How to Make a Rideshare App? Top Features, Plan & Cost Estimation

Create your own ridesharing App with this elaborate guide on planning and executing a successful rideshare business plan.

The concept of ridesharing is very appreciated because of its fare structure and control on fuel consumption. Hence, many Ridesharing apps like Grab, BlaBlacar, Lyft, etc. are most popular in the youth nowadays, which provides the best experience to the users.

Ridesharing is becoming a great startup idea. As a result, the biggest rideshare app company, Grab as well as the on-demand taxi company, Uber jumped into this lucrative idea of ride sharing years before anyone else thought about it. Since then, the rideshare market has only seen rapid growth in users.

This blog is for all the aspiring entrepreneurs and startups who want to start their own ride-sharing company with a Mobile app. So, we cover here the foolproof rideshare business plan to create your own rideshare app.

But before we dive deep, here’s a 101 lesson on what is Ridesharing business model with the complete ride description.

What is Ridesharing App?

First, let us learn how Ride-Sharing private cab booking service is different from normal taxi service.

A Ridesharing mobile app idea  has many small differences compared to a normal taxi service, but the key difference would be that a ridesharing app would let you host a ride.

Simply said, unlike normal taxi apps that only gives a private ride option, with a ride-sharing app like Uber or Grab, you can find fellow riders. So, the people who are heading to the same destination or somewhere along your route and can share a ride with you by splitting the taxi fare.

Best Apps for Rideshare Drivers & Passengers

New Comers in Ridesharing Market (Uber like Apps)

How Ride-Sharing App Works?

A Ride-Sharing Taxi App has 6 Steps of Working

Step 1:Requesting a car instantly for the ride using the ride sharing app. Further, this request goes to the nearby driver that the customer chooses.

Step 2:Matching occurs if the driver accepts the request of the customer to provide the ride. Moreover, the driver has an option to decline the request if not comfortable with the pickup or drop location or is busy with some other work.

Step 3:Hosting a ride. If the passengers want to split the fare and save some bucks, they can host a ride by broadcasting their route and drop point of the ride. So, interested riders can send a request to the host passengers to share the ride.

Step 4:The Ride begins when the host accepts a request and two or more passengers share the ride to their respective drop points.

Step 5:Make Payment with cash or go with other cashless options, whichever is comfortable for the passengers. So, they can split the ride fare equally or calculate according to individual traveling distance.

Step 6:Rating the driver. The passengers (host and guest) can give ratings to each other if the Ride Sharing App Company wants to gather such information about the users.

How to Make A Rideshare App?

How to start a rideshare business? What benefits can you avail with rideshare app development?? What will be the cost? How to create a ride-sharing app?

If your mind is flooded with these kinds of questions, then, you are on the right track.

The Ridesharing service can be financially beneficial for customers as well as immensely profitable for the drivers; and the most profiting stakeholder is the admin (you, the business owner) that makes the commission cuts from each ride.

There are many factors to consider before creating a Ridesharing app like Uber.

Here’s the 3 step plan you need to follow:

1. Research the Top Rideshare App

Taller the building, deeper the foundation. To clarify, research is the strongest aspect of building your business without spending any money. So, break down your main question “how to start a ride sharing business?” into small sections, and you will get detailed answers for all your question regarding how to create a ride sharing app.

Know your Competition

Google is the best and efficient research tool and it’s absolutely free. So, you need to begin by learning about the existing competition in your city. Also, companies like Uber, Lyft, and Grab ridesharing are also failing to make a profit in some cities. So, you need to find out why and avoid those mistakes.

Visit their local website and check for customer reviews. Most importantly, you will get the best tips from the reviews of the customers. In addition, focus more on how your ridesharing Services business will solve the problems that riders are facing with other such taxi business startups.

Find Your Target Customer

Creating a ridesharing app based business is quite different from normal taxi app services, so you need to know your potential market.

For instance, if you decide to make a Ridesharing app for Beverly Hills, you are doomed to fail as people in such posh areas will not even book a personal cab, let alone book your a rideshare service.

But, at the same time if you start carpooling and ridesharing service business in the busy streets of New York or London, you will get many fold success in your venture.

The reason is the majority of people who are willing to split taxi fare to save money. So, you need to find the perfect city to start your carpooling and ride sharing business. This is why you need to find places where people are using such services.

2. Execution

Now that you have all the information on how to create your own rideshare business or how to make a rideshare app.

Next comes the execution part:

Offline Execution

Start by getting a business license for your company and making it into a separate business entity. So, in the unlikely event of your business failing, you can save yourself from maximum financial and legal damage.

There are many permits and licenses needed before starting a ridesharing cab app business.

Next, you need to start buying inventory.

This would include the cars that you would use as cabs (you can lease cars if buying is beyond your initial budget). Subsequently, staff would include the drivers and office staff (if and when you expand your business beyond a one-person handling capacity).

Online execution

The most important aspect of starting your own rideshare services company is to make a rideshare app. So, your ride-sharing app like Uber should have many features that make the app very user-friendly for the riders and the drivers.

Here is a list of features needed for the passenger app, the driver app, and the admin dashboard.

Must Have Features for a Rideshare App

Passenger App Features

Driver App Features

Admin Dashboard Features

To build such a feature-rich mobile ridesharing service app, you would need an excellent Mobile App Development Company.

A Quick Look Into The On-Demand Business Model

3. Innovation

Innovation is a constant step that will make your company relevant and ahead of the competition.

Hence, you need to keep updating your mobile app and your business model to new variables and possibilities. In other words, this is the only way to withstand competition and stay on top of the market.

Who can start a rideshare company

Governments & City Authorities: Regional or State-based Governments body can introduce carpooling app solutions for civilians and locals to reduce traffic.

Schools & Colleges: Schools can start their own ridesharing system for students and teachers using turn-key carpooling app solutions.

Companies & Enterprises: By employing a rideshare app for employees of the company they can increase the efficiency of the employees.

Entrepreneurs and Startups: Startups can invest in peer to peer rideshare app platform to provide mobility solution.

Taxi Business: Transportation business and intracity travel can be facilitated by introducing a ridesharing app.

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What are the Pros & Cons of a Ride Sharing App ?

Creating a rideshare app is a newer concept compared to traditional taxi services. However, this transport model has quickly become prolific as well as famous.

Here we have described the advantages and disadvantages of rideshare app:

Advantages of ridesharing

• Travelling becomes faster
• Cheaper due to the splitting of travel fare
• Can plan rides in advance
• Payment becomes easy and convenient through the app

Disadvantage of ridesharing

• You might not find rides at every location
• Routes may vary sometimes, so occasionally you will have to walk to drop or pick up location

Cost of Building a Ridesharing App

What’s the cost of developing an app like Uber? Or how much does it cost to build an app like Grab? If you are looking for a short answer then the cost to create a ride sharing app can be from $5000 to $45,000.

The actual question you should ask is how long does it take to develop an app like Uber? In other words, the length of the project will give you a better estimation of the cost to create a ride sharing app.

The project timeline depends on what type of features you want in your ridesharing app. So, features like Push notification, Geolocation, Navigation, Admin Panel, Driver Interface, Ride fare estimation, etc. matter while deciding the cost of building a ride-sharing app.

Now, let’s take a deeper look at what drives the cost factor to develop a ride-sharing app.

Ride Sharing App Development Platform

Besides the app features, you want to create a ride sharing app, and the tools, developers used to build the ride sharing app are a big factor. First of all, you need to decide the type of app you want to create.

If you go for Native app development, then you need to decide between Android and iOS. Likewise, you can go for both the platforms, but this would almost double the cost of ride sharing app development as now you would be building a ride-sharing app for both platforms.

Mobile App Design

Mobile App design is the first stage in ride sharing app development. Certainly, people don’t see the backend working, but they firsthand witness the design of the app. So, it’s a significant factor to consider while building a ride sharing app like Grab.

The timeline on designing the ride sharing app may take from 48 hours (for very basic design) to almost 150 hours (for a more eye-catching design). In short, having a unique and interactive design for the app is a must to attract more customers.

The first step in designing is wireframing (creating a basic frame of the app design). Secondly, it is followed by UX/UI design, which is the design that will come in contact with the customers. Further comes, the User Interface (UI) design and User Experience (UX) design. From here, the app goes to two different workstations namely, Back-end and Front-end development.

Backend Development for Ride Sharing App

The backend would be the platform itself encompassed with all the features mentioned earlier.

All the data that the mobile app works with would be stored on a single database. So, Handling this data and all the functions, building the app core, linking the user interface between the customer panel and the driver panel and also between host and guest riders all this is done in the back-end development.

The timeline for back-end development cannot be defined in an exact bound period as building each of the features may take 100 to 150 hours of developing. Further, live tracking would be the most time-consuming, but a very rewarding app feature once it’s done and working.

In short, hiring dedicated developers can boost the timeline on back-end development

Native App Development

All the interactions that the customer has with the app are powered by Front-end development. And, native app developers are responsible for developing visual elements of the app that users can see and interact with.

Including complex features like live booking, live tracking, in-app wallet, etc. time to build a native app from scratch will take 600 to 800 hours.

Now, remember that the native app development and the back-end development are done simultaneously. So, the total time consumed to build the Native and Back-end development would not exceed 800 hours.

Web App Development

Many users are not ready to download apps for single use. Hence, for such users, you would need to provide a web application that they can use. Further, developing a web application consists of modules like Database design, Admin Panel, Dispatcher Panel, Passenger Dashboard, API with Socket Management, etc.

Building all the modules mentioned above from scratch will take approximately 300 hours for each individual module. However, there is a ride-sharing app clone setup solution where you can go for an already built ride-sharing app clone setup which can be redesigned according to your need.

Such a taxi app clone setup have lower functionality compared to scratch built a web application, but they also consume fewer hours, all the modules mentioned above can be achieved in 180 hours.

Mobile App Testing

Mobile App testing is a very integral part of building a ride sharing app like Grab. The QA testers do continuous testing of every update in the app development. This is done to find bugs in the app and to ensure seamless user experience for the app users.

A QA tester does two types of testing, manual testing & automation testing. There are many different tests in these two categories like, Alpha testing, Beta testing, Black box testing, Accessibility testing, Back-end testing, Browser compatibility testing, etc. Normally, ride sharing app development companies provide various testing packages for you to choose from.

Build Your Ride Sharing App

Now you are ready with all the vital knowledge on how to start a ride sharing business. Ridesharing business can be considered a niche section in the broad industry of online taxi service.

Do you want to make your start-up stand out in the competitive market?

To create your own rideshare app, you need to become a master in specific trade instead of trying to be the jack of all. You can become the next master of the ridesharing industry if you have the right mind, tools, and (most importantly) team for it.

Paresh Sagar

About the Author

The CEO of Excellent WebWorld and a digital marketing expert. Paresh loves to experiment with new techniques and strategies. The posts written by Paresh are awesome for businesses who are seeking for marketing ideas.