing code to implement the features and functionality that are outlined in the planning stage. Hire iPhone app developers who will create the app you desire.

You can also choose mobile app development companies in Canada that use programming languages and frameworks to create the app’s front end (what users see) and back end (the server-side logic).

Testing: After the app is built, it needs to be tested thoroughly. This ensures that it works properly and meets your requirements. This testing stage includes functional testing to check all features of the app whether they are working properly or not. This also tests the usability of the app.

Deployment: After the testing, the app is ready to go to the app stores such as Google Play and Apple App Store. So the users can install it on their devices. This step involves preparing the app for release and submitting it to the app stores. Also, the toughest part of this step is managing the release process.

Maintenance and Updates: After the app is live, the task doesn’t end there. It’s crucial to monitor the app regularly for any issues or bugs that may arise and to provide usual updates with fresh features. These improvements are usually based on user feedback; sometimes it may be any trending feature that will improve the app’s user-friendliness. Hire on demand app developers who will make your coding journey easier.

Conclusion

Clearly described above were the ins and outs of Instacart to help you make informed decisions. The cost of creating an app mostly depends on your requirements. So plan your needs wisely. If you want to learn more, hire app developers who know the nooks and corners of app development.