There are so many people around the world who treat their pets just like their family members and have a special corner for them in their hearts. It is the reason they get always worried when it is about taking care of them. As we all know that pets are more sensitive than human beings and they need good care from us.
In today’s time, people have craze to own a pet but only some of them become good owners. People prioritize their work rather than taking their dogs, or other pets on the walk. Guess what? We have a suitable solution for this. Through this way, people can own a pet while giving them proper care and not neglecting their work.
Have you heard of an on-demand dog walking app? This app has solved the problem of a lot of dog owners as it facilitates the users to let their dog go out with someone else and you just pay them for this task. Isn’t it a life-saver app? Businesses are looking at this industry as a new profitable sector for them and are interested to invest in it. They are having dog walker app development solutions to increase their earnings. Want to get more knowledge about the cost of dog walker app development? Let’s get into the details:
Table of Contents
Overview of Dog-Walking App
Keeping a pet is a tedious task for the people who live alone as they must go to work every day and can’t leave their pet all alone behind. It refers that they even can’t take their dog for a walk and here begins the real challenge for the owner as dogs require walks to be active and energetic. In this case, we would like to talk about the dog walker apps.
By seeing this requirement, various start-ups are tended to hire a dog walker app development company to have efficient and scalable mobile app solutions for fulfilling the requirements of dog owners. They deliver a feature-rich app to businesses to help the customers in taking their dogs out safely. Individuals available on the app are trained people who know how to handle pets, so you don’t need to worry about anything.
Working of On-Demand Dog Walking App
Want to know how the dog walking mobile app works? Get in-depth knowledge via the below-mentioned points:
- Both the dog owner and dog walker must get registered with the app before using it. All the app does is connect the dog owners with the available people who can take their dogs out.
- If the pet owner is being late someday, he can schedule the walk or he can do it for the whole week if he is not free. He can also meet with the dog walker in person if he wants to.
- In this process, the dog owner sends the request for a walk, and if there is available any dog walker, he will accept the request and will take the dog to the walk.
- The owner can check the location of the walker with the integrated GPS feature and can get updates via photos.
- After finishing the task, the dog walker gets the payment through the app. The dog owner can rate the walker and write a review, after the task.
Why Businesses Should Go for Dog Walking App Development Services?
These days, people are no more careless towards their pets and spend more time taking care of them in a better way. In this process, we can see there is improvement in the US pet sitting market size compared to previous years.
According to the reports, the pet sitting market size worldwide was estimated at $2.6 billion in 2019 at an 8.7% CAGR from 2020-2027. But overall, these years, the global pet market has been developing at a higher rate due to the growing rate of animal health spending and pet adoption.
In the below graph, we can see that the US pet sitting market size was valued at $839.7 billion in 2016 but with time, it is only increasing and it is predicted to go higher in 2027 as well. As per the APPA (American pet products association), in 2017, $69.51 billion were spent on USA pets. Further, it is expected to increase for pet care services like boarding, training, grooming, and pet sitting services.
As per the APPA, the number of people who want to own a pet has been increased in the last 30 years from 56% to 68%. As a result, 85 million houses in the USA have pets in 2018.
These stats are more than enough for businesses to get efficient dog walker tracker app development solutions to enter the industry with a boom. Still, if you want to get more reasons, look at the following points:
- Dog walking app is an easy-to-use, fast, and simple app for dog owners.
- The app includes premium insurance, a guarantee of the reservation, and 24*7 regular assistance.
- Dog owners and walkers both can communicate via app text, mobile, or email.
- Secure and fast payment transactions through the app.
- The app provides customized notes and enabled a to-do listing of the map of dog runs, food & water, and pee or poo warnings.
- Dog walking apps allow users to upload videos, photos, and messages fast related to the pet by owners and walkers.
- Different features are integrated into the app that makes it work smoothly.
Must-Have Features for a Dog Walking App
What about the must-included features of a Dog sitting mobile app? Do you have any idea about it? Here, we are providing you with an idea about what features are significant to add according to the different panels of the dog walking app. Have a look below:
Dog Owner Panel
Check out the following features to add to the dog owner panel:
Profile Creation
Before getting a dog walker, or booking them, the owner needs to create their profile on the app or must register themselves first. This way, they can also check the walker’s profile to check their background and reviews before hiring them.
Filters & Search Bar
It helps the users to find out the dog walker services as per their preference and choice. Customers can put filters on for area, walker’s rates, agency, reviews, specific services, and many more. It will help them to get suitable dog walking services.
GPS Tracking
It is an essential feature for the dog walking app as it helps both dog owners and walkers to know the real-time location of dog walkers and dogs to assure the safety of the pet.
Photo Updates
This feature is helpful for dog owners to get time-to-time updates about their pet through getting photos as proof of good care and health of the dog. Dog walkers can send photos to the owner in case of any doubt.
Data Reports
It is beneficial for dog owners to keep track of all their past bookings, the performance of the dog walker, walking distance, and payment transaction records.
Dog Walker Panel
Hire mobile app developers from a well-experienced company who can provide you with these features as these are significant to integrate into the panel of a dog walker. Let’s have a look:
Profile Management
At first, dog walkers must register themselves on the app and after that, they must maintain their app profile because dog owners will approach them based on that. They can add their previous work, experience, customer review, identity proof, and “how they take care of dog” videos.
Booking Schedule
The schedule or calendar feature helps the dog walker to keep their bookings in order and sorted as per the date. It reminds them about their upcoming bookings or pending payments as well.
Accept or Reject Bookings
When the dog owner sends the request to the dog walker, he has the right to accept or reject it. If they have any important work on the same date, they can reject the request, and if they are free and want it, they can accept the request.
Real-time Tracking
A dog walker can send the location to the dog owners so that he can track the dog and dog walker for safety purposes. They can also use it to reach out to the pet owner.
Earnings Summary
Dog walkers can check their earnings to the date and received payment from the people whom they provided the dog walking services.
Admin Panel
While having pet walking app development services, keep these features in your mind to add in the admin panel. Check them out here:
Customer & Walker’s Management
Admin has access to all the information of on-demand dog walkers and dog owners stored on their dashboard. He handles all the details and looks out for any of the issues.
View Reports
Admin has the right to investigate the created reports to take help in the activity tracking on the app. Records of canceled, accepted, or completed bookings, all kinds of information it includes.
Allocated Tasks
The admin takes care of all the job requests done by the dog owners to dog walkers. Both manual and automatic job allocations can be done via the dashboard.
Payment Management
The admin can take out his commission via the service charge or payment made to the dog walkers.
Advanced Features
To create an on-demand dog walking app like Rover, you need to integrate advanced features into the dog walking mobile app. Here are they:
Social Sign-up & Log-In
While registering into the app, users can use their other social media accounts to enter the app and link it with that other social media account. Otherwise, users can also sign-up by entering details like name, contact number, email, and so on.
Real-time Notifications
These push notifications alert users about any of the new changes into the app, new discounts, deals, and offers.
In-App Chat
Dog owners can chat with the dog walkers if they want and there is any need. They can ask anything to them and it will be very convenient for them as well if they don’t want to call them.
In-App Call
Several customers have questions for dog walkers to ask but want to mask their phone number to them. This feature is specifically for those users to provide them ease to call. Although this feature’s integration can increase the cost to develop a dog walking app.
Mobile Wallet
A mobile wallet is a great asset to include in any application. The dog walker app is beneficial due to the payment process. It is easy to transact payment from any place of the world via this.
Real-time Analytics Dashboard
It is a performance tool to add in a dog walking app to track, analyze, & report the overall data of a firm in real-time with data visualization assistance. These real-time and automatically updated dashboards provide users instant access to essential data.
Dog Walking App Monetization Strategies
Businesses adopt dog walker app development services as they see it as a lucrative sector. There are so many ways to earn money via launching a dog walking mobile app. Let’s look at these ways:
1) App Membership
Several benefits are attached within the app for the users who buy app membership plans such as they don’t have to pay a charge for every service but for this, they must buy the plan that costs a price.
2) Transaction Fees
While making payment to the dog walker for their services, the dog owner must pay some of the charges as transaction fees. Top dog walker apps have included this strategy for a long time to earn more money.
3) Paid Advertisements
Dog walking apps can earn money via displaying paid ads for dog-related products, their assets, food, clinics, and so on. Ads are the best way to earn extra money easily without investing a single penny.
4) Paid Promotions
If any dog walker wants the app to highlight their profile or keep them on the top of the dashboard, they can ask for it by paying a significant amount. It is the most popular way to get profit by any app.
Step-by-Step Guide for Dog Walking App Development
It is an essential process to follow carefully as dog walking app development cost depends on it entirely. If you want to have an efficient and feature-rich dog walking app, then you must go through this entire process. Check them out below:
Step 1. Find Out Your Niche
If you find a niche of your interest for dog walking app, it would be better for its success as you will have an idea about this and would know what are the possibilities. These better possibilities will lead your app to success. Some of the most prominent niches include on-demand service for dog training, professional pet sitters with personalized care, and on-demand pet grooming.
Step 2. Analyze Your Competitors
It is essential to know everything about your competitors and what they provide to your target audiences, in short, you must know about their strategies and goals for the next five years. It will help you to get a competitive advantage in the market. For this, you must research the companies offering similar products and services or with the same business ideas. You can also take the help of your hired mobile app development company as they know who is on the top in the market and will provide you with the app accordingly.
Step 3. Add Amazing and Impressive Features
There are two important reasons behind integrating attractive and advanced features within the dog walking app. One is to grab the attention of your targeted customer base and the second is to connect the dog owners & walkers as it is the only bridge between the two of them. You must provide different salient features for each of the panels to provide convenience to both pet owners and walkers.
Step 4. Creating the App Design
While having on-demand app development services, it is a must to have an interactive and suitable app design, otherwise, users will not get attracted to it. The app should have a user-friendly, convenient, and easy-to-understand app design. It can be achieved via steps such as sketching, wireframing, & app prototyping.
Step 5. App Development
By creating an MVP version of the dog walking app, you can cope up with the user’s expectations. This version will include only basic features that can be modified and updated later as per the user’s feedback. This step will save your overall cost of adding unnecessary features as you can only integrate those features needed by your targeted user base.
Step 6. Getting Feedback
After launching your app in the market, it is needed to work upon the feedback got by the users. You will get a lot of reviews and feedback when customers will start using it, now it is at your end, you want to improve them or not. It might be possible that your app wouldn’t need any change and it will meet the customer’s expectations or might be, it will need a little bit of alteration.
Dog Walking App Development Team Structure
Getting the right mobile app development team including dedicated, experienced, and highly enthusiastic designers & developers are already halfway done on a success path. An efficient team will bring positivity and unexpected outcomes, so let’s have a look at the list of required members in a development team:
- Project Manager
- Requirement Analyst
- Android App Developers (1-2)
- iOS App Developers (1-2)
- Front-End & Back-End Developers
- QA Engineers
Dog Walking App Tech Stack
In the present time, competition among similar kinds of apps has been increased at a high level. To make their app advanced and different from others, businesses are trying their hands out on every latest technology. What is an appropriate technology stack for Dog walking app development solution? Look at below to know about it:
- Toolkit: Apple Xcode, Swift, Android Studio, Android Developer Tools
- Programming Languages: Swift, Objective-C, Java, Kotlin
- SDK: iOS SDK
- Payment Services: Stripe, PayFort, PayPal
Factors Affecting the Dog Walker App Development Cost
The cost of dog walking app development depends on various aspects that comprise app development & design, app platform, type, features, team members and technology requirements, location & experience of the hired mobile app development company, and many more. Let’s look at them in detail:
- While having an app or thinking to create it, you should be clear from where your targeted audiences belong to? Develop the app accordingly for the Android or iOS platform. You can also have a cross-platform app that works for both platforms and will provide you with a large customer base.
- Feature integration is necessary to make your app attractive enough to grab customers’ attention quickly. It should be feature-rich to stand out among the crowd.
- Consider that the more features you will include in the app, the more complex it would be. Therefore, add features in limit.
- Be selective while picking up your mobile app development team. It must be experienced and skilled enough to provide you with the exact solution you want.
- Integrate advanced and ultra-modern technologies to make your app shine out from the competitors and give them tough competition in the market.
- While hiring the company, prefer to take services from a leading firm as they have much experience. Decide carefully if you want to take in-house app development services or want to outsource them. It will impact the overall dog walking app development cost for sure. Also, developers from different regions charge different costs for app development.
How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Dog Walking App?
When the idea of having a dog walking app blinks to an entrepreneur’s mind, the first question that arises is “How much does it cost to create an app like Rover”? hence, here we are going to answer this question.
On average, the cost to develop a dog walking app will be around $15,000 to $35,000 with basic features. If you want to go for an advanced app with the latest features, then it would cost you higher. Decide accordingly as you can also try the MVP version of the dog walking app at the initial stage.
Final Words
In this article, we have discussed the on-demand dog walking app development cost & features in detail with every possible factor. We have also mentioned several factors responsible for varying the overall app development cost. As an entrepreneur, if you are thinking to launch your pet walking application, nothing can be better than this.
We hope this complete guide for dog walking app development would help you in so many ways like knowing the aspects behind the app development. Moreover, keeping a check on the app marketing, up-gradation, support & maintenance will provide you more advantages in the market.