Medicine Delivery App Development Cost & Features

In our fast-paced world, convenience reigns supreme, and healthcare is no different. Medicine delivery apps have changed the way we have access to lifesaving medicines by offering a simple and effective alternative to visiting the pharmacy. With the e-pharmacy market projected to be worth over $97 billion globally and over $4 billion in India, you will be well-positioned to invest in a delivery app. The development costs and features that shape those costs are essential to know before you make this investment. In this blog, we will discuss the factors that affect the cost of medicine delivery app development and identify the features that will help you succeed in this growing industry.

How Much Does Medicine Delivery App Development Cost?

The medicine delivery app development cost can vary significantly, typically ranging from around $15,000 for a basic MVP app to $30,000 and up for a complex, full-featured app. For a middle-level app with the full range of capabilities that you may want, you should expect to spend $15,000 - $50,000+. These estimates are intended to provide a baseline for development on one platform (typically iOS or Android). Developing the Top Medicine delivery apps for both platforms or developing some very complicated features like AI or telemedicine could rapidly move you to the higher end of this cost range.

Factors Influencing The Cost To Build Pharmacy Apps

Now that you know the rough medicine delivery app development cost it is time when you must go through the important factors that affect the cost entirely. Here is the list of factors affecting the cost for developing medicine delivery app. 

Features and Functionality: The features and cost to develop an online medicines delivery app are aligned with each other. The more features are more complex and more expensive to get up and running (i.e., prescription uploads, AI recommendation engine, telemedicine, etc.). An app with only basic functions substantially reduces the cost to develop an online medicine ordering app than one with additional integrated services. 

Platform Choice: It is less costly to develop for one platform, either iOS or Android, than to build the app on both platforms. While cross-platform development can result in lower costs using frameworks such as React Native or Flutter, the app may be hindered from accessing dedicated and specific native functionalities.

UI/UX Design Complexity: The more complex and customized User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) use more designers and take more time, resulting in higher costs. A simple and intuitive design that is visually appealing will usually reduce the medicine delivery app development cost.

Development Team Location: The geographic area where the Pharmacy app development company is located plays a much larger role in increasing the cost to build a medicine delivery app. Developers in North America or Western Europe will generally have a much more expensive hourly rate than developers in Eastern Europe or Asia, and especially developers in India.

Third-Party Integrations: Integrating third-party APIs with systems like payment gateways, GPS tracking, electronic health records (EHR), and telehealth will add additional complexity and uphill costs to the medicine ordering app development cost because of the need for development and possible licensing costs.

Backend Infrastructure: The complexity of the back end architecture including databases and how the server is set up and how the APIs are architecturally developed, see the development costs increase. Having a well designed and scalable back end is important when you have many users and large amounts of data, but will increase the medicine delivery app development cost.

Security and Compliance: Pharmacy apps are required to handle sensitive patient data and therefore must comply with regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR, etc. Developing strong security protocols, encrypting data and conducting security audits and compliance audits all raise the medicine delivery app development cost.

Testing and Quality Assurance (QA): Thoroughly testing all application scenarios on multiple devices is essential to a reliable product that isn't full of bugs. QA includes functional, usability, performance, and security testing, and these Additive timeline and medicine ordering app development costs.

Maintenance and Updates: An application is never truly complete upon launch. The application will require ongoing periodic maintenance & bug fixing, which will add costs to the overall Pharmacy app development cost. There will be further costs to the ongoing costs involved in maintaining the application and keeping it relevant, as well as potentially developing new functionality.

Business Model and Revenue Generation: The business model chosen (e.g., commission, subscription, advertising) may have implications for technical requirements and, therefore, pharmacy app development costs. Features that support those models, such as in-app advertising integration and subscription management, will add technical complexity. 

Essential Features to Include in Your Medicine Delivery App

Having a list of features is important to have right after you noted your cost to develop medicine delivery app estimation. This will help you reduce the cost by utilizing cost at great value. 

User Registration and Profiles: Users will need to securely onboard their profile (e.g. create an account) which will allow them to manage their human resources to create a more personalized experience (e.g. address information, order history and prescription information) and ultimately more efficient user interaction with the website or application. 

Search and Filters: Usability enhances the user experience. An intuitive search bar enabling users to search for medicines by name, category, or symptom will be a key feature. A wide range of filter options (e.g. brand, price, availability) will help narrow search criteria for better product discovery. This is also one of the features that affects the cost to develop a medicine delivery app. 

Upload Prescription: This feature enables users to upload their prescriptions securely through the app. This aspect is crucial to streamlining the ordering process and ensuring users are following their medical professional's recommendations and anesthetic standards, which helps to reduce product errors. 

Medicine Details and Descriptions: Each medicine will have comprehensive information about the medicine, like dosage, uses, side effects, and manufacturer. This will provide sufficient information for users to make an informed decision about a purchase. 

Add to Cart: A normative e-commerce component allowing users to select multiple medicines and add to their virtual shopping cart will be developed. This component will allow multiple medicines to be ordered thus allowing users to modify their order easily prior to providing payment.

Secure Payment Gateways: Integration with popular, secure wallets, such as credit/debit cards, net banking, UPI, and digital wallets. This will promote a reliable and seamless transaction experience for users.

Order Tracking and History: Real-time order updates, ranging from processing to delivery, as well as an entire history of order activity for users to reference, which makes reordering and record-keeping for personal use easier.

Delivery Scheduling and Options: Users can choose a preferred delivery time-slot, with multiple options, including express delivery or a standard delivery. This can satisfy a range of urgent needs and gives another level of convenience to users.

Customer Support Chat/Call: In-app customer support options ensure that users can quickly contact customer service representatives for any questions, issues, or assistance. This establishes trust and provides evidence of the prompt resolution of any issues.

Pharmacy Locator (Optional but good): Users will have information about nearby pharmacies associated with the app, for quicker pick-ups or in-person consultations. This improves the convenience and offers users with another fulfillment option.

Refill Reminders: Automated alerts to remind users of their medicine refill due dates. This information will help users comply with their medication regime and assist in the management of any chronic conditions.

Wishlist/Favorites: Users are able to save medicines or items they have frequently purchased or have the intention of purchasing later when this feature gets put into effect. This also is one-piece saves users time in the reorder process while making it easier for users in the future for purchases.

Tips To Save Money In The Development Costs

A medicine delivery app development cost must be optimized for business success and sustainability. Here are important ways to save cost while keeping you in control of your budget.

Start with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product): If you are brand new to the process of cost to build a medicine delivery app, it is better to start with an MVP instead of building a full version of the app with all potential features on day 1. First, start with the basic functionalities that are important to launch the app. From there, you can test the market and receive initial user feedback to build off of what the users actually want rather than spending time and development resources building features that users do not need.

Prioritize Essential Features: to reduce the cost to develop an app like 1mg you must carefully examine which features are absolutely essential for your first version of the app. Features like user registration, prescription uploading, medicine searching, ordering, payment gateway integration, and delivery tracking will most often be Federal regulatory standards. Features like artificial intelligence recommendations, telemedicine, or chat in the app can be added at a later date.

Choosing the Right Platform Strategy: Building the same app for iOS and Android at the same time, can be the most costly option. Consider building one dominant platform in your target market, to begin with or use cross-platform development frameworks like React Native or Flutter for your app development. The performance of a native app will be better than that of other cross-platform frameworks, but for an MVP (minimum viable product) to get you to market quicker, it can save you lots of time and money.

Outsource Developers from Cost: Effective Areas: Based on geography, development costs fluctuate quite a bit. A strong sourcing option is working with an On-demand medicine delivery app development company from India, where you can have generous amounts of highly skilled developers hour for an hour at a drastically more competitive hourly rate than in North America or Western Europe, which gives you meaningful savings without sacrificing skill set quality.

Employ Lean UX/UX Design: Great design is nice, but a complicated design with custom or complex animations can complicate your cost structure. Keep it simple, clean, intuitive, and easy to use. It delivers a good experience, and your simplified design can live and work on par with more complex designs.

Leverage Third-Party Integrations: Rather than developing every feature yourself, use third-party APIs for basic features like payment processing (Stripe, PayPal), GPS tracking, or notifications. Doing so will save you valuable time and Telemedicine app development costs. 

Agile Development Methodology: Use an agile approach and break your project down into short and digestible periods (sprints). This also allows you to incorporate continual feedback, detect bugs early, and adjust to changes, which usually prevents costly revisions later in your development cycle.

Budget for Quality Assurance (QA): It seems a bit counter-intuitive to spend money on testing to reduce prescription delivery app development cost but let me explain. Quality Assurance, or QA, is critical during your development cycles, so you can identify potential bugs and other issues before they get released into the wild. Fixing bugs after you launch can not only cost money and time, but it can harm your reputation if your back-end has a number of bugs that require costly hotfixes soon after launch.

Why Choose Us For Budget-Friendly Medicine Delivery App Development?

At IMG Global Infotech, we are able to provide low-cost medicine delivery app development by being the low-cost solution provider with a focus on high quality.  Our medicine delivery app development company's work methodology is agile, and we have a team of experienced developers working on your project.  The effective use of the team's time equates to a lower cost for you.  Like any other mobile application, we want to build a strong and user-friendly application that presents the intended features and offers an ideal combination of user functionality and overall medicine delivery app cost. Choose IMG Global Infotech for hassle-free development that respects your budget while providing an acceptable yet powerful medicine delivery app.

Final Words

The development cost of medicine delivery apps can be a lucrative price to pay, particularly with the shifting focus of Health Care into the virtual world.  The overall Development cost of a medicine delivery app can vary based on variables such as features, platforms, and other delivery options (iOS, Android, or cross-platform), the number of UI/UX interfaces, and the location of the company where the development team is based.  If you want to Build an app like Apollo Pharmacy, you could have something in a couple of months.  However, if your intent is to develop advanced applications (e.g., telemedicine components, AI-enabled components, robust security systems, etc.), this will take more time and be far less budget-friendly.  In the end, if you could build pharmacy apps for your users with the required functions and a strong focus on UX/UI, it would provide substantial convenience, increase market reach, and facilitate growth with all the competition in e-pharmacy.