How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Cloud Kitchen Platform?

Cloud kitchen is the new revolution in the food delivery industry. This business model allows startups or individual entrepreneurs to start or expand a food business at the lowest investment cost. Plus, they are able to achieve a faster time to market without opening a full-service restaurant. Presently, many food companies are using cloud kitchens as an extended restaurant space for producing more food. Furthermore, they are also trying to acquire customers across boundaries. In this blog, we are going to discuss the total cost to develop a cloud kitchen platform. 

Let’s check out some stats to learn about the market first 

Cloud Kitchen Market 

• In 2020, the global cloud kitchen market was valued at $29.4 billion 
• It is projected that this market might touch $112.7 billion by 2030
• The burger/sandwich category had the largest market share, accounting for around 25% of the total market 
• COVID-19 was a major contributing factor behind this industry’s growth 
• Key players; Kitopi, Ghost Kitchen Orlando, Starbucks (Star Kitchen), Kitchen United, Rebel Food, Zuul Kitchen, DoorDash Kitchen, and Keatz 

What is a Cloud Kitchen?

A Cloud kitchen is a commercial kitchen space that provides cooking facilities to businesses for delivery and takeout. Thus, It is a kind of delivery-only restaurant or contactless customer model that solely focuses on delivering foods to customers’ doorsteps via third parties and delivery aggregators. Furthermore, it is known as a virtual kitchen, dark kitchen, commissary kitchen, and ghost kitchen. 

Cloud kitchens give broader scope to implement different concepts and formats in the food business. Moreover, it doesn’t require a big infrastructure or a large employee size at the place. With just a single space and cloud kitchen platform anyone can start this business.

The Huge Popularity of Cloud Kitchen 

The reason why cloud kitchens are gaining huge popularity and emerging rapidly is that it gives a lot of advantages to businesses by eliminating the two biggest operational cost barriers- infrastructure rent and labor. In fact, You don’t need a big investment to start. Above all, just have kitchen space and a mobile app or software and you can begin instantly. Therefore, the global ghost or cloud kitchen market, which was $43.1 billion in 2019, now is projected to reach $71.4 billion by 2027. In the USA alone, there are over 1,500 cloud kitchens. Finally, you must be having a clear vision of the growth possibilities in this industry. 

Let’s understand why it is a successful business model with Kitopi’s growth 

Kitopi a Dubai-based cloud kitchen startup, started in 2018 (just 4 years ago). It only had one kitchen space and a hundred employees. Currently, it has more than 1,000 employees, 60 Cloud kitchen spaces, and produces 200,000 meals every week. 

Recently Kitopi has raised $415 USD funding from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. As a result, the total valuation of the company has reached 1Billion USD. Thus, this makes it the fastest middle eastern startup (with a 9800% growth speed) which has achieved such a big milestone. Then, you can imagine the potential of this industry. Keep reading the blog to learn about the cost to develop a cloud kitchen platform and get started with the development process. 

Cloud Kitchen Platform vs Traditional Restaurant Management Software 

The Cloud kitchen platform is basically an online web application or software that has features to manage the back-of-house operations for the commissary kitchen. Unlike traditional restaurant management software, the cloud kitchen management software handles customer-facing operations for order funneling and delivery execution. 

A cloud platform could be either a web or mobile application that focuses on delivery execution. Furthermore, it allows the staff or business manager to view incoming orders from all sources. Lastly, they are also able to organize a centralized dashboard to pay attention to overall functionalities.

Types of Cloud Kitchen Business Models that Might Determine the Development Cost

The food delivery business has become a larger market segment. In fact, it involves many variations and operational methods that allow the business holder to implement their ideas. Thus, innovative ideas like running a restaurant and taking online orders from a third-party app can also work. 

Cloud kitchen has various business models with different functional and operation methods. Therefore, before hiring a mobile app development company, it is important to analyze which cloud kitchen business model you are going to use. 

1. Standalone Kitchen Model

This is the most common type of cloud kitchen, it works under a single theme or concept and provides one or two foods. For example, a pizza or coffee shop. It offers some popular or specific menus between ten to fifteen items. 

2. Cloud Restaurants

A cloud or virtual restaurant is typically a brand that works within an existing restaurant. Furthermore, this model offers multiple ranges of food menus and utilizes the kitchen and resources of the existing restaurant. Ultimately, these virtual kitchens are listed on third-party food aggregators but under a different brand name.

3. Multi-brand Cloud Kitchen

This model offers wider flexibility to allow various food or restaurant brands to expand their business across the boundaries. Moreover, these kitchens are situated in locations where customer demand is high especially for different cuisines. 

4. Co-working Cloud Kitchen

It is a type of shared kitchen space, or in other words commissary kitchen which has individual kitchen units for each brand. Furthermore, the co-working cloud kitchen is large in infrastructure that allows multiple restaurant brands to rent and use the space to expand their food business. 

5. Aggregator Cloud Kitchen

Aggregator cloud kitchen is the extension of the co-working cloud kitchen model. Above all, the core purpose of this model is to offer an infrastructure to restaurants that want to prepare food for delivery-only purposes. Ultimately, this model primarily relies on food aggregators or third parties who solely handle the delivery operations.

Now you must have understood the different cloud kitchen models. Each model has a different set of functionalities depending on different business requirements. Thus, it has become very important to understand your needs before you start building a cloud kitchen platform. In fact, you should consult a mobile app development company to get support in choosing the right model. 

Technical Aspects that Might Determine the Development Cost

• Robust POS System 

You would need an automated POS system that automatically enters the order details received from different sources. 

• Create a Dedicated Mobile App or Website

A dedicated mobile app or website will help you take more orders and save the royalty or commission fees

• Smart Inventory

An inventory management system is very important to meet the constant demand of customers and maintain your stocks. 

• Management System 

A management system is critical to overseeing and managing all the operations of your cloud kitchen business. 

• Kitchen Display System (KDS)

A KDS helps kitchen employees to receive and manage interactive information about orders and updates. 

• Cloud Telephony Solutions 

Your business should be able to communicate with the delivery agent and customers effectively. 

• Customer Relationship Management 

Your business will need a complete CRM dashboard to manage each and every customer request and issue. 

• Customer Loyalty Program 

Starting a customer loyalty program can help you to engage more customers and attract new potential customers. 

• APIs for Third-Party Integrations 

Integration of APIs is very important if you want to add custom or additional features to your cloud kitchen platform.

How Much Does It Cost To Create a Cloud Kitchen Platform?

Now, coming to the final question! The cost of creating a cloud kitchen platform primarily depends on two major factors; 

• The location of the mobile app development company 
• The number of features that you will be including 

Still, it might not be possible to get a very accurate estimate of the development cost. In fact, it is very hard to determine this cost without evaluating the details of the project. Furthermore, you might be interested in setting up a standalone cloud kitchen business or a multi-brand virtual kitchen. Thus, the cost broadly depends on your chosen business model as well. However, you can’t compromise the platform quality by hiring freelancers for the job. 

Here’s a table which might help you understand the costs; 

The cost will depend on both technical and non-technical factors. Above all, it usually takes at least $20,000 to develop a cloud kitchen platform. However, if you are looking for custom development and advanced features, then you are likely to pay an increased cost. Lastly, developing mid-level costs somewhere between $30,000 to $40,000. Moreover, the cost will increase if you are trying to build an advanced and top-tier mobile app. 

The development location also plays a critical part in determining the cost. For example, hiring developers from USA or UK would be more expensive than hiring developers from Asian countries. Therefore, many businesses prefer hiring their developers from countries like India for cost-effective mobile app development services. For this reason, you should consider hiring a trustworthy mobile app development company like MobileCoderz. 

Hiring MobileCoderz for Developing a Cloud Kitchen Platform 

If you are looking for the most cost-effective and high-quality mobile app development services, then hire MobileCoderz for your cloud kitchen platform. In fact, we can help you estimate and minimize your development cost with our years of expertise. Moreover, we have a complete experience with single brand or multi-brand ghost kitchen business models. 

Hire the right mobile app development company for building intelligent cloud kitchen platforms. Above all, we can help you execute everything easily and efficiently and succeed in the food delivery business.