Travel App Development Cost: Feature and Process-Wise Costs, Final Estimation

The travel app industry is setting new trends in the global hospitality market.

From Airbnb to Expedia, top market leaders of the hospitality industry are investing their resources to build robust, scalable, and feature-packed travel app solutions.

Every business leader planning to design and develop a travel app for their customers aspire to make it as big as the abovementioned applications.

But how does one build such transformative solutions?

It takes proper brainstorming, a well-planned product development roadmap, and a budget plan to streamline the implementation of travel app ideas.

However, determining the cost of turning a raw app idea into reality is always a primary question that every aspiring business leader wishes to get the answer to.

This blog post will give you an in-depth understanding of your travel app development cost based on features, product type, and different phases of development. Moreover, you will also comprehend how you can create an effective budget plan that focuses on all primary components of your vision.

If you want to explore the fundamentals of the development process and other topical trends, you may explore our complete guide to travel app development.

Different Components of Travel App Development Cost

• Backend Architecture

The backend architecture of a travel application focuses on the foundational structure of features in your product with dedicated functionalities. A robust backend allows you to set up a fast, flawless, and flexible working model.

Onboarding the right backend architecture, you can ensure accessible communication between the database and other application components.

Backend architecture may be subject to 30-40% of the total cost of travel app development.

• Database

Your travel app’s database is the backbone of all operations. Mobile app developers working on your travel app development project can utilize the most suitable database management software (DBMS).

Your mobile application utilizes a substantial database among the foundational resources to enable a smooth implementation.

With a sophisticated database tool, you can integrate APIs with extended functionalities.

Setting up the database may require 20% of your development efforts.

You may need 10-15% of your development budget to set up, manage, and execute data operations. With feature-packed database software, you get the facility to boost your growth as a travel app owner.

• Features

Features make your mobile app stand out in a competitive market. Identifying the right set of features ensures prolonged growth for your product’s success.

You can categorize your travel app features based on basic and advanced functionalities.

The complexity of features can affect your travel app development costs by 50-70% of the overall costs.

• Development Methodology

With an increasing adaption of SaaS products and internet-oriented deliveries, business owners are making their applications cloud-efficient with agility and clarity of vision in the development approach.

By choosing the right development tools, techniques, and methodologies, you can save development costs and significant time invested in implementation.

The development methodology can influence the travel app development cost by 20-50%.

• Location of Service Provider

If you are looking to outsource app development services for your travel app idea, the geographical location of the service provider is a significant factor to consider.

You can witness significant variations in the development costs across the regions.

Even if you consider different hiring approaches for the services, the overall development costs may differ by anywhere between 40-70%.

Types of Travel Apps With Respective Development Costs

• Travel Marketplace

A travel marketplace is a travel app that provides travel service providers with a combined platform to effectively list and tender their services. Such marketplaces are intermediaries between travel vendors and travelers seeking affordable service packages.

The cost of creating a travel marketplace may fall anywhere between $50,000 to $300,000.

• Travel Guide Apps

A travel guide app is a complete package of information that helps every traveler to simplify their trips. These apps can allow travelers to use journals, blogs, and vlogs to share and consume information in the community.

From navigation, booking, translation, and weather forecast to travel journals, travel guide applications act as a complete guide.

It may cost you anywhere between $60,000 to $300,000 to build a dynamic travel guide application for your customers.

• Transportation Apps

A transport app package combines different user interfaces, including admin panel, customer panel, and driver panel.

For all of these interfaces, developers may need to code various features that specify individual roles and responsibilities handled by these peers.

Designing and building a transportation app may cost anywhere between $30,000 and 150,000.

• Flight Booking Apps

Flying commercial flights has been made significantly simpler and more affordable.

Flight booking applications are playing a crucial role in redefining the personalization of services.

Travel agents and airlines are investing their resources in creating feature-packed and robust flight booking applications.

It may require you to invest anywhere between $25,000 to $100,000 to turn your flight booking app ideas into reality.

• Hotel Booking Apps

As the hospitality industry grows further, we witness a surge in demand for secure and scalable app solutions.

Hotel booking app requires highly interactive interfaces. From an easy listing of properties to enabling sophisticated payments, hotel booking apps are transforming the hospitality market with robust and scalable solutions.

The cost of developing a hotel booking app may range anywhere between $30,000 to $200,000.

Top Travel App Examples With Cost of Development

• Airbnb

Airbnb is a popular travel marketplace, allowing its customers to list homestays for leisure. The platform provides commission-based packages to enable bookings.

The company raised market capital worth $72.14 billion in August 2022.

Between 2021 and 2022, the company witnessed a staggering growth of 20.62% in its market capital.

If you are planning to build a travel app like Airbnb, you may keep your budget plan ranging between $50,000 to $100,000.

• Expedia

Expedia is a leading travel marketplace with gross bookings worth $18,725 million in Q3 of 2021.

The mobile application has gained worldwide recognition for its services and growing community.

In August 2022, the company had a market capital worth $16.29 billion.

To design and build a travel mobile app like Expedia, you may need to invest $30,000 to $100,000.

• Booking.com

With a market revenue worth 10.96 billion US dollars in 2021, the platform is one of the most popular travel marketplace in the global hospitality market.

Users can utilize the travel app to create exclusive travel bookings, view online and offline itineraries, and receive regular travel updates.

The platform was used to accommodate 591 million bookings in 2021.

The cost of designing and creating a travel marketplace like booking.com may range anywhere between $40,000 to $150,000.

• GasBuddy

With a user base of around 60 million users and $24 million in revenues, GasBuddy is one of the most popular travel applications in the United States. The company is using GPS-based real-time tracking of fuel prices.

Users can view time-stamped data related to their fuel usage in the form of fuel logs.

The application is currently used by more than 140,000 gas stations all across the United States.

If you are planning to create an app like GasBuddy, it may cost you from $40,000 to $150,000.

• Hopper

Hopper is a travel aggregator tool that allows its users to view and compare fares for air and hotel bookings using an AI-based tool.

The company has recently raised $175 million of funding at a valuation of $3.5 billion.

You can create an app like Hopper by investing funds with an estimated range of $30,000 to 100,000.

Process-Wise Estimation of Travel App Development Costs

• Discovery

The travel app development discovery stage allows you to validate your project vision.

The travel app development company you work with will help you create a prototype to visualize your idea in its final form.

You may need to invest between $5,000 to $10,000 to avail app discovery services to validate your plans.

• UI/UX Design

An interactive user interface can lead your mobile app to reach out to a more diverse and potential audience.

You can utilize the latest design tools and scripts to realize your creativity in an interface.

It may take around 30-50% of the overall costs to create dynamic UI/UX for your travel app.

Creating UI/UX may cost around $50,000 to $150,000.

• Development

Once you have a ready-to-use interface, you can use the latest libraries, frameworks, and tools to build a strong backend that backs the functionality and usability needs of your product.

The development of a travel app may estimate around $40,000 to $80,000.

• Testing & Deployment

Once you have a well-designed and developed travel app ready with you, it is time to scrutinize it based on different product quality parameters, i.e., functionality, usability, performance, etc.

It may cost between $30,000 to $60,000 to test your travel app.

By attaining positive results through a sophisticated testing process, you can deploy your product in real time.

• Maintenance

It takes proper planning to maintain your travel app with sustainability.

You may keep 10-20% of the budget for future spending on availing app maintenance services.

Travel App Development Cost: Based On Features

• Login & Registration

The login and registration of a travel app are the doorways that set up the first-ever interaction between the brand and its customers.

Developers can consider elements that may provide app users with a better insight into the product when they begin their journey.

Creating a dynamic login and registration page requires the developers to consider creativity as a crucial part of the process, along with core technical skills.

The cost of designing and developing an interactive account creation interface for your travel app may fall between $20,000 to $40,000.

• Search Options

You can utilize diverse design techniques and strategies to keep the search options in your travel app user-oriented. With comprehensive search options, you can engage in better accessibility to the information your travel app is to deliver.

The search option in your travel app may require you to invest anywhere between $3,000 to $10,000.

• Payment Integration

Users may need to perform a variety of payment transactions to complete their bookings.

Developers may use APIs to integrate diverse payment options into your application.

The payment integration process may take $3,000 to $5,000 of investments.

• Direct Messaging 

Since most travel apps allow consumers to plan and book their journey to a vendor through the application, the app can act as an intermediary. In such a case, consumers require a subtle medium that they can utilize to communicate their feedback, queries, and complaints.

Developers may require $10,000 to $25,000 of investment to set up a direct messaging functionality for your mobile app.

• User Profiles

Customization makes your mobile applications more user-oriented. You can enrich the overall functionalities of your travel app by allowing the creation of individual user profiles.

It may cost between $15,000 to $30,000 to develop and set up the functionality of creating and managing user profiles in your travel mobile application.

• Order Management 

Trips, accessories, or anything you purchase using these applications requires proper management. You can manage these transactions to sophisticate the transaction data.

You can view and manage your orders from a specified section in your travel app.

It may cost anywhere between $20,000 to $40,000 to design and develop an order management space in your travel app.

The Final Estimation: Travel App Development Cost

We have discussed all considerable parameters and components in this blog post.

But how much does it cost to develop a fully-fledged travel app as a whole?

After considering the insights collected from different sources and what we have discussed so far, we can categorize the travel app development cost in the below-mentioned categories.

Complexity Level	Cost
Basic	$10,000 to $30,000
Intermediate	$30,000 to $80,000
Advanced	$80,000 or more

 

We hope you have comprehensively understood the travel app development costs in this blog post.

If you have a dynamic travel app idea that you want to turn into reality, you can talk to app development experts.

Stay tuned for the more helpful content. Thank you.