How much does it cost to build an app for a restaurant?

Before pricing anything, be clear about the job. For most independent restaurants, an app is worth having for three things: letting regulars order ahead or at the table without a phone call, giving them a reason to come back (points, a stamp card, a reward), and keeping those customers yours rather than a marketplace's.

It is not usually worth building an app to show the menu and the opening hours. A good website does that better, because nobody installs an app to check whether you are open. If that is all you need, start with a website and come back to the app later.

A fully custom app, designed and coded from scratch by an agency or a freelance team, is priced per project. Agencies often quote $10,000 or more for an app, and the number climbs with features: online payments, a loyalty program, kitchen screens, integration with your till, separate iPhone and Android builds.

The build is only the first bill. A custom app needs someone to keep it working as phones update, to change the menu and prices, and to renew its store listings. Ask any agency what a year of upkeep costs before you sign, and whether you will own the code at the end.

A custom build is the right call when the app is central to how you operate: a group of locations with its own ordering system, or a concept where the app is the experience. Our studio takes that kind of project on from $3,250, scoped and priced with you before anything is built.

The marketplaces cost nothing to join, which is why so many restaurants start there. They charge on every order instead. When we read DoorDash's merchant pricing page on October 29, 2026, its Marketplace plans took 15%, 25% or 30% of each delivery order depending on the plan, and 6% on pickup orders. The same page says its own Online Ordering product is commission-free but carries a payment processing fee.

On a busy week, a percentage of every order adds up quickly, and the customer relationship sits with the marketplace: their app, their account, their promotions. Marketplaces are still useful for reaching people who have never heard of you. The cost question is whether your regulars, who already know you, should be ordering through them too.

We build your app free, from a sentence about your restaurant or your Google listing, in about 15 minutes. You see it before you pay anything. If you want it live:

• App: $99 a month. Your app on your own web address, installable to a customer's home screen straight from the browser, with ordering ahead or at the table, points and rewards, and menu and price changes made for you when you ask. 0% commission on orders. No contract.
• App, yearly: two months free.
• App + Stores: $199 a month plus $499 once for setup. Everything in App, plus your own app in the App Store and on Google Play, published under your business name, and push notifications to your customers. Apple and Google charge their own developer fees (Apple $99 a year, Google $25 once), paid to them.
• Website + App: $169 a month for both, which saves $29 a month.

All of these are on the pricing page. Taking card payments inside the app is a custom build, not part of these plans.

Not to start. The App plan installs from the browser: a customer opens your link, taps to add it to their home screen, and it sits there with your icon like any other app. There is no store review and no wait, which is why it can go live the same week.

Being in the App Store and on Google Play matters when you want people to find you by searching the stores, or when you want push notifications to reach them. Apple requires an app like this to be published under the business's own developer account, so we set that up with you and submit it. That is what the $499 setup covers.

Work it out from your own numbers. Take the orders your regulars place in a month, the average order value and the commission rate you pay now. If that monthly commission is more than a flat fee, moving regulars to your own app saves money from the first month. If you take few orders online, a website with your menu may be all you need for now.

If the app is the heart of a larger operation, or you need payments, a till integration or several locations, talk to a studio about a custom build. If you want something live this week that you can try without risk, build the free app and look at it with your own menu in it.