How To Build A Food Delivery App Like Grubhub?

The food delivery sector has brought about a change in the way that individuals eat, and applications such as Grubhub have played a crucial role in nourishing the digital convenience culture in grubhub like app development. It has also become a lucrative business endeavor for both small restaurant businesses and startups to create an online food delivery application like Grubhub.Grubhub’s success is attributed to its simple user experience, real-time tracking, secure payments, and fulfillment of restaurant partners. The foundation of your application, like Grubhub, is fairly simple and will involve an insight into consumers' demands through a strong technology stack in grubhub app development, as well as a good business strategy in a business projected to hit billions of dollars of global revenue. 

This blog will discuss, in its totality, how to build a food delivery app like Grubhub, with features, a tech stack, and costs. From designing your user experience to setting up payment systems, creating user profiles, developing restaurant profiles, adding GPS tracking for food delivery, and adding order management with backend support and scalability. 

Why Invest in Grubhub Like App Development?

As per the report of Grand View Research, the global online food delivery services market size was estimated at $380.43 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $618.36 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 9.0% from 2025 to 2030. 

Key Market Trends & Insights: 

• The online food delivery services market in the U.S. is expected to grow significantly from 2025 to 2030. 

• By payment method, the online payment segment accounted for the largest market share of over 79% in 2024. 

• By channel, the mobile channel segment held the largest market share in 2024. 

• The North America online food delivery services market held a significant share of over 25% in 2024. 

• The online food delivery services market in the US is expected to grow significantly from 2025 to 2030. 

Essential Features of a Food Delivery App Like Grubhub

To build an app like Grubhub, it is crucial to integrate the core features that can upscale the app's performance and scalability as well, similar to grubhub. Here are some significant features to develop an app like Grubhub for your business. 

Real-Time Order Tracking

It is important to integrate the real-time order tracking in a food delivery app. It basically builds transparency and trust with users in apps like grubhub. This feature can allow users to track their orders easily, which can also increase the user experience in your business. This feature is a key convenience for your users to use your app while ordering the food. 

Customizable Filters and Menu

A custom-made menu with an advanced set of filtering options that can store the user's search for specific preferences. This feature can increase user satisfaction by offering customized choices that can lead to customer engagement that integrates app usage in services like grubhub. This app can also offer flexibility with menu navigation that can contribute to a positive user experience that sets it apart from the market as well. 

Push Notifications 

Utilizing push notifications will keep users up to date on the order status, promotions, and discounts, which increases a user’s likelihood of remaining connected to food delivery services like grubhub. As illustrated in the previous example, push notifications act as a direct channel of communication for targeted marketing and customer retention. 

By sharing information in a timely manner and when it is most relevant, push notifications improve the user's experience in apps similar to grubhub, promote repurchasing, and help establish a better connection between users and the app.

Multi-Platform Compatibility

By ensuring compatibility across multiple platforms, such as mobile and web, the reach of the app is significantly enhanced in other apps like grubhub. A multi-platform method allows users to engage with the service at their discretion, improving convenience and accessibility. 

This inclusivity of the service allows for a wider variety of users in the market, extends the app's market reach, and strengthens its identity as a trustworthy and widely available option for food delivery.

Secure Payment Gateways

It's essential for user trust and the overall integrity of the business to have secure payment gateways on websites like grubhub. By offering more options for payment and processing those transactions in a safe manner, users will be more confident when paying for the order, which may lead to additional usage of your application. 

The trust the company encompasses is also extremely important to validating customer loyalty and retention—and that is especially so in the food delivery sector in this time of great competition.

Review and Rating System

Incorporating a review and rating function allows users to share their experience and impacts the buying decision of future customers in meal delivery services like grubhub. A restaurant earns credibility with positive reviews, resulting in more orders. 

Meanwhile, constructive feedback provides useful information for ongoing improvement. Additionally, this feature builds user trust, improves the quality of the service, and positively impacts the app's overall performance and reputation.

Process to Build a Food Delivery App Like Grubhub

Now it's time to build a food delivery app like Grubhub. The development process is divided into several stages in Grubhub app development. These stages indicate the development procedure from research to release of the application on different platforms. Let's take a closer look at the development list to build an app like Grubhub for your business. 

Planning Stage

This is regarded as the most initial and clear step to design an app under Mobile app development. Planning should be such that it would prove to be profitable for not only customers but also for even the developer team. The length of this phase is around 2-3 weeks.

Business Analytics

This stage usually ranges from 2 to 4 weeks. Business analysis project managers and specialists in Grubhub clone app development, together with app developers, plan with the customer to discuss and create better solutions.

Pre-Development Stage

This stage comprises various stages on which the average time to build an app depends on:

UX Design

The works on the user interface are identified by the UX designer at this stage in 2-3 weeks. They also discuss the screens and buttons in Grubhub like app development company, which would be additionally integrated. Good UX designs enable more customer interaction with the apps, thus achieving the intended purpose.

UI Design

This stage is presentation-based. The functioning of the ways is automated by the UX designers in Food delivery apps. The appearance and feel of the app are handled by the UI designer. This stage requires 3-4 weeks, as the designing of original as well as attractive interactive elements must be done by the designers in the interest of the application. 

Development Phase

This stage takes 8-10 weeks since it comprises many stages like

Back-End Development

This development period takes about 6-8 weeks because it works with the server and also a database of the application. In any type of service application, the data is stored in the back-end server.

Front-End Development

These development stages include organization along with designing the data from the back end. This process takes about 6-8 weeks from the integration of AI in food delivery app. After app development is done, the application would be taken for testing for the next 14 days, and developers would fix bugs that are identified by the testers.

Launch and Finalization

After the application is tested, the final stage of preparation comes into play that is essential to validate all the aspects of how to create a food delivery app like Grubhub, fix the bugs, and publish the application on the App Store as well as Google Play. The average time of this stage is around 1 week.

Post-Launch Maintenance

As soon as they launch the app, it becomes the development team's responsibility to watch the app's performance for another two weeks to ensure that the app runs smoothly and fulfills all the specifications.

Cost to Develop a Food Delivery App Like Grubhub

The cost to develop a food delivery app like Grubhub mainly depends on various elements. It includes the set of features, app complexity, custom UI/UX, personalized animations, technology stack, integration of high-level programming language, development team size, expertise, location, and hourly charges. Here is an average Grubhub app development cost breakdown to build an app like Grubhub as well. 

Why Partner IMG Global Infotech for Food Delivery App Development?

IMG Global Infotech is the leading mobile application development firm that employs more than 100 talented developers to help the company deliver the best solution on the international platform.

Proven Expertise

IMG Global Infotech has years of experience successfully creating innovative applications, such as food ordering applications in the Grubhub clone app. Their expertise ensures a stable and feature-packed solution that meets your Grubhub-like app needs.

Innovative Solutions

With innovation as its core, we brings together the latest technologies and trends to create a competitive and dynamic app from Food delivery app development companies. Stay ahead of the market with a solution that addresses modern user needs.

Customization

Give your app the finishing touch with the commitment of experts for the best customization. From user interface planning to customized features, they know how crucial it is to create an individualized and engaging platform for your business.

Scalability

Future-proof your app with scalable solutions. As your business grows, the app can scale seamlessly to examine the Food delivery app development cost, taking on increased user engagement, increasing restaurant partnerships, and evolving market demands.

Transparent Communication

Have open and transparent communication throughout the development process. Our experts value client collaboration, keeping you informed and involved at every step, ensuring your vision is reflected in the final product.

Cost-Effective Solutions

Avail cost-effective development with no compromise on quality. It can also maximize resources effectively, delivering value to your investment. Select them for an app development partner dedicated to producing superior outputs within your budget.

Closing Thoughts

Through this blog, we have discussed how to build a food delivery app like Grubhub. We have also talked about investment, key market trends, core features, development process, average cost, and why you choose IMG to develop a food delivery app. 

As an extensive Food delivery app development company, we are here to assist you in building a custom food delivery app that can cater to all your business needs and objectives. IMG Global Infotech is always here to build custom solutions that can not only enhance your business growth but also generate higher revenue in your business as well.