How to Make An App Like Uber for a Taxi Business
Whenever there is an opportunity, a savvy entrepreneur with a futuristic vision always nails an innovative idea. Uber did the same by making a luxurious service quite affordable for daily commutes - the on-demand taxi service. In fact, Uber offers the service in comparatively a more valuable way than what on-demand taxi services used to offer way back in time.
Just see the costs of booking - they were too high; calling over the phone was the medium to book; no other way to track real-time location, except for calling the driver just to get an answer like “on the way, will be there in 5 minutes”. In a previous article, we talked about how to create a sports betting site in France.
This is what Uber did to nail this service marketplace industry:
Uber does not disclose its market share data. However, trusting on credible sources, we can say it shares 70-72 % of the US ride-sharing market. Now, let us see its competitor Lyft, which shares 30% of the US ride-sharing market. 2 years ago, this stat was somewhere around 20%. With this projection, one can assume that Lyft is also making a good impression and would continue to grow. (Source).
Considering the performances of both the business in the same niche, it would not be a vague claim that ride-sharing is a profitable niche. Starting an Uber-like business would be a good idea, depending on the market in your locality.
So, if you think you possess a great business idea to nail the ride-sharing business in the local or the market abroad, this article is for you.
Let’s understand the business model, key partners, and key touchpoints involved in a typical online ride-sharing service.
A taxi business like Uber constitutes three key partners:
In technical terms, when you are developing an app like Uber, you can also call these key partners as three actors on the app.
Each of these mobile apps would offer some definite set of features and functionalities to each key partner.
An Uber-like ride-sharing business works on on-demand service delivery model. Like every other business in the niche, the taxi service can offer two payment options to the customers:
Digital payments can be classified into various categories depending on the medium. You can allow the media like:
Revenue from customers
The best-suited revenue model that supports the above monetization methods is –Transactional model. Users pay the fare once billed. The final billing is done only after completing the ride. It is also important to note that both driver's and customer's mobile app should offer real-time notification to let the two key partners know the bill amount.
So, the Transaction revenue model equipped with real-time billing and invoice generation is the most suitable design for a ride-sharing business like Uber. You can start a successful business if you develop a marketplace like Amazon, read in our last article.
Revenue from Drivers
The revenue model that suits here is commission based method. Drivers would be paying commission to the admin on each ride they complete. Admin receives the payments from the customers. After deducting the applied commissions, a weekly or monthly billing can be done for the accumulated funds to the drivers. Admin can transfer the drivers’ funds with any digital medium like PayPal or wire transfer.
Additional revenue - Cancellation and waiting charges
Cancellation and waiting time management is a whole separate feature in itself. All three touchpoints must be in perfect sync to let every key partner stay aware of the additional charges. For cancellation charges, the billing can be done on the user's next ride billing right after the canceled ride. For waiting charges, Admin can set up per-minute cost and bill the same on the final billing of the current ride. Depending on the business policies, Admin may choose to share these two revenues with the drivers.
However, if we talk specifically about an Uber clone app, it must offer the following features to establish an uncompromised user experience like uber:
So, the following features for an Uber Admin are a must:
This is the number of people required to develop all three touchpoints for an Uber-like business. Let's not forget the marketing professionals. Moreover, this is when you are developing an app-only business i.e. not offering website version to the customers.
Considering the cost of resources and compensations to each professional, the total cost of development would rise as high as $95,000 to $100,000. It excludes the cost of hosting and server management for each.
Script-cloning is a business methodology utilized by software vendors. They apply all the approaches and costs explained in the above section to develop a software. Such software is developed taking a popular and similar software as a base. This is done so that business aspirants can easily comprehend what this particular software is all about - also called as a clone script.
Once ready, the clone script is put on sale as a ready-made solution. These scripts are also called turnkey business solutions as they save the time and money that would have been spent to develop the software from scratch.
An Uber clone script:
Did you know that a single Uber clone script can help you launch an array of businesses based on the on-demand business model? You can start businesses like on-demand medicine delivery, beauty services, mechanic service, cooking gas delivery, food delivery service, and much more like this.
Do you have any such business idea that can be launched on Uber’s on-demand service model? Our readers would love to multiply their knowledge with your ideas.