Food Delivery App Development
Our food delivery app development work covers ordering, delivery and loyalty apps for Canadian restaurants, chains, ghost kitchens and grocery businesses. Owning your ordering channel means keeping the margin that third-party platforms take, so we connect the app straight to your kitchen and your point of sale.
- Fixed-scope quoteA written price and milestone plan before any work starts.
- From $4,999 CADTypical single-platform apps $5,000 to $12,000.
- You own the codeSource, designs and store accounts are yours.
- Reply within 24 hoursMon to Fri, Toronto time. Call +1 (365) 440-1786.
Who this is for
Food delivery and restaurant app development fits independent restaurants and small chains that want to keep the margin marketplaces take, multi-location operators needing per-store menus and reporting, ghost kitchens running several brands, and grocers or specialty food shops moving into ordering and delivery. If you only take a handful of orders a week, a simple online ordering page may serve you better, and we will tell you.
Apps we build for restaurants
- Restaurant ordering apps for pickup and dine-in
- Delivery apps with live driver tracking and delivery windows
- Table reservation and waitlist apps with reminders
- Loyalty and rewards apps with points, offers and member pricing
- Multi-location chain apps with per-store menus, hours and pricing
- Driver apps for restaurants running their own delivery fleet
Key features
- Menus with modifiers, combos, upsells and item-level availability
- Scheduled ordering for later today or a set date, with kitchen capacity limits
- Live order status from accepted to preparing to out for delivery
- Driver map with ETA, plus contactless delivery notes and photos
- Integration with POS systems such as Square, Toast or Lightspeed
- Tipping, split payment and receipts that match your in-store totals
Systems we typically integrate with
- Point of sale systems such as Square, Toast, Lightspeed and others for menus and order injection
- Payment providers with Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Delivery fleet or third-party courier APIs for dispatch
- Kitchen display systems and printers
- Loyalty and marketing platforms for offers and email
- Reservation and table management systems
Integration access is confirmed during discovery, before we quote, because vendor onboarding often takes longer than the code. Our backend and API service covers the server side of these connections.
What discovery covers for a restaurants project
The first week or so answers these questions, and the answers set the fixed-scope quote:
- Which POS you run and whether it accepts orders from third-party apps
- Pickup, own delivery, third-party delivery or a mix
- How menus differ by location, time of day and stock
- Kitchen capacity and how many orders per slot it can take
- Loyalty rules your margins can support
- Alcohol, allergen and nutrition requirements you must show
Build custom or use an off-the-shelf tool?
Custom is not always the right answer. This is how we advise restaurants clients in the first call:
| Need | Off-the-shelf is usually enough when | Custom makes sense when |
|---|---|---|
| Online ordering for one restaurant | Ordering add-ons from your POS or a white-label ordering platform are usually enough | Custom when you need your own brand, loyalty and control of customer data |
| Multi-location chain app | Some white-label platforms support locations with limits | Custom when per-store menus, pricing, reporting and integrations matter |
| Own delivery fleet | Third-party couriers remove the need for a driver app | Custom driver app when you run your own drivers and want live tracking |
| Reservations | Reservation platforms are hard to beat | Custom only when reservations must integrate tightly with ordering and loyalty |
Compliance and considerations
Card payments go through a tokenised provider, so PCI DSS obligations stay with the processor rather than your kitchen systems. Menu information that mentions allergens or nutrition needs to be accurate and kept in step with what the kitchen actually serves, so we build it as data your team can update instead of text hard-coded into the app. If you deliver alcohol, provincial liquor rules apply and age verification at handover has to be part of the driver flow. Marketing pushes and offer emails need CASL consent, which we collect at sign-up.
What drives the cost of a restaurants app
Most apps we build land between $5,000 and $25,000, with complex platforms from about $25,000. These drivers decide where yours sits, far more than the screen count does. See our price sheet.
| Cost driver | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| POS integration | Injecting orders and syncing menus reliably is the core of the build and varies by vendor. |
| Delivery model | Own drivers add a driver app, dispatch and live tracking. |
| Menu complexity | Modifiers, combos, time-based menus and stock limits multiply edge cases. |
| Locations | Per-store hours, menus, pricing and reporting add configuration and admin tooling. |
| Loyalty and marketing | Points, offers and segmented pushes need admin tools and analytics. |
Timelines
- Focused first version. 6 to 10 weeks for iOS and Android pickup ordering with POS integration, payments and push.
- Full platform. 3 to 6 months for delivery, multi-location, loyalty and driver apps.
What moves these ranges:
- POS vendor API access and certification
- Menu data quality
- How quickly decisions and feedback come back each week
- Scope changes mid-build, which we quote before starting
Common mistakes we help you avoid
- Launching an app while still paying marketplace fees on every order because the app was not promoted in store
- Manual re-keying of app orders into the POS
- Menus hard-coded into the app instead of managed as data
- Ignoring kitchen capacity, so orders pile up at peak
- Skipping allergen accuracy
What a first version can look like
Illustrative example: a four-location taco chain wants to move regulars off a marketplace. Version one is a cross-platform ordering app with per-store menus from the POS, scheduled pickup with capacity limits, Apple Pay and Google Pay, order status and a simple points programme. Own delivery with a driver app is phase two, once pickup volume justifies it.
Why restaurants companies choose us
- Direct POS integration, so orders land on the kitchen printer without staff retyping them
- We design ordering for speed on a phone at lunchtime, not for a desktop menu layout
- Multi-location support built in from the start, including per-store menus and pricing
- Loyalty designed to increase order frequency rather than just discount existing orders
- Fixed-scope quotes covering customer app, driver app and admin tools separately
- Support plans that cover evenings and weekends, when restaurant apps are busiest
See every industry we serve, compare project pricing, or read how a project runs before you send us a brief.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Yes. We integrate with common restaurant point of sale systems so orders print in the kitchen and reconcile with your daily totals. Where a POS has no usable API, we provide a tablet order screen with sound alerts as the fallback.
For most restaurants with repeat customers, yes. Marketplace commission on every order adds up quickly, and your own app keeps the customer relationship and their order history. Marketplaces are still useful for discovery, so many of our clients run both.
Yes. One app can serve every location with its own menu, prices, hours and stock, and customers pick a store or are matched by address. Head office keeps a single admin view across all sites.
Ordering and loyalty for a single brand sits at the lower end, while adding your own delivery fleet, driver app and dispatch pushes it higher.
An ordering and pickup MVP usually launches in 6 to 10 weeks on iOS and Android. A full platform with delivery tracking, a driver app and loyalty takes 3 to 6 months.
Yes. We build custom ordering and delivery apps connected to your POS and payment provider. If a POS add-on already covers your needs, we will say so rather than sell you a build.
The main drivers are POS integration, your delivery model, menu complexity and locations. Most apps in this sector cost $8,000 to $25,000 with us, and builds with heavy integrations run $25,000 to $50,000+. You get a fixed-scope quote after a short discovery call.
Free quote
Tell us about your app
A senior engineer reads your brief and replies within 24 hours with questions and a fixed-scope estimate. No obligation and no sales sequence.
- Written, fixed-scope quote before any work starts
- You own the code, designs and accounts
- Typical apps from $4,999 CAD
Request your free quote
Takes about a minute.
Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
Thank you
We have received your project details and will reply within 24 hours.