Category: How-To

Our life is quite unpredictable. Imagine that you came home after overtime at work. The last thing you want is to walk your dog, who is staring at you with its sad eyes. A lack of time is a common concern for many dog owners. Nevertheless, the dog still has its own needs, and it should be walked regularly. Now we have a mobile app even for dog walking. 

In the past, dog owners had to find a walker in advance, and most dog walking businesses operated offline. Now, pet walking apps work great for both planned and unplanned on-demand dog walking services. 

In this article, we have gathered the main steps on how to develop an app like Uber for finding dog walkers. 

What is an on-demand platform for dog walkers? 

All dog walking or sitting mobile application operates as an on-demand two-sided marketplace:

• A pet owner sends a request for walking a dog. 
• A dog walker receives the request in real-time and confirms the booking.
• During the walk, the dog owner can track the route with GPS, receive photo updates, and even poo and pee reports. 
• When the walk comes to its end, the dog walker brings the pet home and receives payment via the app. 
• The dog owner can rate the walker and even write a review about the service. 

And now, let’s look at the best dog walking apps. 

FUNCTIONAL VS NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS: MAIN DIFFERENCES & EXAMPLES

Popular dog-walking platforms overview

As we said, apps that bring together dog walkers and owners have significant market opportunities, and to create the app “Uber for dog walking”, you should keep up with the industry leaders. 

Rover for dog walking 

The company was established in 2011 in Seattle, Washington. Currently, Rover’s annual revenue reaches $11 million. The company counts over 65,000 dog walkers and pet sitters across the U.S. The leading River service is pet sitting. Rover is also known as Yelp for dogs because to book a walk, a dog owner searches through dog walker profiles and then selects one to set up a walk with. App users can receive the following services: 

• Dog Walking from $30. You can track start and stop walk times, a map with a total distance, pee, poo, food, and water breaks via the app. 
• Doggy daycare from $20/ day. You can book daytime pet care in your sitter’s home.
• Drop-in visits from $20. Instead of a full-time pet sitter, you can book someone to drop by a few times a day to feed and check on your pet.
• House sitting from $20. In case you are leaving town, Rover gives you the option to book a sitter to take care of your dog and your home. 
• Dog boarding from $20. You can connect with a sitter who’ll welcome your dog into their home when you’re out of town. 

All Rover sitters and walkers have to pass a background check and a safety quiz. Pet owners can book an in-person meeting with a walker to discuss expectations. 

GEOLOCATION BEACONS EXPLAINED

Wag! for Pet Services

Wag Lab, also known as Wag!, was founded in 2014 in Los Angeles. Currently, the estimated Wag! Annual revenue reaches $2,5 million. Wag works like Uber for dogs. When a dog owner requests a walk, all nearby dog walkers receive notifications. If the dog owner is satisfied with the service he or she can tip the walker right through the app. Whoever responds the quickest gets the walk. Wag! has even more services to offer:

• Wag! Walk from $20. You can give your dog a walk with a selectable walk length.
• Sitting from $39. You can book a sitter who will care for the dog at your home.
• Boarding from $39. If you leave your hometown for a vacation or  business trip, a boarding host will care for your dog in their home 
• Daycare from $39. You can leave your pet at a daycare host’s home for a one-time, or repeated visit.

To build trust among pet owners, Wag! does comprehensive background screenings to ensure that dog walkers and sitters are reliable. Besides, the platform has 24/7 customer support. 

WHAT IS MVP IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT?

All these on-demand dogs walking Uber app examples are very inspiring. But what does it take to develop an app like Wag for dog walking? Let’s check it out.

How to make an app for dog walkers: a step-by-step guide

To launch your dog walking business, you will need to go through the following steps. 

1. Find your niche 

By choosing a narrow niche for your dog service app you guarantee your business success. Below we have gathered the most prominent niches for an Uber for dogs two-sided mobile app: 

• Pet Sitting. Professional pet sitters will play with pets, feed them, or provide more personalized care, like giving medication. 
• Dog Training. You can create an on-demand service for dog training with professional handlers. There is much space for dog trainer services because in the US alone there 74 million dogs. 
• Pet Grooming. On-demand grooming is another prospective pet service niche. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the demand for pet groomers is expected to rise by 12% during this year.

2. Research competitors 

At this stage, your main goal is to get a comprehensive competitive landscape view. To achieve this, you can do the following:

• Search for companies with similar service ideas or overarching business ideas
• Check their social media profiles, websites, and online communities. 
• Use ReferenceUSA, Hoovers, Ahrefs, Alexa, and Keyword Spy to receive deeper insights. 

Then, categorize competitors into three levels: 

• Primary Competition, i.e., businesses that are targeting the same audience and provide similar services
• Secondary Competition. Companies that offer their services to a different target audience fall into this category. 
• Tertiary Competition. These might be companies that provide related services or products, like pet supplies or food. Such companies could become your partners when you decide to expand your services. 

HOW TO CREATE A LOCATION-BASED APP FOR ANDROID AND IOS

3. Choose a Monetization Strategy

Most dog walker marketplaces apply the business model of the service aggregator platform. Thus, you can choose between:

• Fees form transactions. You can charge a percentage from each payment made via your dog walking marketplace. 
• Paid promotions. Dog walkers can increase their visibility in the search with advertising.
• Paid ads. You can charge pet-related businesses for running their ads on the app. 
• Surge Charges. In some areas, the demand for dog walking is higher than the supply. Thus, you can put in surge pricing to stimulate dog walkers offering their services at a higher price. 

4. Create a Feature list 

 To connect dog walkers and pet owners, your app should perform like a two-sided marketplace where there are a buyer and seller. For such projects we suggest the following feature list:

For Pet Owners

• Personal profile where the pet owner can put the dog’s name, age, personal preferences, things that the dog does not like, and so on. 
• Search where pet owners can see available dog walkers and sitters in their area. Such a feature requires Google Maps API integration, as we did for the QuePro app. To find out more, read the full case study. 
• Filters for search results to find the nearest available dog walker. 
• Walk booking and scheduling. The pet owner can book the next walk of the dog or schedule the days and time for a walk. 
• Walk report. In this section, the pet owner can track the walk route distance, start and end time.

WHAT TECH STACK TO CHOOSE FOR YOUR PROJECT

For Dog Walkers

• Profile. A walker can tell about the previous dog walking experience, put a photo and links to social media profiles.
• Requests. In this section, dog walkers will receive all new requests for a dog walking job. 
• Time availability. Dog walkers can add the time when they are available for dog walking in the calendar.

Other Important Features 

• Log in via social network accounts such as Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn for new users. 
• Online chat, where the pet owner can discuss all details with the dog walker.
• Build-in Payment gateway allows pet owners to pay walkers with their credit cards. 
• Push-notifications for new requests and walk progress. 

5. Develop the App Design

Well-Thought app design is key to smooth user experience and app success. To create a convenient and user-friendly design you will need to complete the following: 

• Sketching. You need to prioritize the app features and visualize them through user experience. You can achieve this with a few rough sketches of the primary app screens. 
• Wireframing. Now you can start creating the app wireframes. The wireframe should include app elements such as text, buttons, boxes, lists, and event descriptions. 

[The App Solutions app wireframe example]

• Prototyping. Now the design team will use your sketches and wireframes to create the app design prototype. With an app prototype, you will make your app more real for your potential investors. Besides, you can receive feedback from testers on app usability and user-friendliness. 

[The App Solutions app prototype example]

6. Develop an on-demand dog walking app MVP

By launching your app as MVP, you can manage the user’s expectations. Below we share the Rover app clone MVP estimate in hours based on our assumptions to kick off the project. 

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO DEVELOP AN APP: DETAILED FEATURE BREAKDOWN

FeatureScreen	Design	Android/ iOS
User registration (email, Facebook)	12 hours	18 hours
Profile of user (photo, bio, dogs and their photos)	12 hours	24 hours
Add/edit information of dogs to the user’s profile	8 hours	20 hours
Filter routes by type, location	8 hours	16 hours
Search on map	8 hours	26 hours
Booking section	6 hours	4 hours
Total	54 hours	108 hours

The development and design stage of app MVP takes from 2 to 4 months and costs from $25K. Once your app MVP is ready you can make the project live and upload it to app marketplaces. 

7. Gather user feedback

Gathering feedback from app users has several advantages. Firstly, you can find out:

• Whether your app meets user expectations or not
• How well the user experience is shaped, and so on. 

Besides, app users can point out app disadvantages that you would never notice. Secondly, you can ask them what features they want you to add to the app to make it more convenient. By implementing those features, you will give app users the sense of being heard. Besides, you will also encourage them to participate more and send more feedback in the future. 

HOW TO MAKE AN APP: LIFE CYCLE OF MOBILE DEVELOPMENT

In a nutshell

In recent years dog walking and sitting apps have become very popular among pet owners. Such applications give pet owners more freedom and the ability to take care of their pets even in the unforeseeable conditions of modern life. To create your dog walking app you need to go through the stages described in this article. 

Chatbot integration with a website or mobile app is a win-win strategy for both your business and your clients. Why? Firstly, thanks to various use cases, chatbots can increase revenue by up to 25%, lead generation to 9.5%, and improve engagement with clients by 35%. Secondly, your customers receive a better UX experience of finding and ordering goods or services, paying for them seamlessly, and more. Are you ready to integrate a Chabot into your business strategy? Great! But the question is, “Whether to build a custom-made Chabot or use a Chabot building platform”?

Let’s find out. 

Below, we have gathered the main chatbot types, their usages, and a comparison of custom vs. platform-build chatbots. After reading this article, you will know exactly what kind of chatbot you need. Depending on its type, you will know whether you need a custom chatbot or platform-build solution. 

Main types of chatbots

A chatbot is a computer app that mimics human behavior during a conversation with a real person. But, the degree of chatbot’s humanity depends on the complexity of the technologies behind the app. Now, let’s look at the Chabot types in more detail:

Type 1: Scripted/Quick Reply Bots

Scripted is the simplest type of chatbot. Such chatbots are powered with decision three hierarchy and communicate with people using predefined scripts via a set of questions or buttons. Such scripted chatbots are the slowest medium of getting the user to their desired value. 

[Burberry scripted chatbot] 

Type 2: AI Chatbots

AI chatbots are more complex than scripted chatbots and include two subdivisions: 

• Chatbots with Natural Language Processing 
• Content Enable Chatbots with Machine Learning 

Now, we will take a closer look at these types:

Natural Language Processing (NLP) chatbots can understand, analyze, and prioritize questions according to their complexity. NLP chatbots are programmed to recognize particular keywords. Then, such chatbots respond appropriately with a non-pre-scripted response. More advanced NLP can even understand your message intensity, i.e., whether you are asking a question or make a statement.

[Booking.com NLP chatbot]

Content Enable Chatbots. Powered by Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence, Content Enable chatbots are the more advanced type. ML chatbots learn from conversations that happened in the past with a specific user and grow over time. Examples of such chatbots are Siri, Alexa, and AI versus, created and taught by our team, ISD GmbH, and Hoskhod agency. To learn more about this project, read the full case study.  

Now, let’s look at how you can use a chatbot for your business. 

Chatbot use cases

You can use live chats and chatbots for multiple business areas, including customer support, streamlined payment, shopping assistants, and even healthcare assistants. Many marketers agree that such chat options are here to stay as automation continues to make advances. Now, chatbots can cover the following usages: 

FAQ assistants

Chatbots, in most cases scripted, can perform as live FAQ and process over 80% of support queries. It means that the customer can ask them questions and receive an answer. But, to create such a chatbot, you need something more than integrating FAQ section materials into a chat interface. FAQ chatbots should also be able to ask follow-up questions and connect the user with a real person if needed. 

Such chatbots are used for both websites and mobile applications, and one example is the “Kate” chatbot, a mobile app digital assistant, developed by Geico insurance company. App users can ask Kate questions, via both voice and text, and receive answers about billing and basic policy.

Navigational botsshopping assistants

Navigations bots help website or mobile app users search for specific information such as blog articles, a particular website page or product, via a conversational interface. You can use the navigation chatbot to direct customers to the most relevant product. Firstly, the user tells a chatbot what product one is searching for. Next, the navigation bot shows the user all the products that match the user’s request and sends links to those items. To achieve this, the chatbot back-end is integrated with catalog and service-side API. Still, such chatbots are something more than navigation menus. Shopping assistants can even adopt changing messages and themes, send holiday greetings or information about an actual sale. 

Shopping assistants are widely used in the clothes and fashion industry. An example is the H&M bot on the KiK platform, which understands user style preferences, gives personalized style recommendations, and even builds an outfit. 

Healthcare assistants

Chatbots help clinics and hospitals save a considerable amount of money. In the healthcare industry, chatbots can perform as online receptionists, nurses, interns, or even assist with a patient progress report, assess drug interactions, and check post-op recovery. 

Besides, chatbots can make medical diagnoses faster, as MedWhat chatbot does. Thanks to the ML algorithm, MedWhat chatbot provides users with increasingly accurate answers on questions concerning medical diagnoses. Besides this, thanks to machine learning, the bot learns from each interaction with a patient. MedWhat bot expands existing medical data using a vast volume of medical research and peer-reviewed scientific papers. 

Recommendations and Booking agents

In industries like hospitality and traveling, chatbots can be used as personal traveler assistants or virtual concierges. In this way, customers receive 24/7 online support, which impacts customer loyalty and satisfaction. You can integrate such chatbots into a website, and even a Facebook Business page, like the SnapTravel agency has.

Using the SnapTravel Messenger bot, travelers can find the best accommodation that meets their preferences and budget. This bot is powered by Artificial Intelligence and works as an aggregator. You need to enter the dates and city you want to go to. Then, Snap bot analyzes offer from Expedia, Priceline, and other travel websites, to come up with the best deals. After selecting the best option, the user can book accommodation right through Messenger. 

Lead generation and retention bots

Chatbots might also be a part of a content marketing strategy and generate more leads from social media or websites. Besides this, a retention chatbot could activate your old leads by sending them sales alerts or relevant updates as TechCrunch Messenger chatbot does. It informs subscribers about stories on relevant topics. To achieve this, users need to subscribe to sections, authors, and topics on the TechCrunch website, and then the bot sends news articles, and other updates, right to the user via Messenger. 

Transactional bots

This type of chatbot is much different from other use cases on this list. The main goal of transactional chatbots is to simplify user experience and provide a convenient and quick channel for completing a particular action. Transactional chatbots allow users to place new orders and repeat purchases and even conduct an online payment. 

An example is Pizza Hut’s bot that helps users place orders for pizza and other meals via Twitter or Facebook. The bot also informs customers about recent promotions and answers FAQ questions.

Have you selected a perfect type and usage case for your chatbot? Great!

Now, let’s find out whether to build a bot with a builder or make a custom bot from scratch. 

READ ALSO: NLP Business Applications

Platform-based chatbots

Chatbot platforms allow you to make your own chatbot by yourself. While some chatbot-building platforms have a simple drag-and-drop menu, others require a degree of technical knowledge. Now, we’ll take a look at the most popular platforms for building chatbots, their capabilities, and price policies. 

	Flow XO	Chatfuel	Azure Bot Service
Complexity	Simple	Medium	High
Where to use	·       Facebook Messenger ·       Slack ·       Twilio SMS ·       Telegram ·       Website	·       Facebook Messenger ·       WordPress ·       Shopify websites	·       Website ·       Mobile app ·       Cortana ·       Skype ·       Slack ·       Facebook Messenger
Main features	·       Simple questions answering ·       User answers validation ·       Switch between a chatbot and live chat ·       Accept payments ·       Build-in templates	·       Online chat ·       Payments ·       Call button ·       Switch between a chatbot and human agent ·       Support integrations via JSON API	·       Natural Language Understanding ·       Open-source SDK ·       Native integration of Azure Cognitive Services. ·       Any type of bots: from a Q&A bot to your own branded virtual assistant
Costs	·       Standard Plan – $19 per month Add-ons: ·       5 bots or active flows – $10 per month ·   25,000 interactions- $10 per month	·       Free – up to 1000 Subscribers ·       Pro – from $15 per month ·       Premium – from $199 per month	·       Free – 10,000 messages/month ·       Premium channels- $0.50 per 1,000 messages

So, what are the advantages of bot-building platforms?

• Chatbot builders are handy for developing simple or even sophisticated chatbots for any business
• You can integrate your chatbot to most popular messaging platforms, such as Messenger, Telegram, Skype
• Some platforms allow integrating a chatbot right to your website or mobile app
• You can connect your chatbot with third-party services such as payment gateway 
• Chatbot-building platforms are cheap or even free 
• By using a platform, you can set your business logic of chatbot behavior

At the same time, chatbot building platforms have some disadvantages:

• You can only create a chatbot with simple logic. For more complex chatbots, you will need  help from developers 
• Chatbot-builders’ tools may not always help you achieve your desired results.
• If you are not a tech person, you will need more time and effort to make a chatbot. However, there is no guarantee that the chatbot will perform well.

Building a chatbot from scratch

If you want to create a sophisticated chatbot with your own API integrations, such as a shopping assistant, booking agent, or healthcare assistant, consider developing a chatbot from scratch. You can create a solution with custom logic and a set of features that ideally meet your business needs. Such chatbots work as a server-side application that implements chat features via its own API. To create your own custom chatbot, you need to hire a development team for chatbot development services. If your chatbot requires the integration of Natural Language Processing, the development team will use Opennlp or Nltk NLP tools. In this case, consider that NLP will perform as a separate service.  

Below, you can find our feature list of a custom chatbot MVP for a travel agency with estimation in hours. 

FeatureScreen	Functions required	BackEnd
Architecture		12
Customization for agents	Logo Agent Name	60
Connection to Data Server API		16
Switching between a chatbot and human agent	Switch between Human Agent and Chatbot Return, Forward functions for user	32
Gathering of data from the user (Search for hotel, tour, full package flow)	Dates Number of adults Number of Infants Meal Hotel stars	32
Transferring Data to API and receiving results		16
Tour Proposals	Show search results	8
Show more variants		16
Admin Panel
Admin Login		8
Chatbot Management	Define questions and answers	40
Total		From 240 hours

In our experience as a chatbot development company, developing a custom chatbot starts from $4000 and takes from 240 hours of coding. 

By developing a custom chatbot you will receive the following benefits: 

• You can integrate complex and unique functionalities to your chatbot
• Your development team will provide your bot with excellent user experience, as well as helping you to find the right technical solution for your business needs. 
• The development team will conduct tests of your chatbot to ensure that it is bug-free.
• After the bot release, the development team will provide you with technical maintenance and further bot improvement. 

However, there are also some drawbacks: 

• Developing a custom chatbot takes more time and costs more than developing a bot via the building platform. 
• To develop such a solution, developers will need to create service infrastructure and hosting, which also takes time. 

Now, let us compare developing a chatbot with a platform and a custom solution. 

Platform vs. Custom: Chatbot development comparison

	Platform	Custom
Initial cost	While some bot development platforms are free of charge, others will charge a fee: ·   Monthly ·   Per user ·   Per transaction basis	The cost will depend on: ·   Experience of the developers ·   The number of developing hours ·   Bot usage case ·   The number of platforms required ·   The number of chatbot users ·   The number of third-party integration such as an online store or a CRM ·   API integration
Planning	You can simultaneously plan and build a chatbot using a flowchart-like or drag and drop interface	Here, you need to consider the integration of a chatbot with:   ·   NLP ·   Analytics ·   Payments ·   Subscriptions ·   Integrations ·   Platforms All elements will work together, which increases both chatbot complexity.
Build Time	By using ready-made templates, you can integrate a simple chatbot in messenger in less than 30 seconds.	The chatbot building time depends on ·   Number of developers ·   Number and complexity of features ·   Number of integrations
Testing	You need to test the Chabot on your own. You can receive support on Chabot testing via a test/development chat within the platform.	The developing team will conduct the bench of the test to ensure that your bot operates correctly.
Maintenance	You can make changes and integrate new scenarios on your own without coding.	Only developers can make changes in the bot code.

What to choose: platform-build or a custom chatbot?

There is no single answer since the solution will depend on the complexity of your chatbot, its’ usage case, number of integrations, and so on. 

Chatbot builders suite for developing:

• FAQ bots
• Transactional chatbots 
• Navigation bots
• Lead generation bots

Besides, you can use chatbot builders if you are in a hurry, have a tight budget, and need simple functionality. However, even platform build-solutions may be complex and apply MLP, AI, and machine learning. For such cases, you need to hire a development team to set up and teach the sophisticated chatbots for you. 

Custom chatbots are great in the following use cases:

• Shopping assistants with AI and machine learning 
• Healthcare assistants 
• Medical diagnoses bot
• Hospitality chatbots and personal concierge
• A bot with catalog and service-side API integrations

In a nutshell

Chatbots vary in the level of their complexity, usage cases, and industries. Still, with such great diversity, you can find the option that will ideally meet your business needs. To achieve this, you need to answer the following questions: 

• What is the purpose of the chatbot?
• Where will you use it: in a messenger, website, or app?
• How complex should it be?
• How many features should it have?
• Do you need to integrate it with third-party services, such as analytics or payment gateway?  

After answering these questions you will have a clear idea of whether to build your own custom chatbot or use a bot builder. 

Related articles:

HOW CHATBOT CAN MAKE AN EFFICIENT PATIENT SUPPORT SYSTEM

GUIDE TO MACHINE LEARNING APPLICATIONS: 7 MAJOR FIELDS

BASICS OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

5 CHALLENGES OF CHATBOTS FOR BUSINESS AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM

 

Today, the word “bot” is no longer associated with science fiction. Now, chatbots allow you to book a ticket or accommodation, order food, or even pay for your order online. 

Chatbots are currently used, not only in e-commerce websites, but also in social networks, like Twitter, Facebook, and, in particular, the Facebook Messenger platform. Why? The reason is simple – instead of calling customer support, over 65% of online shoppers will message a business. Also, 53% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a store they can message. And, Facebook reports on a host of data only proves that trend. Reports show that every month Facebook business pages are exchanging over 2 billion messages with customers.  

But why is it important? Let’s see. 

If you do not want to get left behind but rather be ahead of your competitors in online retail, you should be able to communicate directly with your clients. And, to make such communication even more useful, consider adopting chatbots for your e-commerce business. 

In this article, we will look at the most successful e-commerce chatbot use cases and go through a step-by-step guide on how you can develop a perfect chatbot for your online store. 

But first, let’s see what the benefits are of using chatbots in retail stores. 

Key benefits of using e-commerce chatbots

Around 80% of online businesses are planning to use chatbots by 2020. 

The reasons why this digital trend is up and running lie in the following benefits of chatbots for e-commerce: 

Improved customer engagement

As we have said, modern customers prefer sending messages to businesses rather than making phone calls. But, to keep customers engaged with your business, you need to respond in time. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review research, a five-minute delay in answering a customer query decreases the customer engagement rate, and a ten-minute delay reduces this metric by 400%. Chatbots for retail businesses respond to potential buyers’ queries immediately, thus increasing the customer engagement rate by 54%. 

Drive sales 

A chatbot could be integrated into your website or shopping app. By providing customers with immediate responses, shopping chatbots significantly drive sales to your online store. The recent Ubisend report shows that 40% of consumers want offers and deals from chatbots. Also, online shoppers are willing to spend more than $400 on an online store powered by a chatbot. 

Reduce customer acquisition cost

As you may know, Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a metric that shows how much money you spend to attract one customer, and the lower the CAC, the better. Chatbots reduce CAC since they offer engaging and instant conversation on your online store; thus, customers stay longer on your website. Moreover, chatbots for retail and e-commerce sites provide customers with personalized product recommendations and, as a result, increase chances to convert website visitors into customers.  

Decrease customer support costs

If a potential customer is interested in your products, one may ask for a more detailed product description. Statistics show that answering simple questions is relevant to 55% of online shoppers, and 64% of online shoppers prefer 24/7 online support that can not be provided by a real person. Here chatbots are handy. By integrating a simple FAQ chatbot, you can decrease customer support costs by 30%. But to answer complex queries, a chatbot should switch the customer to a human agent. 

Build Loyalty

Customer loyalty, also known as customer retention rate, is another metric that chatbots can improve. To build loyalty among existing customers, consider integrating instant chatbot, and always be in touch with your target audience, provide them with customer service and relevant product recommendations. 

Streamline sales funnel

By using an e-commerce chatbot, customers can identify the product they want, find it in a matter of clicks, and buy more seamlessly. Thus, chatbots have become a new sales channel for online retailers. 

Top 5 most successful e-commerce chatbot use cases

Let’s see the most successful examples that show the use of chatbots in retail by famous brands. 

Order automation 

How many steps do you need to take for ordering, for example, a pizza via a website? The answer is at least five – select a pizza you want, add it to the shopping cart, go to the shopping cart to complete your order, fill in the delivery address, and pay for the order. Chatbots can shorten this process to just two steps – you need to give a chatbot your order details, share your location via GPS, or put it manually. Sounds incredible? That is actually how a Pizza Hut Facebook Messenger chatbot works. Moreover, the company launched a Twitter chatbot that decreases the ordering process to just one action- sending a pizza emoji in direct messages. After the launch of Facebook and Twitter chatbots, Pizza Hut increased digital revenue by 75-80% and continue to receive 50% of its orders from these digital channels. 

Personal product recommendations 

When customers are visiting your online store to buy a particular pair of jeans, they spend some time in the product catalog to find the exact pair they are searching for. Such a buying process may become an irritating experience, especially if your online store has numerous product categories. To avoid this, online retailers integrate chatbots to help buyers in selecting products that perfectly meet their needs, just as Aerie, the clothing and lingerie spin-off of American Eagle Outfitters did. The company integrated a chatbot for Kik messenger, developed on the Pandorabot platform. To learn more about style preferences, the bot shows online shop visitors two images of clothing or lingerie. Then, the bot customizes the item recommendations and offer more relevant products. As a result of such integration, AEO chatbot acquired twice as many users across all social channels. 

Conversational marketing tool

Do you like Nike sneakers? What if you can put any image on sneakers to customize them in the way you want? That is what Nike did in their conversational marketing strategy to promote Nike AirMax Day. The company developed a  Nike StyleBot for Facebook Messenger to enable fans to style their shoe design, using previously uploaded versions for inspiration, and sharing the results with friends via Facebook Messenger. Such a conversational marketing campaign brought the company 12.5 times higher click-through rate (CTR) compared with their other campaigns, and four times higher conversion rate that their average marketing campaign.

Chatbots for shopping assistance 

To receive relevant product recommendations at an online store is a great experience. But what if a chatbot can suggest the whole outfit to you? That idea inspired H&M to create The Official H&M Chatbot. The main goals of the H&M Chatbot are to streamline mobile shopper’s customer experience, help them to search through outfit possibilities, and guide them directly to an online store to complete the purchase. To receive a personalized look, the customer provides the chatbot with gender, style, and the total price for all items. Then, if the shopper likes the outfit, one can save it to archive, buy all items at the H&M online store, or share the look via social networks. By using a chatbot, the company facilitates impulse buys and decreases the shopping cart abandon rate due to streamlined sales funnel. 

Personalized 24/7 customer support 

While a human agent can not be around and answer all the customer’s queries, chatbot nails it. An example is the Twitter DM chatbot created by the Etsy marketplace. The company’s chatbot has clear call-to-action buttons that provide shoppers with more personalized customer service, fixes problems immediately, and helps in finding more information day or night. Despite any issues that may have arisen, in this way, Etsy managed to build a strong relationship with clients which encouraged them to return in the future. 

How to create a chatbot for an e-commerce store 

If you want to build one for your online store, follow the steps of the chatbot development guide, described below. 

Step 1. Define the bot’s goal 

What do you need a chatbot for? Should it answer user questions, offer discounts, or promote new products? To decide on your chatbot functionality, you will need to communicate with your customer support, sales, and social media teams. To give you an idea of how you can use a chatbot, we have selected the most widely spread use cases of chatbot in online retail:  

• Send notifications and reminders
• Work as digital assistants
• Handle online transactions
• Collect customer data and user feedback
• Advertise and broadcast
• Conduct market research
• Entertain and educate users
• Automated customer support
• Streamlined business processes
• Give personalized recommendations
• Provide access to information
• Upsell products and services, etc.

To build a chatbot for a retail business, we advise you to be selective and wrap your ideas with certain limits, i.e., the number of functions. In the beginning, empower your chatbot with one or two simple tasks and analyze how the bot works for your business. You can always add more sophisticated functions later. 

Step 2. Select the chatbot type

When you are done with the functions of your chatbot, you need to choose its type. Nowadays, there are two main types of chatbots: 

• Pre-scripted or rule-based chatbots are the simplest type since they work on the basis of predefined answers. Use such a chatbot if you need a solution for solving simple tasks, like customer service bots, to answer users’ questions. 

• AI-based chatbots are more advanced than the previous one. By using AI (artificial intelligence) and NLP (natural language processing), such bots can understand user input and answer with relevant non-pre defined answers. You can even empower your bot with an NL (machine learning) algorithm, so the bot can learn from each interaction with a user and remember one’s preferences. Still, AI chatbots require pre-launch training; thus, you need to hire chatbot developers. 

Next, consider where you will use your chatbot since it will impact the technical solution. You can develop a chatbot for the following channels: 

• E-commerce website 
• iMessage or SMS 
• Social networks such as Twitter, or Slack 
• Messaging apps, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram

If you need to use the same chatbot in both your online store and Facebook Messenger, you can create an omnichannel chatbot that will work across several channels. 

When you know your chatbot use case, its type, and channels, you are ready to select the platform to build your chatbot. 

Step 3. Choose your platform

Below we have gathered the most popular platform for building an e-commerce chatbot. 

Unless you want to create a custom e-commerce chatbot, you can select the most suitable platform that varies on the bot’s complexity. 

Best platforms for simple chatbots 

	Chatfuel	Botsify	Flow Xo
Target platforms	Telegram  Facebook Messenger	Facebook Messenger  WhatsApp  Instagram	WhatsApp Web Facebook Messenger Slack Telegram  Twilio SMS
Price	Free with basic features;  Chatfuel Pro ($30/month) with advanced features is also available	Free  Basic ($10/month),  Premium ($30/month) Business ($50/month)	Free Standard ($19/month)
Description	Chatfuel chatbots work on pre-defined coded rules and serve clients accordingly. The Chatfuel builder platform has drag-and-drop feature which makes  it the ideal platform for beginners who want a chatbot to perform basic roles.	Botsify provides users with its custom templates for travel, restaurant booking, etc. along with drag-and-drop functionalities.   Anyone can create bots effortlessly without writing a single line of code.  Even the free version comes with 20 templates.	Flow Xo offers templates and tools to create and test the functionalities of your bot with a built-in test console.  The bot can connect with your customers over voice and chat.

Best platforms for AI chatbots for e-commerce

	IBM Watson	Microsoft Bot Framework	Wit.ai
Target platform	Facebook Messenger WhatsApp  Instagram	Website  App Cortana Microsoft Teams Skype  Slack Facebook Messenger	Website  App Cortana  Microsoft Teams  Skype Slack  Facebook Messenger
Price	Lite (USD 0)  Standard ($0.0025 (USD) per API call)  Premium (price not disclosed)	Standard channels (Free) Premium ($0.50 per 1,000 messages)	Standard channels (Free) Premium ($0.50 per 1,000 messages)
Description	IBM Watson is the platform for AI chatbot that can handle complex conversations.  It can process around four terabytes of data and is hosted on a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers, each of which uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight-core processor. Chatbot developers can leverage a wide range of technology frameworks, including: Node SDK (Software Development Kit)  Java SDK  Python SDK iOS SDK  Salesforce SDK  Unity SDK  to make IBM Watson with different platforms.	Azure Bot Service provides a scalable, integrated connectivity and development service to help developers create intelligent bots that can engage users across multiple platforms.  The development tools are provisioned with the Microsoft Bot Builder SDK, which .NET and Node.js developers can access and use to create an engaging talking bot.  The SDK also includes an emulator for debugging your bots, as well as a large set of sample bots you can use as building blocks. The cloud-based service is globally accessible across 141 countries, and bots can communicate in multiple languages including:  English French  Italian  German  Spanish  Japanese  Korean Chinese.	This NLP-powered chatbot builder offers resources to create engaging, scalable chatbots to serve different purposes.  Wit.ai learns human language through every interaction and leverages the community to evolve and improve further. Chatbots with Wit.ai support 50+ languages, and developers have the flexibility to use any of the available SDKs, including:  Android,  iOS,  Cordova,  HTML,  JavaScript,  Node.js,  .NET,  Unity,   Java And other.

When you know what bot-building platform you will choose, it’s time to hire chatbot developers and start building your bot.  

Step 4. Create a chatbot MVP

You can create a simple bot with a DIY platform within several hours. But to develop an AI chatbot is far more difficult. However, to find out whether a chatbot suits your business needs, you do not need to spend a fortune on its development. We recommend launching such projects as MVP (minimum viable product). For chatbot MVP, we suggest only pre-scripted answers. To understand the project scope, check out our estimation of the MVP of a Facebook Messenger bot for e-commerce product recommendation. 

FeatureScreen	Functions required	BackEnd
Architecture		12 hours
Customization for agents	– Logo – Agent Name	60 hours
Connection to Data Server API		16 hours
Switching between a chatbot and human agent	– Switch between Human Agent and Chatbot	32  hours
Gathering of data from user	– Type of product – Color – Size – Material	32  hours
Data transfering to API, receive results	-The chatbot search for relevant products in your online store database	16  hours
Search Results	– Show search results	8  hours
Show more variants	-The chatbot shows more relevant products from the selected category	16 hours
Chatbot Management	– Define questions and answers	40 hours
Total		From 232 hours

In our experience, the cost to develop a chatbot MVP varies from $3,500 to $5,000 and takes from 2 to 6 months, depending on the bot’s complexity and the number of integrations. 

Step 5. Launch your chatbot

After your development team has created a bot and ensured it is without errors, it is time to launch it on your e-commerce website. Now you need to pay extra attention to how the chatbot interacts with clients and ask them for feedback. You may also ask users what features they would add to your chatbot. After gathering all user feedback, bring them to your development team to prioritize features to implement during the second e-commerce chatbot development stage.  

In a nutshell

More and more people want to communicate with businesses via messengers, and online retail is one of those industries that can receive a significant profit from this trend. Therefore, to keep the most effective communication with users, increase sales and engagement, and build loyalty, a chatbot is a must. Various use cases and successful e-commerce chatbot examples show that chatbots for the retail industry are a win-win for both sellers and buyers. 

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WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO CREATE A CHATBOT: PLATFORM VS. CUSTOM

WHY BUSINESS USE NLP? FIVE PROMINENT USE CASES

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Real estate is one of those industries where communication plays an essential role. However, not all people who contact real estate agencies are qualified leads that will buy a flat. Thus, many real estate brokers waste their time answering the same questions from people who would never return to sign a contract. 

This is where chatbots come in handy. By using real estate chatbots, agencies can not only qualify leads and send follow-ups, but also improve engagement and increase sales.

In this article, we will tell you about chatbots for the real estate segment and how you can build one that will perfectly suit your business strategy.  

But first, let’s find out what benefits chatbots bring to real estate businesses. 

Benefits of chatbots for Real estate 

When selling real estate, agencies, and real estate agents receive many queries from prospective customers who want to know more about the development. In a perfect world, a real estate agent gets in touch with potential buyers and handles the one-on-one conversation which results in buying a house or a flat. But in the real world, the selling process appears not as simple as it seems. Often people, who received detailed information from a real estate broker, disappear, or the real estate agent could not physically handle all queries from potential clients. To get deeper insights into the Real Estate segment, we asked Nadiia Pavlik, a Real Estate broker from Keller Williams Chicago – Lincoln Park, to share her experience in communicating with clients. 

Chatbots might bring the following benefits to real estate businesses: 

• Immediate responses. A chatbot can answer the client’s queries immediately via a website, messenger, or social media, like Facebook. While Chatbots save up to 30% in customer support costs, clients do not have to wait for answers from a human agent about their interest in a property. 

• Availability 24/7. Unlike real estate agents, who might not be available throughout the day, chatbots provide your customers with information outside of working hours. Besides, chatbots can help you to save on customer service costs by speeding up response times and answering up to 80% of routine questions.
• Personalized offers. All customers are looking for different types of apartments and property types. Chatbots provide customers with a series of questions to come up with more relevant offers, which is more effective than collecting information via physical copies or forms.
• Improved leads qualifying. Chatbots can qualify your potential leads by comparing their behavior with the behavior of the previous clients and assigning them scores of lead maternity. In this way, your real estate brokers can communicate with only highly-qualified leads.
• Automated scheduling. When the chatbot qualifies the lead as a potential buyer, one can schedule a home tour via chatbot. Besides, bots can introduce the client to a real estate agent for more detailed communication.  
• Effective follow-ups. You can enable your chatbot to send automated follow-ups to potential customers via the medium they choose, including email, social media, messengers, or even SMS.

Now that you are aware of chatbot benefits for real estate, let’s find out what type of chatbot will meet your business goals. 

Types of chatbots for real estate

Chatbots vary depending on use cases and complexity. Currently, there are three types of chatbots: 

Scripted bots

Scripted, or rule-based is the simplest type of chatbot. They have strict logic to search commands in the input text. Such bots are programmed to answer simple questions or perform simple actions. You can use them as online assistants for answering the FAQ section or collecting customers’ personal information. 

You can create this type of bot without help from bot developers using the following DIY bot-builder platforms:

• Chatfuel
• Flow 
• MobileMonkey
• ManyChat

By using these platforms you can develop a simple bot for your website, messengers, or social media such as Facebook. At the same time, consider that bot-building platforms do not provide a lot of room for customization of a chatbot interface. 

But if you are looking for a solution to optimize business processes, you can choose between the next two types of chatbots. 

Platform-based AI chatbots

This type of bot uses more sophisticated data processing technologies, such as Natural Language processing to process user input and provide relevant not-prescripted answers. You can build such a bot for providing users with relevant results from your real estate catalog and lead qualification. 

You can build an AI-chatbot using a ready-made platform, such as:

• IBM Watson Assistant 
• Semantic Machine

Or even machine learning bots with cognitive abilities using: 

• Microsoft Azure 
• Wit.ai Chatbot Platform
• Dialog Flow platform

Most of these platforms support integration with websites and most popular messengers such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram. 

If you want to develop such a bot, you may need help from chatbot developers for initial bot settings and training. 

Platform-based AI-chatbots are the best option if you have a small business and do not need custom functionality. But if you do, consider the next type of chatbots.  

Custom NLP and AI chatbots

Such chatbots are custom applications created by developers. You can apply AI bots for solving particular complicated business issues, such as providing customers with personalized flat recommendations, scheduling an appointment with a real estate agent, saving communication with a customer in ERP for relevant recommendations, and so on.

The most popular programming languages for developing custom chatbots are: 

• C++ 
• Java
• Python 

 Developing custom chatbots is the most time and money consuming option. Still, it is quite popular among big companies and enterprises, since custom code gives you the possibility to empower the chatbot with any feature, type of customization and integration to meet your business needs. 

Once you have decided on the type and complexity of your chatbot, you can start developing one using the step-by-step guide below. 

How to develop a real estate chatbot 

To integrate a chatbot to your real estate business you need to go through the following steps:

Step 1. Define your Business Needs

During this step, you should find out the issues you want to solve with the help of a chatbot, what exact features your chatbot should perform, and how complex it should be. For instance:

• Receive more qualified leads 
• Improve customer engagement 
• Automate lead generation and validation
• Or all at once. 

Step 2. Evaluate Budget 

Now, consider how much you want to invest in your chatbot. You may have a considerable or limited budget or no budget at all. Let’s see what solution may suit your budget. 

Tight budget

With a tight budget, you cannot build a custom solution with numerous integrations. Instead, you can create a script-based one-task online assistant. Thus, you can choose among bot builders previously discussed in this article. Such DIY chatbot platforms are user-friendly, have a drag-and-drop menu, and have low charges for publishing a bot. 

DIY chatbot platform fees
Chatfuel	Free – Up to 1000 Subscribers From $15 /mo – price adjusts according to the number of subscribers From $199 /mo – a fixed fee add-on to Pro plan
Flow XO	Free – up to 500 interactions / up to 5 bots or active flows Standard Plan-up is $19/mo for 5,000 interactions / up to 15 bots or active flows
MobileMonkey	Free plan Advanced plans from $48/year
ManyChat	Free  Pro plan – 500 subscribers at $10/mo and it can scale up to $145/mo for 25000 subscribers

Budget for a full-scale project

If you have enough budget to build a feature-rich bot with third-party integrations, consider developing a platform-based or custom AI chatbot. In both cases you will need help from a chatbot development team, since complex platforms, and custom code in particular, requires specialists with considerable expertise. Hiring chatbot developers for your real estate agency has numerous advantages. The team would be responsible for initial chatbot setting and training, testing and further technical maintenance. 

AI-chatbot building platforms fees
IBM Watson Assistant	Free – 10,000 messages/month Plus, Premium, IBM Cloud Private – on request
Semantic Machine	On request

Machine learning bot-building platforms fees
Microsoft Azure	On request
Wit.ai	Free
Dialog Flow	Standard Edition – Free Enterprise Edition Essentials – $0.002 per request Enterprise Edition Plus – $0.004 per request

Step 3. Consider integrations

Now, you should decide how many integrations your bot will have. In most cases, developers perform all the chatbot’s integrations. For example, for a simple Facebook Messenger bot, you will need a developer who will integrate it with your Content Management System (CMS). You can also connect your chatbot with your  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other third-party software, as email marketing tools, databases, and others. Below, we have gathered a list of the most popular and useful integrations for a real estate messenger bot: 

SharePoint & Office 365	Suitable for handling document search and event management.
Open Authorization for SharePoint	Suitable for document storage, management, authentication, and many other administrative tasks.
CRM Applications	For providing better customer support, you can integrate your bot with Salesforce CRM, Zendesk or LivePerson.
Enterprise Content Management	This integration is handy to allow your real estate agents, customers, and managers to find relevant documents quickly
ERP Systems	With a chatbot, you can add more functionality to you  ERP systems for overall management without the need of a backend database or dashboards.

Step 4. Develop MVP 

While you can build an MVP with DIY platforms within a few hours, developing a sophisticated bot requires more time and effort from both you and bot developers. 

We recommend launching complicated chatbot projects as MVP. This approach allows testing a chatbot without spending a considerable amount of money.

For developing an MVP of the Facebook Messenger chatbot, consider the features in the table below. To give you an idea of how much time the development stage will take, we have also added estimation in hours.

FeatureScreen	Functions required	BackEnd
Architecture		12+ hours
Customization for agents	Logo Agent Name	60+ hours
Connection to Data Server API		16+ hours
Switching between a chatbot and human agent	Switch between Human Real estate Agent and Chatbot Return, Forward functions for user	32+ hours
Gathering of data from user	Type of house Number of bedrooms Number of bathrooms Cost	32+ hours
API integration	Data transfering to API Receive results	16+ hours
Offers	Show search results	8+ hours
Show more variants		16+ hours
Admin Login		8+ hours
Chatbot Management	Define questions, and answers	40+ hours
Total		From 240 hours

So, how much does a real estate messenger bot cost? The cost to develop a Messenger chatbot MVP for a real estate business varies from $4,000 to $8,000 and depends on the project’s complexity and the number of integrations. 

Step 5. Launch MVP

After the release of a real estate chatbot MVP, ask your real customers to test it and pay attention to the following elements:

• User Experience (UX)
• Bots Flow
• Speed of Response 
• Answers’ Accuracy
• Fallbacks 
• Engagement

After conducting the beta testing of your chatbot and gathering feedback, you will have a clear idea about what you can improve in your chatbot and what features to add. 

Step 6. Second development stage

At this stage, you and your development team need to enrich the chatbot with additional features and fix the bot’s trouble areas. You should also continue analyzing the bot’s interactions with real users and track how well your bot is working by connecting it with analytics.  

However, you should not forget about the maintenance and technical support of your bot. For this task, we recommend hiring chatbot developers who will monitor the bot’s performance, at least during the initial post-launch period, and fix bugs on the fly. 

In a nutshell 

Real estate is one of those industries that’s evolving thanks to chatbots. You should consider developing messenger bots for your real estate business if you want to reduce customer support costs, receive more qualified leads and, as a result, increase your income. 

The complexity of your bot should be based on your business needs. 

• Consider developing a scripted bot if your business needs a bot that will be available 24/7 to answer simple user questions. 
• Choose between platform-based or custom AI chatbots if you want your bot to perform more complex tasks, such as lead validation, follow-ups, and personalized recommendations.

Related articles: 

HOW CHATBOT CAN MAKE AN EFFICIENT PATIENT SUPPORT SYSTEM

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WHAT IS MVP IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT?

What does a perfect vacation overseas consist of? Before taking a sunbath on the beach, you need to spend time to find accommodation within your budget, book a flight, and spend at least two hours to check-in — that’s how this was before chatbots in the travel industry appeared. Now, using a chatbot and your smartphone, you can book and pay for hotels, flights, and even check-in online without a hassle. 

If you want to develop a chatbot for your travel agency, this article is right for you. Below, we share the most successful usage of travel chatbots and a step-by-step guide on how to develop one. 

But first, let’s find out what the advantages of using a chatbot for your travel business are. 

Why you need a travel chatbot for business: top 5 benefits

Online travel companies are simplifying the way we organize our vacation. When planning a trip, around 84% of travelers use online travel booking agencies, such as Kayak, Expedia, or TripAdvisor. Still, the market of travel booking is flooded with irrelevant options, and to find the best one, travelers visit 38 sites on average, and for 62% of travelers, it is hard to find the right deal. At the same time, Huxley’s survey said 87% of travelers want to interact with a travel chatbot to find the best accommodation while saving time for the indecisive search. Moreover, 79% of them expect a travel chatbot to perform as an online travel concierge. 

And now, let’s look at chatbots from a business perspective.

Consider integrating a chatbot to your travel business, since it will bring the following benefits: 

• Increase engagement. As we have said, travelers are looking through various travel websites to find the best trip. At the same time, if your online travel chatbot can provide users with relevant offers, your agency will become more valuable for your clients and increase the engagement rate. 
• Reduce workload and operation costs. When a traveler is interested in a particular tour or hotel, one is more likely to ask a question to receive more information. The bad news is that your customer support team spends at least two hours a day answering repetitive questions. FAQ chatbot can provide travelers with answers to basic questions, thus reducing both the workload on your employees and customer support costs up to 30%.
• Increase sales. Travelers want to book a hotel, rent a car or pay for their ticket as quickly as possible and find long forms an unpleasant and irritating experience. Thanks to the integrated payment gateway, a Messenger travel chatbot could seamlessly get your customers through the sales funnel and close a deal with fewer interactions. To achieve this, travelers need to enter their credit card information into Facebook Messenger, and the platform will save it for next friction-free payments. 
• Built community. Apart from business logic, like built-in payment and booking, a chatbot could be a handy tool for building a community around your travel agency by sharing their travel experience and inspiration. To achieve this, you can cooperate with influencers and travel bloggers, post their articles or videos in your blog, and suggest this content to travelers via a chatbot. 
• Attract new customers. Customer acquisition cost is an essential metric, not only in travel but also in other industries. Proactive travel chatbots decrease CAC and attract new customers most effectively by starting a conversation. You can empower a bot to send a welcome message to anyone who makes a booking on your website or place a comment on your Facebook page. Besides, your chatbot can send relevant information based on keywords used by your customers. 

In a nutshell, chatbots can improve the booking experience of your customers by providing them with more relevant recommendations, while enhancing your business metrics and saving operation costs.  

The most successful use cases of travel agency chatbots

And now, let’s find out about famous travel chatbot use cases and what results they receive from such an integration. 

• Reservation agent

By using this type of chatbot, travelers can book airline tickets, make hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, and even vacation packages via their website or Facebook page. To get relevant offers, travelers need to provide the bot with their requirements such as destination, date, type of accommodation, price range, and so on. 

The chatbot by travel agency Expedia.com works on this scenario. After the user receives relevant hotel search results, one is redirected to Expedia’s website to make a direct booking. Then, the chatbot sends a user a link with itinerary in Messenger. Apart from Facebook Messenger, travelers can use this bot on Amazon Alexa virtual assistant and ask for booking updates via voice commands. 

• Personalized digital travel assistant

With natural language processing (NLP), travel chatbots recognize particular user queries such as “exotic Japanese weekends” and provide one, not only with hotel recommendations and transportation but also with local places to visit. Travelers receive immediate and relevant recommendations without conducting long surveys. Moreover, such chatbots help travelers to find the nearest rental car service and give local weather forecasts while keeping in mind the traveler’s budget and even dietary requests. In this way, personalized travel assistants help travelers at each stage of their travel and keep all their documents and tickets in one place.  

One example is the Mezi AI chatbot, recently acquired by American Express. The company motto is “everyone traveling for work deserves a first-class experience.” This chatbot allows travelers to book hotels, flights, and even a table at restaurants.  

• Customer care manager 

This use case of travel chatbot provides travelers with check-in notification, flight status updates, boarding pass, and even booking confirmation via the chosen channel, and simplifies the customer service. 

This exact type of chatbot is used by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, built on the DigitalGenius platform. The company’s AI chatbot, trained with over 60,000 questions and answers, can provide travelers with non-pre scripted answers about information and updates on their flight via Facebook Messenger. After the bot launch, the KLM Facebook page received 40% more messages. Currently, KLM chatbot speaks 13 languages and responds to 15,000 queries in Messenger weekly. Since its release date, KLM chatbot answered 1.7 million messages sent by over 500,000 people.

Apart from social media networks, KLM also developed a chatbot for Google Assistant. The bot answers frequently asked questions, provides information about airline requirements via voice, and can even give tips on how to pack bags for a flight based on destination.

• Two-sided chat agent 

If you own a two-sided travel marketplace, this bot travel use case will be useful for your business. This type of chatbot connects travelers and hotels to check hotel availability, look up necessary information such as check-in times, or parking reservations. The two-sided nature of this chatbot allows hotels to send notifications in response to user queries. 

This type of travel chat app was developed by Booking.com, a travel marketplace. Right now, the chatbot can respond to 30% of customers’ hotel-related questions in under 5 minutes, according to Booking.com.

• Local insider

Many travelers are going to another country searching for an authentic experience. They want to eat, entertain, and live as the locals do. If you’re going to provide travelers with local recommendations on restaurants with local cuisine, festivals, and other activities, a local insider chatbot will be the best choice. In this way, your customers will receive relevant information without spending hours searching for the most recommended places on social networks. 

An excellent example of such a tourism chatbot is Bebot, launched on the threshold of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The main goal of this bot is to illuminate cultural and language barriers for an increasing number of foreign tourists. This bot help users to receive personalized recommendations on sights, local food and helps navigate around the country. 

[Source: Medium]

How to develop a chatbot for a travel agency in 6 steps 

Below, we have gathered the main steps you need to complete to create the best chatbot for your travel agency. 

Step 1. Decide the chatbot’s functionality

At this step, you need to define the purpose of your chatbot, set up goals and objectives. To determine the proper chatbot objectives, you need to answer the following questions: 

• What is your business size? 
• Do you need a chatbot to handle customer queries or to entertain people? 
• What business process you want to automate with your chatbot? 
• How many people will use your chatbot? 
• Do you need an integration of your chatbot with databases, CRM, or CMS? 

After answering these questions will help you have a clear idea about your chatbot project, and you can enter the next step. 

Step 2. Choose the chatbot type

Once you know the objectives of your project, it will be easier for you to choose the right chatbot type from  among the following: 

Rule-Based or Scripted Chatbots are the simplest type because they use a decision tree to communicate with users. When communicating with users, scripted bots recognize keywords and channel them down the correct path to achieve their goals, like information about current best deals, and so on. Such chatbots have a very limited skill set. Still, you can use them for simple tasks such as:  

• Customer support agents that provide customers with automated responses 
• Engagement bots that inform customers about special offers 

AI-Powered Chatbots are more complex chatbots, often empowered with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Unlike rule-based chatbots, AI-powered bots can answer a user with non-pre defined responses, and ML helps them to learn from each integration with the user and remember one’s preferences.

Choose this type of chatbot if you want to develop: 

• Booking agents that help users to buy or book something 
• Recommendation agents that gather requirements from the customer and then show relevant results 
• Personal travel concierge that will help users find, not only hotels but also book flights and provide the user with local insights  
• Comparison chatbot that will compare hotel rooms and flight ticket prices 
• Automated check-in chatbot that allows the user to check-in to the flight or hotel 

Step 3. Evaluate chatbot channels 

Now, you should consider where you can use your chatbot. The most popular channels for chatbots are: 

• Embedded chat on your travel website, 
• Your mobile travel application;
• Mobile carrier channels (SMS, USSD)
• Messaging app (Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Kik, Line, Viber)
• If you want to use a chatbot in both your website, Facebook Messenger and Telegram, you can create an omnichannel chatbot, 

Then you need to make sure whether or not the chosen channels offer an open API, so your travel chatbot developers can integrate it easily. In this case, the most effective strategy is to select the most popular channel among your users and integrate a chatbot to other channels with time. 

Step 4. Choose the best platform 

Depending on your chatbot type and communication channel, you will select the platform to build your future chatbot. 

To build a scripted-based chatbot with if/then logic, you can use one of the following platforms: 

• Hubspot conversations
• Chatfuel
• Facebook Messenger

Since these platforms have an intuitive drag-and-drop menu, you can create a chatbot without hiring chatbot developers. 

However, if you want to create a more sophisticated AI and ML bot that solves complex business tasks, consider that you’ll need to hire chatbot developers for initial bot settings and training. As for a technological solution, consider the following platforms for building AI chatbots: 

• AWS
• Wit.ai
• IBM Watson Assistant
• Microsoft Bot

If you need to create a custom chatbot, you will need to hire chatbot developers to work on the following custom chatbot components:

• The script of the custom chatbot will include the whole dialogue from a greetings message, which gathers the user’s requirements, to the “goodbye” message. Also, consider those scenarios where the bot will not understand the user’s input and cases when the bot will need to switch the communication with the traveler to a human agent. 
• NLP, also known as Natural Language Processing, helps a chatbot to extract the user intent, i.e., understand what your users want by defining particular entities in the message.
• The backend of a custom chatbot should process messages with Natural Language Processing. The custom chatbot backend should also comprise business logic and include third-party integrations, like payment gateways. 

Step 5. Develop a chatbot MVP

Now you need to hire chatbot developers that will help you to prioritize the chatbot’s business tasks and implement the most important features in the travel chatbot MVP.

An MVP means a minimum viable product. This approach is used in software development when a client wants to test a hypothesis without spending a considerable amount. 

To give you an idea of the travel chatbot’s main features, as well as the project scope, we made a travel chatbot MVP estimated in hours. 

FeatureScreen	Functions required	BackEnd
Architecture		12 hours
Customization for agents	Logo Agent Name	60 hours
Connection to Data Server API		16 hours
Switching between a chatbot and human agent	Switch between Human Travel Agents and Chatbot Return, Forward functions for user	32 hours
Gathering of data from a user (Search for hotel, tour, full package flow)	Dates Number of adults Number of Infants Meal Hotel stars	32 hours
Data transferring to API, receive results		16 hours
Tour Proposals (Search Results)	Show search results	8 hours
Show more variants		16 hours
Admin Login		8 hours
Chatbot Management	Define questions, and answers	40 hours
Total		From 240 hours

Step 6. Enrich chatbots for the travel sector with additional features

At this step, your development team launches the chatbot MVP. But this is not the end of your chatbot development process. Why? Because at this step you need to thoroughly analyze how your chatbot interacts with your customers. To achieve this, ask your customers to test your chatbot and give feedback. You may also ask them what features you need to implement to your chatbot during the second development stage. Consider that chatbot creation is an iterative process that includes gathering the data, reviewing and applying changes to the chatbot. 

Now that you are aware of the main steps of chatbot development, it is time to find out about chatbot development costs. 

How much does it cost to develop a chatbot: rule-based vs ai vs custom 

As we have said, you can create a simple rule-based chatbot with DIY platforms, so you save money on chatbot developers. Most chatbot platforms are free to use, but also have paid premium plans: 

Platform	Pricing plans
Hubspot conversations	Free of charge
Chatfuel	Basic plan- free, up to 1000 Subscribers Pro plan – from $15 /month gives more advanced features  Premium – from $199/month gives advanced tools and expert guidance.
Facebook chatbot	Free of charge

To develop AI-based chatbots you will need to hire a chatbot development team for bot training, third-party integrations and other settings. Consider that the hourly rate of chatbot developers varies from country to country and level of experience.

Front end developer hourly rates across countries:  

• The U.S. from $90/hour 
• Western Europe from $60/ hour 
• Eastern Europe from $40/hour 

Back-end developer hourly rates 

• The U.S. from $120/hour 
• Western Europe from $80/ hour 
• Eastern Europe from $50/hour 

 In addition, take into account the following costs charged by  AI chatbot development platforms:  

Platform	Pricing policy
AWS Lex	Free plan – up to 10,000 text requests and 5,000 speech requests per month  After a year’s trial period, you are charged based on the number of text or voice requests processed by your bot: $0.004 per voice request,  $0.00075 per text request
Wit.ai	On request
IBM Watson Assistant	Free plan – 10,000 Messages/month Standard – from $0.002675 USD/message Plus – On request
Microsoft Azure Bot Service	On request

The cost to create AI chatbot starts from $6000, and the development stage takes 3 months. 

As for custom chatbot development, this is the most costly option. To create a custom chatbot you need to hire a development team, including front and back end developers, designers, QA engineers, and project managers, who will work on your project. That is why custom chatbots are so expensive – the price of custom chatbots starts from $40,000, and the development stage might take from six to eight months.  

Wrapping up

If you want to stay ahead of competitors, provide customers with a high-quality customer experience, and keep them engaged, your travel business needs a travel chatbot. 

With many usage cases, you can develop a chatbot to meet the needs of a travel business of any size. 

Besides, with a wide range of DIY building platforms, you can even create a simple chatbot by yourself. 

But, if you want to automate business operations with an AI travel chatbot, you will need to hire a chatbot development team for initial bot settings. 

Related articles:

HOW CAN CHATBOTS HELP E-COMMERCE BUSINESSES?

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO CREATE A CHATBOT: PLATFORM VS. CUSTOM

HOW CHATBOT CAN MAKE AN EFFICIENT PATIENT SUPPORT SYSTEM

When you want to buy or rent a house, would you choose to hire a real estate agent or browse a real estate website? Most of us prefer to search for a property via real estate websites to save time and get access to a vast amount of options. During your search, you may visit Zillow, the leading real estate and rental site in the U.S. This website gathers real estate agents, buyers, and sellers, helping them buy and sell real estate property. 

How did Zillow manage to become so popular? What steps should you take to develop a real estate website like Zillow? How much will a real estate two-sided marketplace cost? 

In this article, we will answer all these questions and give handy tips on how to build a real estate website without spending a fortune. 

The story behind Zillow’s success 

The Zillow story began in 2004 when two former top Microsoft managers, Lloyd Frink and Rich Barton, joined forces to launch a website that could estimate a home’s value and rental rates for homes. The following year they launched a website with real estate data from 300 cities. In the first three days, a million users visited the site to “Zestimate” the value of their homes. 

Since its launch, Zillow has become something more than a property listing website since its monetization strategy includes running ads and promoting brokers and agents. As Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of Zillow Group says, “We are a media company. We sell advertising. Having a large audience is critical.” 

How does Zillow make money?

To earn money, Zillow provides users with the following promotion services:

Premier Services for real estate agents who pay the website for running ads and receiving leads. Agents are charged:

• Cost per ad impression, i.e., the cost per 1000 ads views
• Cost per lead varies from $20-60.

Selling Promotions aimed at real estate companies. The website charges property management companies cost per lead, cost per click, and cost per lease for running ads within the Zillow Rental Network, which includes AOL Real Estate, Trulia, MyNewPlace, Yahoo! Inc., Hotpads, and MSN Real Estate websites. 

The advertisement sales model includes selling advertising space to lenders, mortgage professionals, and other businesses. The platform charges a cost per lead fee. 

Subscription model for mortgage services, which means the website connects custom quote services and lead management platform. 

In a nutshell, Zillow has become the ultimate real estate platform across the U.S. that connects home builders, rental professionals, buyers, investors, and agents. The website includes unique features and tools that help buyers to find the perfect home,  real estate agents to promote their business. 

Now, let’s dive into the real estate website development process. 

How to make a real estate website like Zillow: essential features 

As we can see, Zillow is the industry leader that others are trying to keep up to. However, it is almost impossible to duplicate  Zillow’s feature list without going bankrupt. According to an Aberdeen report, in 2018 alone, Zillow spent $20.8 million on technology. In view of this, we offer you to take you on your own path in the development of your real estate website. Below, we have gathered essential features for a real estate listing website MVP that will save time and stay within budget. 

Property listings and databases

Databases with properties are an essential feature for a real estate marketplace. If your real estate agency already has its database of properties located in your city, region, or country, the web development team will integrate it into the website’s back-end. But, if you have no databases, what should you do? Let’s find out.  

If you want to develop a real estate marketplace in the U.S., you can follow the Zillow example and integrate databases from:

• National Association of Realtors (NAR)
• Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

These sources of real estate databases list properties across the U.S., however, this is the most complicated option. You will receive access to MLS and NAR only if you get a real estate license in each U.S. state, which requires both time and money. Are there other ways to integrate property databases to a Zillow type website? Let’s see. 

• Zillow API

You can integrate Zillow API to your website and get access to homes posted for sale. According to Zillow data and API Terms of use, the company allows integrating its API to websites, but not to mobile apps. 

• Post by owners

Since you are going to develop a two-sided marketplace, you can allow landlords to place the information about their real estate for sale. 

• Listing syndication platforms

You can enter the data-sharing agreement with one of the national real estate companies and list their property directly to your marketplace. To achieve that, you may choose among the following real estate platforms: 

• 365 Connect, a technology provider for the housing sector
• RealBird social media and mobile listing marketing platform
• JBGoodwin Realtors a marketplace with broker listed property

[Zillow property listing]

CASE STUDY: PERSONALIZED TRAVEL RECOMMENDATION CHATBOT

Filtering Algorithms

To allow users to find the property they are looking for more conveniently, you need to integrate a filtering algorithm to your marketplace. We suggest you consider the following search parameters:

• Location 
• Price

[Zillow “Price” filter]

• Type 

[Zillow “Home type” filter]

• Area
• Number of bedrooms 

[Zillow “number of beds” filter]

• Floor, etc.

[Other Zillow filters]

CASE STUDY: SEMANTIC SEARCH FOR IMPROVING CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Mapping and geolocation 

Your marketplace users will want to learn about the area they are moving to beforehand. To achieve this, you can integrate Zillow API that contains neighborhood boundaries, and a bunch of other APIs with the neighborhood and geographical information, including:    

• GeoNames, a dataset that includes over 10 million geographical names
• Google Places API that provides info about local businesses, such as restaurants, sports clubs, and supermarkets
• MapBox to build your custom map with property listing, market data, videos, and photos. This tool also allows users to draw a polygon on the map for better search results. 

View property

A detailed representation of property is one of the essential functions for real estate websites like Zillow. To show website users the excellent visualization of real estate objects, you can use: 

• Photos

[Source: Zillow]

• Videos 

[Source: Zillow]

• 3-D models 
• 360° panoramic images

[Source: Zillow]

Cloud infrastructure 

Since your real estate marketplace will include a considerable amount of high-quality photos, videos, and even 360° panoramic images, to keep all this data you need powerful hosting. Otherwise, you will face issues with image system scalability, performance, and disaster recovery challenges. 

In this case, the best option is to follow Zillow’s example and integrate a cloud-based infrastructure from the very beginning. As for Zillow, the company uses Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to store over 100TB of data, over 1 billion objects, and 300 million images. “Maintaining an object count in the billions doesn’t work so well on a traditional file system. We would have to split those objects across many file systems, which would be a management nightmare. The scalability of Amazon S3 seemed like the right technology for us,” says Nick Michal, Unix systems engineering manager for Zillow Group.

Since you are now aware of the essential features of a real estate website, let’s find out how much it will cost. 

CASE STUDY: DOOGOOD – AN APP FOR DOING GOOD

How much does a real estate website like Zillow cost

The development of a real estate website is a complex project, not only because of API’s integrations, but also because it includes different user roles, such as buyers, sellers, and admin. Therefore, the development team should build your real estate website for three types of users. To save you time and money, we recommend launching such projects as MVP, a website with only the main features. In this way, you can discover whether or not your business idea has to earn potential. Below, we have gathered the main features for building a real estate website MVP. 

FeatureScreen	Functions required	FrontEnd	BackEnd
Architecture/DB		16 hours	40 hours
Design		450 hours
Deployment			40 hours
User interface
Home page	– Search by the address	24 hours	24 hours
Menu bar	– Menu options	8 hours
Registration	– Account creation – Registration	16 hours	16 hours
Login	– Login by Facebook, Google – Restore password	8 hours	20 hours
Search Results	– List of properties with images	24 hours	8 hours
Search filter	– Search filters (rent, sale, budget, home type)	16 hours	16 hours
Map for search results	– Google Map API integration – Define the user’s location	16 hours	8 hours
Listing information about house/property	– Fill the information about the property – Insert images	16 hours	16 hours
Applications for listed property	– Application details for listed properties	16 hours
Property page	– Information (static) – Features (static)	24 hours	8 hours
Maps directions	– Direction to the property (only for authorized users)
Static pages( About us, help)	– Static text (not editable)	32 hours
System rules, authority rules	– Authorized users and non-authorized users have different level of rights (directions to property)
User account/profile	– Edit profile, account – User settings – Applications	16 hours	40 hours
Real Estate Agent interface
Log In	– Login, logout, password recovery – Account creation	8 hours	20 hours
Home page	– List of requests from users	24 hours	4 hours
Requests	– Requests details – Requests from consumers	24 hours	20 hours
User account/profile	– Edit profile, account, settings	16 hours	8 hours
Contact Us	– Static text (not editable)	32 hours
Admin Panel
Admin Login	– Login		4 hours
List of users	– Manage the list of users – Manage user information		16 hours
Property List	– Review the list of properties		4 hours
Property page	– Review information about properties		20 hours
Total		Front-end from 786+ hours	Back-end from 332+ hours

How to build the real estate marketplace with The App Solutions? 

Before we start making a real estate website MVP, we will launch the discovery (inception) phase, to explore and elaborate on the project idea. Moreover, we will also define the scope of the project and the possible solutions to be implemented. The main goal of the inspection phase is to identify the project’s scope and the requirements and create an Inception Technical Documentation, which may cost from $4000. 

Next, using technical documentation, the team will compose a list of requirements of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) features in the form of User Stories. The business analyst will clarify User Stories by splitting them into Use Cases Investigation and analysis of third-party system integrations. Then, we will start planning and projecting the future project MVP server architecture. When all these documents are ready, our team will launch the MVP development stage. 

The cost to create a real estate website MVP starts from $45,000, while the cost to build a real estate website with an integrated calendar, payment gateway, and other bells and whistles will cost from $100,000 to $200,000. 

However, the costs to develop a real estate app like Zillow are only approximate, because the final estimation of the real estate website will depend on website requirements and the number of features. 

To find out more about real estate website development costs, you are always welcome to contact us for a free quote. 

Related articles: 

CHATBOTS FOR REAL ESTATE: HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

HOW TO DEVELOP AN APP LIKE NETFLIX

HOW TO BUILD A FOOD DELIVERY APP LIKE UBEREATS

We live in a fast-changing world that brought a considerable amount of stress humans didn’t face before. Thus, to reduce daily stresses and improve our mental health, we should apply modern technologies, including meditation mobile apps.

At the same time, the example of the Headspace app, with more than $100 million annual revenue, shows that the niche of so-called “self-care” apps is quite profitable. Moreover, a Statista report showed the meditation market in the U.S. was estimated to be worth around 1.21 billion, and now is predicted to be worth 2 billion by the year 2022.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reported that 18 million U.S. adults (8%) use meditation to improve their mental health, since it  is a working method to improve  attention, mental health and increase creativity and other benefits:  

To give you an idea of how to create your own meditation app, we have gathered tips on how to develop a profitable and scalable app, its essential features, and app MVP estimation. 

WHY CREATE A CUSTOM MENTAL HEALTH APP

Steps to develop a Headspace app clone

To succeed in meditation app development, you need to go through the stages described below. 

Step 1. Decide on your business idea 

Before hiring the app development team, you need to clarify the concept of your app, i.e., decide on the app type. Currently, there are the following types of relaxation meditation apps presented on the market: 

Guided meditation apps. Such applications include a playlist of pre-recorded guided meditation tracks, divided by topics like anxiety or stress-reduction, SOS meditations, and so on. 

One example of such an app is Headspace. The app welcomes new users with short animations of meditation techniques explained and provides a library that includes numerous meditation courses, as well as short meditation lessons.

[Source: Techsoup Canada]

Mindfulness morning meditation apps. As a rule, such apps include a list of relaxation sounds or even mantras to meditate on. Another app feature is a timer to track the meditation sessions’ length and information on breathing exercises. 

The most popular mindfulness meditation app is Calm. Apart from the features, we have described above, Calm users receive access to sleep stories, customizable sound settings, mindfulness reminders, session history, and Calm online communities on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

[Source: App Store]

Meditator network apps. As for average social networks, such apps for meditators are aimed at creating communities of locals where users can share their experiences with others. Such apps have groups on different topics, an FAQ section for beginners, and even geolocation features to find other meditators nearby. 

Insight Timer is a network app for meditators that includes all the features described above. Insight Timer has a library of podcasts with mindfulness experts on neuroscience, psychology, and teachers from the University of Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford.

[Source: Insighttimer.com]

HEALTHCARE APPS DEVELOPMENT: TYPES, EXAMPLES, AND FEATURES

Step 2. Select the right approach to UI/UX

If you consider developing a meditation app aimed at helping people with anxiety, stress, and depression, you need to be selective when it comes to the app’s design. After analyzing meditation apps like Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer, we gathered the following design tips: 

• Avoid bright colors. Instead, use a more natural palette of pastel shades.  
• Do not use too many design elements at once. Overloaded patterns distract app users from their initial goal – to get rid of stress. 
• Use animations instead of text. Animations work best for welcome screens, meditation technique explanations, and updates on the user’s progress stats. 

Step 3. Choose the mobile app platform

If your budget allows, you can pay for the development of apps for both Android and iOS. But if your budget is limited, you need to select the platform carefully. Android and iOS users have different demographic profiles. Thus, you need to choose the app platform depending on the information about your target customers, their preferences, location, level of income, education, and so on. To find out more, read our article IOS vs. Android app development. 

The alternative approach is to develop a cross-platform app using React Native, Flutter, or Xamarin programming languages. The drawback of such an approach is that the app should not support native OS features, as authorization via Apple ID. 

HOW TO MAKE A MEDICAL APP IN 2022: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

Step 4. Consider Gamification for user engagement

To gain the first thousand app users is not a big deal; you can do this using marketing campaigns and an active social media presence. The plan is to encourage people who downloaded your app to use it daily. Otherwise, users will delete your app, and your monetization strategy will fail. 

To avoid this situation, think about how you can use gamification in your app beforehand. For instance, you can integrate gamification elements, such as points, to motivate app users to listen to meditation sessions each day and make progress. After each meditation session, users receive points and collect them to unlock the next level of the meditation program. 

[Headspace gamification example]

Step 5. Use the MVP model

If you want to validate your business idea on a meditation app without spending a fortune, consider creating an app MVP, an app version with minimal functionality. In this way, you will not only save money but also analyze user behavior to add the most demanding features during the second development stage.

In building a meditation app MVP, we strongly advise avoiding sophisticated features, such as in-app payments, chats, and video streams. Instead, your meditation app MVP might include: 

• Registration and sign in
• User profile with progress stats
• An introductory course in the form of a short video or animation 
• Limited library with pre-recorded meditation sessions   
• Gamification for entering a new meditation level

Now it is time to find out how much a meditation app will cost. 

HOW MENTAL HEALTH CHATBOTS HANDLE STRESS?

How much does an app like Calm cost?

Unfortunately, there is no single answer to this question since the app costs consist of the number of features and OS platforms, the development team composition, and the hourly development rate. However, we can estimate how much time our development team needs to make a meditation app MVP. 

To make this info easier to perceive, we have split the estimation in hours into crucial app blocks:

Feature/Screen	Design	FrontEnd	BackEnd	Android/iOS
Create/edit/delete categories of meditations			6
Gamification	12	6	32	6
Home screen	8	16		12
User registration, login, pass recovery, log out	16	40	32	40
User profile( edit )	6	16	16	16
Public user profile page	8	16	4	16
Library			8	16
Library Management				32
Animation				40

To receive a more precise estimation, use our project cost calculator. 

Also, take into account the following essential components of the app development process:

• QA from 50 hours
• BugFix from 20 hours
• Project Management from 40 hours
• Project Documentation from 30 hours

To sum up, the meditation app development cost starts from $30K per platform. 

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO DEVELOP AN APP: DETAILED FEATURE BREAKDOWN

Development of meditation mobile app: things to consider

Before hiring an app development team to create apps like Headspace, you need to consider vital elements for further app monetization, scaling, and adding advanced features. So, what are these elements to consider before building apps like Calm?  

Architecture 

While your app MVP will include only a limited amount of pre-recorded meditation tracks, their number will increase in the future. To avoid issues related to mobile app scaling, we recommend developing mobile backend services using cloud solutions, such as Google Cloud. In this way, you receive a scaling architecture for sharing and processing data from multiple users and storing large files. Moreover, such an approach has the following benefits:

• Reduce on-device data storage
• Synchronize data across multiple devices
• Send notifications and messages
• Minimize battery drain

Live Streaming

The number of meditation mobile apps increases each year. To stand out from the crowd you should give your users additional value. Thus, consider a live video streaming feature as a unique selling proposition (USP) of your meditation app. 

Luckily, you can empower your app with broadcast-quality live linear stream across iOS and Android devices using:

• Google Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and Cloud CDN for infrastructures 
• Anvato SDK for high-performing live streaming 

In this way, you can integrate a live streaming feature in the existing mobile app back-end on the Google Cloud platform without extra costs. 

As a Google Cloud Partner, we are ready to help you with mobile app backend services and live streaming solutions provided by Google Cloud, so do not hesitate to contact us. 

WHAT TECH STACK TO CHOOSE FOR YOUR PROJECT

Monetization strategies

There are several business models used for mobile app monetization 

Subscription	Most apps of this type use this monetization model. When the user downloads the app, one receives from one to two weeks as a free trial. At the end of the trial period, the app user should buy a paid subscription to continue using the app or receive access to a more advanced app version.
In-App Purchases	With this model, your app users will pay you to unlock premium content, such as specific session packs or paid features like video streaming with a meditation mentor.
Pay Per Download	The paid app is the least popular monetization model for meditation mobile apps. Still, apps like Buddhify continue using it. The logic is simple – to download your app, users should buy it in the App Store or PlayMarket. Here you need to consider that both platforms charge transaction fees from 25 to 30% of the app’s cost.
Ads	You can charge other businesses cost-per-click or cost-per-mile for running ads on your platform. However, this monetization model works only for apps with a significant amount of active users.

Closing thoughts

Mobile apps may be used, not only for distracting you with endless push notifications but also as a guide to a more happy and mindful life. 

While the market of meditation apps is new, it has to encourage earning potential.

By using our tips on how to create a meditation app, you can create an outstanding mobile app that will meet user expectations.  

Imagine that you came home on Friday evening and are suffering from an awful stomach ache. What would you do? Put up with the pain for the rest of the weekend? This what may happen in a world without doctor-on-demand platforms. Thanks to telemedicine applications, you can schedule an appointment with a doctor, receive a consultation, get a receipt, and even pay for such a service. 

If you consider developing a doctor-on-demand mobile app, this article is right for you. Below, we highlight the main benefits of telemedicine apps, talk about the best telemedicine solutions, and list the main features of such an app. 

But first, let’s find out why there is a need for telehealth apps. 

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE ON MOBILE APP HIPAA COMPLIANCE

Why there is a need for doctor-on-demand app development

As we have said, telemedicine bridges the gap between patients and doctors. But why does such a gap exist? Let’s see. 

Need for telemedicine app from the patient’s perspective

A survey conducted in 15 major cities in the U.S. showed that new patients need to wait 24 days to get an appointment with a physician. For this reason, one of three patients said they have gone to the emergency department to avoid delays and the inconvenience of visiting their physicians. 

• 82% of patients agreed that developing technologies should make the process of receiving healthcare as accessible as hailing a taxi or ordering food 
• 77% of them want to contact their physician via text messages 
• 69% of patients prefer virtual appointments with their physicians using a mobile device over offline visits. 

WHY CREATE A CUSTOM MENTAL HEALTH APP

Need for telemedicine app from a medical professionals perspective 

At the same time, doctors are faced with the following challenges that telemedicine apps may solve: 

• The daily pressure of cutting costs
• Complying with regulations
• Maintaining a regular operation
• Time mismanagement off their schedule impacts their work-life balance

In a nutshell, telemedicine mobile apps are a win-win for both doctors and patients. That is why the market size of telemedicine apps is expected to reach 40 billion dollars by 2021, according to a report from Statista. 

Now let’s find out what benefits such digital health solutions bring. 

HOW TO MAKE EHR/EMR EPIC INTEGRATION WITH YOUR HEALTH APP

Benefits of developing a telemedicine app 

Like Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, and other on-demand service applications, telehealth apps allow providing better health service at lower costs, which result in the following benefits: 

Flexibility. Using doctor-on-demand-mobile apps, medical professionals receive more control over their working hours as well as the ability to respond to emergencies more effectively. 

Extra revenue. Such mobile doctor apps allow medical specialists to generate additional revenue for after-hour care, as well as the ability to see more patients, compared to office face-to-face appointments. 

Increased productivity. Doctor-on-demand mobile apps are more accessible for patients to get to, which minimizes wasted time due to traffic and other issues, thus improving the treatment outcome. 

Related readings:

Calmerry Online Therapy Platform

Healthcare App Development 

BuenoPR – 360° Approach to Health

Orb Health – Сare Management As A Virtual Service

How does a doctor on-demand mobile app work?

Each telemedicine app has its working logic. Still, the average flow of doctor-on-demand apps goes like this: 

• To receive a consultation from a doctor, a patient logs-in to the system creates an account, and describes their symptoms. 
• Next, depending on the user’s health condition, the app searches for the most suitable medical specialist nearby.
• After finding a doctor, a patient can schedule a video call via the app using a built-in calendar.
• During the video consultation, a doctor communicates with the patient, asks about health conditions, recommends treatment, assigns lab tests, and so on. 
• When the video consultation ends, the patient pays for healthcare service using a built-in payment gateway and receives receipts with prescribed meds and doctor’s recommendations. 

[How does telemedicine mobile app work]

HOW TO MAKE A MEDICAL APP: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

The most popular doctor-on-demand mobile apps

If you are considering developing a doctor-on-demand mobile app, you need to be aware of similar apps currently presented on the market and their features. To save you time and effort, we have gathered telemedicine applications below.  

ZocDoc telemedicine platform

ZocDoc, a mobile doctor app, is available in all the U.S. and serves 6 million patients every month. ZocDoc, includes appointment scheduling, reminders about upcoming appointments, search for a doctor using integrated Map, and others. 

DoctorOnDemand

Doctor OnDemand is a telemedicine application for health care that provides patients with video appointments, messaging, and even receiving prescriptions. The platform counts 1,400 state-licensed physicians across the U.S. The core features of this mobile app include online video appointments, search for a necessary specialist, appointment scheduling, patient data storage, a built-in payment gateway, and integrated maps with local pharmacies to buy prescription drugs.

WHAT IS AI IN HEALTHCARE?

HealthTap

HealthTap is both an app for iOS, Android as well as a website for virtual meetings with doctors. HealthTap users receive such features as online video consultation, secure in-app messages, payment gateway, and so on. 

Now that you are aware of the industry leaders and their features, it is time to select the essential functions for your doctor-on-demand mobile app. 

Healthcare Apps Development: Types, Examples, And Features

Essential Features of telemedicine mobile app

When developing a telemedicine app, consider these features for your app’s MVP:

Telemedicine app features for patients 

The patient side of the app should include the following features 

• User sign-in 

When a new user logs in to your app, one needs to create an account with information about chronic conditions, as well as provide information about age, sex, and insurance. 

• Search for a medical specialist 

When the patient wants to find a necessary specialist, one uses a search with geolocation to find the nearest doctor available to book an appointment. To make your app compliant with medical regulations, we suggest you integrate the Google Maps platform via a third-party API that determines the patient location and nearby pharmacies before a video consultation begins.    

• Video appointments 

Video calls are an essential feature of any mobile telemedicine app. Video calls connect patients and doctors and enable live communication. However, you need to consider using HIPAA compliant telemedicine solutions to keep your app safe from data breaches. Thus, to keep the app users’ information safe, we recommend using ready-made third-party API for video calls, such as Daily.co. 

• Payment gateway

After the consultation, a patient pays the doctor for the service provided. To achieve this, you need to integrate a payment gateway via API. In one of our previous articles, we have already described the process of payment gateway integration to an app. To learn more, follow the link. 

• Doctor review 

Once the patient has received medical treatment from a doctor, one can leave reviews and tell about the experience and rate the doctor.  

THE APP SOLUTIONS – CUSTOM HEALTHCARE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY

Telemedicine app features for doctors 

• Doctor Panel

Such a panel is a part of the telemedicine app for doctors, integrated with electronic health records that contain information about patients, drug prescriptions, and a calendar with scheduled appointments. 

• Manage appointments

Once the patient finds the necessary medical professional, one needs to book an appointment via the app and place information about health conditions and medical records, if required. The app should automatically manage time slots and show when one or another specialist is available. 

• In-app messages 

To allow patients and doctors to send secure messages within an app, exchange prescriptions, reports, and x-rays, you need to pay extra attention to the technical solutions you will choose. All the information mentioned above belongs to patient sensitive data and needs to meet telemedicine regulations. Therefore, consider using GDPR and HIPAA-compliant messaging platforms, like Q-municate. This technological solution could be integrated into your app via REST-API or SDK. 

If you are still in doubt about whether to develop a telehealth mobile app for your health organization, just take a look at the statistics below. 

With this in mind, let’s see how to develop a doctor-on-demand mobile app 

HEALTHCARE CYBERSECURITY: HOW TO PROTECT PATIENT DATA

How to develop a telemedicine app

Below, we describe the step-by-step process of developing a doctor-on-demand mobile app. 

Step 1. Ask mobile app developers for a quote

For this step, you need to fill out the contact form or mobile project cost calculator and tell us as many details about your telemedicine software as possible. 

Step 2. Create the project scope for a telemedicine platform’s MVP 

Our business development manager will get in touch with you to sign an NDA, clarify project details, and create a project brief. Then, our business analyst and project manager will show you a list with app features for the project’s MVP, generate the project mock-ups, and prototypes.

Step 3. Enter the development stage 

When the MVP project scope is agreed upon, our team will break the app features into small user stories that are easier to implement. Next, we start developing the code, test it, and conduct bug-fixing iteration by iteration. 

Step 4. Approve the app’s demo 

When the app’s MVP is ready, our team will show you the result during the project demo. If you are satisfied with the results, we upload the project MVP to the app marketplace and start implementing more sophisticated features. 

Step 5. Launch your app on app marketplaces

When all the app features from the project scope are implemented, we run the final product demo and give your app the project-related data, including databases, access to app stores, mock-ups, and designs. Finally, your doctor-on-demand mobile app, with all the features available on the app marketplaces, is ready to serve your users. 

WHAT IS FEMTECH IN HEALTHCARE

The APP Solutions Experience: Success Story

A White Label Telemedicine Platform – Case Study

The client is the owner of a medical center in Berlin, Germany. After the COVID-19 outbreak, he faced the need to provide patients with a distance communication solution to decrease the number of offline visits, while enabling doctors to monitor vital patient health data and streamline communication with a laboratory. 

After working with us, the client received a white-label telemedicine platform with advanced features that took us two months.

The while-label platform brings benefits to both types of users:

Medical professionals can exchange files with patients via secured live chat, send, and receive laboratory tests in a more streamlined way. 

Patients can receive high-quality medical services in the comfort of their homes, schedule appointments with doctors, attend medical meetings online, get receipts for medication, and medical treatment plans with a daily schedule. The app also allows patients to pay for medical services online. 

Get ready for telemedicine app development

Telemedicine mobile applications improve the lives of both patients and doctors – while patients receive medical treatment in the comfort of their homes, medical specialists can provide medical treatment more effectively, while getting paid for a consultation immediately. 

To start the development process of your doctor-on-demand mobile app you need to shape your business idea with a monetization strategy, think about the app design and app layout, as well as HIPAA-compliant solutions to use.  

What our clients say 

We are living in a fast-changing world where things that were condemned yesterday have become tomorrow’s trends. This trend applies to the usage of marijuana, legalized in 33 U.S. states and forward-thinking countries such as Canada, Germany, and Israel. Thus, being allowed for medical and recreational use, medical marijuana is entering the business mainstream. But despite increased demand for medical marijuana, only a few licensed dispensaries provide users with on-demand medical marijuana online delivery services.

If you are interested in developing a marijuana app, similar to UberEats for ordering food, you are in the right place. 

In this article, we share essential business and monetization strategies for a medical cannabis on-demand delivery app, essential features, and a development guide. 

But before diving into cannabis delivery software development, let’s take a glance at medical marijuana market statistics. 

To enter this rapidly developing market with your cannabis delivery mobile app, you need to make additional preparations, listed below. 

OUTSTAFFING VS. OUTSOURCING VS. MANAGED SERVICES: DIFFERENCES AND BENEFITS

How to start a delivery service for cannabis like Weedmaps and Eaze

If you want to launch your cannabis delivery mobile app and make a profit without breaking the law, you need to do the following: 

Know government regulations 

Bear in mind that marijuana is illegal in the majority of countries. Thus, check your government policy for cannabis on the link. 

• The U.S. government decriminalized cannabis for medical purposes in 37 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia in 2022

• Canada officially decriminalized marijuana in 2018 for both recreational and medicinal purposes
• Western European countries such as Netherlands, Germany, Czechia, and Greece decriminalized medical marijuana for personal use 

If your government has legalized the medical use of marijuana, you can move on. If not – try to implement another business idea. 

Get a license 

To start selling Marijuana online you need to get a license or permission from your government. Consider that you will need to get different types of licenses to distribute, sell, or cultivate cannabis, which takes time.  

For example, let’s take a look at California, where medical cannabis was legalized in 1996. On the website of The Bureau of Cannabis Control, you will find different types of licenses, including Retailer, Distributor, Microbusiness, Testing Labs, and Cannabis Event organizers. To receive each type of license, you need to fill in about 14 documents. Luckily, you can save time and apply for a permit through their Online Licensing System.

If you are a Canadian citizen, you need to receive a license from the Canadian Health Organization. Consider that a cannabis license has different classes and subclasses that determine in which activity your business falls. The main license classes include: 

• Standard cannabis cultivation
• Micro-cultivation
• Nursery
• Sales for medical purposes
• Standard processing
• Micro-processing
• Analytical testing
• Research

To find out more, visit Cannabis Licensing Application Guide on the link. 

[Cannabis classes and subclasses of licenses, source]

Choose business models and monetization strategy for a marijuana selling app

There are two primary business models you can implement for your online medical marijuana delivery business. Each of them has a monetization strategy. 

Weed delivery app for a single dispensary 

This option is for those who are already growing marijuana and have enough stock to sell. In this case, you will need to develop a marijuana dispensary app with order delivery tracking. You can manage your product list from the admin panel and fill orders without third-party service providers. 

As for the monetization strategy of your mobile app, you can charge an extra fee for order delivery and run paid aids of related products. As your cannabis delivery business grows, you can invest in the development of delivery services.     

HOW MUCH DOES AN ON-DEMAND MOBILE APP COST?

Medical cannabis delivery marketplace

If you do not cultivate medical marijuana but want to launch a cannabis delivery business, you can develop a marijuana delivery marketplace. The best examples of such cannabis delivery apps are Eaze, Weedmaps, and Leafly. These apps allow users to find the nearest dispensary, order weed online and get same-day delivery. 

Such medical marijuana software includes different types of users: 

• Dispensaries that list products via  merchant accounts
• Buyers who can find the nearest dispensary via GPS, order products, pay for them in the app, and get the product delivered to their doorsteps
• Couriers get notifications about approved orders, see the list of orders to be delivered and deliver orders to customers. 
• Admin panel where you can manage users, monitor order activity, and analyze user behavior via analytics. 

To monetize your medical marijuana delivery app, you can apply the following: 

• Charge fees on every order made via the app 
• Provide paid promotion to cannabis vendors
• Run advertisements of cannabis-related products 

Key Features of a Uber-style marijuana delivery app 

Your cannabis delivery app will perform as a marketplace with different types of users. There should be a buyer app, a merchant app, a driver app, and an admin app. Below we share essential features to add to each user panel. 

Features for Buyers 

As a buyer, your app user should sign up to your app and verify the account through documents and a doctor’s receipt. Next, the user can find the nearest store via GPS, search for products, read product details, set the delivery address, place an order, and pay online. Thus, from the point of view of the buyer, the app should include the following features: 

Registration and identity verification	Before accessing the app’s content, the buyer should sign in to your app via email, phone number, or social media profiles such as Facebook or Twitter. Next, one should verify their identity via I.D. and upload their doctor’s receipt for medical marijuana. For this purpose, integrate ID.me SDK, a physician identity verification solution.
Product search and filters	Each marijuana user has personal preferences on cannabis type. Thus, to make buyers find products, your app should include different product categories and advanced product search with various filters.
Shopping card	Once the buyer finds the product, one adds it to the shopping cart that includes product description, order total, and estimated delivery cost.
In-app payments	To place the order, a buyer should pay for it via the built-in payment gateway. Based on our experience of marketplace development, we recommend Stripe as a payment solution. Such a payment gateway integration allows you to receive the commission from each order.
GPS order tracking	Integrate maps to allow buyers a live tracking of their order delivery. As a geolocation solution, we suggest using Google maps SDK. We did this integration for a couple of geolocation projects where Google maps solution has proved to be effective. As alternatives, you can choose another technology from the order tracking SDKs list.

Features for Sellers

If you allow unlicensed merchants to sell cannabis via your app you will be breaking the law. Thus, you need to secure your app from illegal activities. To achieve this, provide a merchant account only for sellers who upload their legal license for cannabis distribution. As for other seller account features, we suggest the following:

Profile	After the seller sends you a legal permit, one receives a merchant account. Here, a seller can edit their company description, address, contact info, photo of a store, and so on.  In this section, the user gives payment information to receive money from each order.
Product catalog	To list products, merchants should give a detailed product description, upload a photo, and set the product category. Also, dispensary managers should update the status of cannabis availability.
Order management	In the Order Management section, sellers will see the history of filled orders and manage the status of new orders.

Features for drivers

A driver is a middle man between the buyer and the seller, responsible for delivering the order. Thus, to avoid credibility issues, the delivery person should verify their identity. Only after the admin verifies user documents can the delivery person receive an account. 

Profile	Here, the courier can edit personal information like name, phone, email, and bank account details.
Tasks	In this section, the driver receives new tasks and manages order status. This might be En Route, Arrived, and Order Delivered. A driver gets information about the order number, buyer’s name, delivery date and time, and delivery address.
Maps and navigation	GPS navigation shows drivers the exact stores and customer’s addresses, as well as suggests the best route. This section may also include estimated time and distance to the destination.

Admin panel features 

The admin panel is an essential part of a cannabis delivery mobile app. Here, you can manage app users, approve order delivery, receive payments, and much more. The admin panel of a mobile app should include the following elements: 

Dashboards	On the dashboard, you can see user activity in real-time. It shows the number of active orders, the number of drivers that deliver them, and the total amount of payments conducted via your app.
User management	In this section, you receive documents for new app user verification, give verified users access to accounts, track order history, manage notifications, and so on.
Product management	As an admin, you can manage a product catalog of all merchants, edit product information and images, delete products, manage product categories.
Order management	In this section, you manage the order fulfillment process. The order management section shows orders pending to be picked, orders currently in progress, updates from drivers on the order delivery, completed orders, and payment status.

Medical Cannabis Delivery App Development Cost

While calculating cannabis mobile app development costs, consider that you are going to develop a two-sided marketplace with three different types of app users. To build a marijuana delivery app that works correctly, the development team should create complex project architecture, which might be costly. 

Our advice here is to use a ready-made CRM system for Admin Panel features. Also, we emphasize that the marijuana delivery app development takes both time and money. Thus, it is better to develop the project’s MVP first. The project’s MVP, which stands for Minimum Viable Product, contains only essential features to validate your business idea without spending a fortune on development. 

In the table below, we estimate the number of hours our dev team requires to build an Uber for weed delivery. 

	FrontEnd	BackEnd	Android	iOS	FeatureScreen
Architecture, DB			32	16	16
Login signup, pass recovery	4		8	8	8
User profile	4		8	16	16
History	4		4	12	12
Google Maps integration				12	12
Product list	16		16	24	24
Product page	8		6	16	16
List of dispensaries and shops	8		16	16	16
Seller profile	8		8	16	16
Shopping card	24		32	40	40
Payment	8		24	32	32
Delivery Page (Info about the delivery)				6	6
Integration with CRM		80

In a nutshell, the cost to develop an Uber for marijuana starts from $60k per platform and takes 6 months to implement. Consider that the estimated project cost is due to change. It depends on your project requirements, the number of features, the number of mobile platforms, and so on. 

Custom cannabis app development steps

 To be on the same page with the development team, you should be aware of the app development stages. Here is how we deliver mobile projects at The APP Solutions:

Step 1. Sign NDA

Right after you send us a project request, your sales manager schedules a call to find out more details about your Uber for weed app and submits a Non-Disclosure Agreement, which protects your intellectual property. 

Step 2. Start the inception phase 

After we receive your project requirements, we make rough project cost estimates and then confirm the results with you. Next, we start the project inception phase to gain a better understanding of your project architecture, tech stack, and so on. 

Step 3. Approve technical documentation and app prototype

We send you the main deliverables of the inception phase that are tech documentation and design prototype. Next, we make a more detailed project cost estimate and start the next step. 

Step 4. Enter app development stage 

Using technical documentation, we break down your weed app into smaller user stories, prioritize them, and our developers start building your app. We implement the project’s MVP scope first, send you weekly reports, run MVP demo, and enter the second development stage. 

Step 5. Receive app project-related databases 

After the final project demo, you receive all technical comments concerning the projects, databases, access to app marketplace accounts, and so on. 

What our clients say 

Related reading:

AI in the logistics industry 

How to develop Uber for trucking 

How to develop an application like Uber 

HYPR taxi app development case study 

Imagine you’re a college student who develops a photo messaging app with your frat buddies. Everybody says that it’s a terrible idea.

But several years later, Facebook or Google offer you from $3 to $4 billion to buy it, but you reject the offer. In another three years, your company is worth $20 billion. It might seem like a dream, but it’s a true story.

This is the success story of Snapchat, a mobile messenger with text, photo and video content that disappears a few seconds after it is received. Snapchat’s success inspires a lot of entrepreneurs, and we receive a lot of requests to estimate the cost to build an app like Snapchat.

So, if you want to create a similar app, read on. In this article, you will learn how to create Snapchat and the estimated development cost.

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HOW TO DEVELOP AN APP LIKE NETFLIX

Current Snapchat stats

Currently, there are numerous social media platforms. However, the latest statistics show us that Snapchat is the leading social media network in the United States and France. 

You might also like How to Develop a Messaging App Like WhatsApp?

Snapchat copy app might be a good idea for a startup. You can create a Snapchat clone, add some new features, and get  a slice of the action. Just have a look at Snapchat’s stats below:

• Snapchat Q3 report said, in 2022 the app had 363 million daily users
• Snapchat’s daily video views have increased by 400% year-on-year. 
• More than 60% of 13- to 34-year-old U.S. smartphone users are on the service.

But there is more: 

From the beginning, Snapchat owners didn’t care about making money. But later, the app provided several ways of generating revenue.

• In 2022 Snapchat revenue amounted to $4,1 billion
• In Q4 2021, Snapchat reported its first quarterly net profit.

As we can see, the Snapchat multimedia messaging app is very popular among users and generates significant revenue.

How to Make an App Similar to Snapchat in 7 steps

Now, let’s dig deeper into the Snapchat-like app development process, which includes:

Step 1. Discovery (inception) phase

The main goal of this stage is to find out the functional and non-functional requirements for the future project, estimate the project budget, and business needs.

Step 2. Documentation

During this stage, business analysts and project managers prepare the project’s specifications, user stories, and other project-related documents that describe how your app will perform.

Step 3. Prototyping

Then, the mobile development team creates prototypes of your future app scenes and user journey and sends it to you for further improvement.  

Step 4. UI/UX Design

Based on the screen prototype, the design team develops the design for your app.

Step 5. Development

When the design is ready, the mobile development team integrates all the necessary features to your app. As the development stage moves forward, your Snapchat-like app developer might clarify specific requirements toward the project’s functionality.

Step 6. QA

The quality assurance team conducts tests to ensure that the application is bug-free.  

Step 7. Deployment

When the messenger like Snapchat is ready, the team will deploy it to the workspace.

HIRING A DEVELOPER FOR YOUR BUSINESS: A SIX STEPS GUIDE

How Snapchat makes money

So, to generate revenue, Snapchat uses:

In-between Snap Ads. Snapchat shows users 10-second promoting videos. Users can swipe up and access more content, such as a longer video, app install, or blog post.

Branded GeoFilters. Depending on the geolocation, users can access fun augmented reality filters that stay available for 30 days. The app charges businesses $5 for coverage of 20,000 square feet.

Sponsored Lenses. This monetization strategy is similar to Geofilters. Businesses advertise through their own customized lenses that appear in particular locations. In this way, they can promote their brands or events. This ad type is popular among big companies. 

OUTSTAFFING VS. OUTSOURCING VS. MANAGED SERVICES: DIFFERENCES AND BENEFITS

Example: 

A collaboration with KFC. When visiting KFC,  app users revive access to the Colonel Sanders lens filter, which turns users into the white-maned colonel himself.

The “Discover” section. The app place promotion content in the Discover section. The Snapchat live story costs $0.15 per view. Currently, the app is partnering with around 20 big-name publishers, such as CNN, Cosmopolitan, and People.

Sports Partnerships. The app is partnering with sports organizations to promote attendance at sports events. By using this strategy, the app is partnering with Adidas and Nike so that they can advertise their products to sports fans.  The app charges $400k to $500k for complete exposure to the company’s user base.

In-app purchases. App users can buy additional features such as Re-play to a feed such as a picture or a video that the user has already seen.

Premium access. The app users can buy premium access to new app features and experience new lenses.

Now that you are aware of Snapchat’s monetization strategies, move on, and find out the app’s core feature set to make an app like Snapchat.

HOW TO OUTSOURCE MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT

The Snapchat App Core Functionality

When you heard about Snapchat a few years ago, it was a simple messaging app with the primary feature of vanishing messages in one to 10 seconds. But, over time, it has added a vast amount of new incredible features that provide more immersive interaction with the app. 

In other words, Snapchat gradually evolved into a mix of private messaging and public content, including brand networks, video-sharing, and live events. Moreover, Snapchat expanded its capabilities and became a multi-entertainment app, transforming from a messaging platform into a media giant with 10 billion video views per day, Bloomberg has reported.

Read also:

Case Study: Video Streaming App Proof of Concept

How To Build a Mobile App With Geolocation

Memories are one of the features that provide a new way to save Snaps and Stories on Snapchat. Users can create new Stories from Snaps they’ve taken, or even combine different Stories into a more extended narrative.

Also, Snapchat has launched some new features, including new photo and video filters, the capability to add emoji stickers to videos, and changes in chat.

Snapchat social media app functionality comprises features that can be used for two purposes:

• Message exchange
• Public content

Message Exchange

Snapchat has added additional value to such a simple thing as chatting, providing it with a set of amazing features.

In Snapchat, app Users can create multimedia chats called “snaps.” These snaps can comprise of a photo or short video; they can be edited with filters and effects, text captions, and drawings. In the Chat 2.0 recent update, you can send audio notes, make video and audio calls. Snaps can be directed privately to selected contacts, or a semi-public “Story.” These personally posted messages can be self-destructed automatically after a few seconds.

Also, the app allows location sharing. When the user starts typing an address into chat, it displays a card that links to the Google or Apple Maps app.

FUNCTIONAL VS NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS: MAIN DIFFERENCES & EXAMPLES

Automatically self-destructed messages

Self-destructing messages are a custom feature of Snapchat and one of the things that made it so popular among teenagers. 

Before you create custom features, you need to develop a messenger app. Answering the question “How to make a messenger app?” we recommend using the ready-made solutions as a basis for your future product to save you money and time.

You might also like: Android vs. iOS Development  

But how does it work?

• When the user sends a message, it’s uploaded to the Snapchat server.
• The user receives a push notification about the new snap, which is downloaded to a temporary location on the user’s phone.
• When the user opens the snap, the app deletes the temporary message copy from the phone and alerts the app server.
• Then, the message is destroyed from the Snapchat server. The app also automatically deletes messages if the user has not viewed them within 30 days.

Now, moving on.

WHAT TECH STACK TO CHOOSE FOR YOUR PROJECT

Stickers

Stickers have become an inevitable part of modern communication. Snapchat contains 200 stickers built into its app. You can use a custom solution (design your stickers) or use a ready-made solution that is much cheaper. 

Location sharing

By using this feature, Snapchat users can share their location with friends or other users. Their site will appear on Snap Map. App users can also choose who can see their place or update it only when they have Snapchat open.

 Image source: Techadvisor

Adding friends

It is an essential function of a social media app. Besides the standard methods of adding friends via usernames and phone contacts, Snapchat provides some smart ways:

• Snapcodes. Black dots that surround the Snapchat Ghostface Chilla logo is a personalized QR code. Another user can scan it by using the Snapchat camera, and he instantly begins to follow you. Here, a  recognition algorithm is being used, and an algorithm for the generation of such codes.

• Add Nearby function. This function uses your location to scan other users in your proximity who also have Add Nearby open. The app sends the device’s coordinates to the server, the server in its turn compares the geolocations of devices with the Add Nearby screen opened.

Video and Audio Calls

In the updated version of the chat,  app users can start talking or video chatting instantly with one tap. If the recipient isn’t online, you can send an audio note.

This feature turns Snapchat into a phone alternative and brings it close to Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp.

Geofilters

A feature, known as “Geofilters” is a unique graphical overlay that is available when the user is within a precise geographical location, such as a city, event, or destination.

To allow your users to mark their location on the images,  developers use geocoding. Geocoding is a computational process that converts the geographic coordinates to a description of a location, usually the name of a place. Then the name of the area is overlaid on the image in a template.

HOW TO MAKE AN APP: LIFE CYCLE OF MOBILE DEVELOPMENT

Lenses or Filters

The “Lens” is one of the most exciting features of Snapchat. It allows users to add real-time effects and alter video images by using face detection technology. This feature became possible when Snapchat acquired the startup Looksery. The startup does a facial modification and enables users to simulate their appearance for a photo or video chat in real-time on mobile platforms.

Now, we find out how it works.

• The app uses the Active Shape Model to detect a user’s face by marking their facial borders.

• Powered by a machine learning algorithm, the app creates the average face and aligns it with the image provided.
• Then, the app algorithm corrects errors to make the filter perfectly match the user’s face by analyzing the pixel data around the face borders.
• Next, the app uses these points to coordinate and adjust a mesh, a 3D mask that the user can shift and scale with a face.

Snapchat filters based on 3D face masks enable users to deform the mask to change their face shape, add accessories, set animations, and more.

Stories and Discover

Stories functionality enables users to broadcast photo and video content from their lives to friends; each story lasts 24 hours. It refers to free content and provides users with capabilities in the same way as social networks do.

Later this feature was expanded to “Live Stories.” Stories enable new functionality when Snapchatters who are at the same event location (such as music festivals or sporting events) can contribute Snaps to the same Story.

The “Discover” option provides a new way to explore Stories from different editorial teams. It contains sponsored short-form content from major publishers, such as BuzzFeed, CNN, Mashable, People, and many others. Every edition is refreshed after 24 hours, because, as the Snapchat team believes, “what’s news today is history tomorrow.”

SHOULD YOU HIRE APP DEVELOPERS NEAR ME OR OUTSOURCE OVERSEAS?

Tech Stack for the Snapchat-like app

Below you will find what software Snapchat uses. Consider the following technologies to develop an app like Snapchat so as to be on the same page with your development team.

How much does it cost to build an app like Snapchat?

A Snapchat mobile app seems to be a vast machine with many features. It will take more than a year to create apps that look like Snapchat. And the price of this will be high as well. 

How much does it cost to make another Snapchat?

You also can check out the feature list and estimated development cost below.

Automatically self-destructed messages	Facebook Messenger SDK Telegram SDK	1,5 months for two platforms – iOS and Android.	It costs about $10K for the iOS platform and $9K for the Android.
Location sharing	Apple MapKit Google Location SDK	120 hours	From $2K to $4K for both platforms.
Snapcodes	Eventdex Android Semacode iOS	One month	From $8K to $10K per one platform.
Nearby function	Android  Android. location  Google Location Services API  iOS Google Maps SDK Apple MapKit	One week	From $3K per platform.
Video and Audio Calls	AddLive	About one month	$12K for iOS $14 for Android
Lenses or Filters	Mirror Reality SDK	About one month	$8K for iOS $8K for Android

But we recommend launching apps similar to Snapchat as MVP. The MVP of a Snapchat-like app will include only the essential functions as registration, media content sharing, user profile, and text messages. Find the estimated time in the table below:    

Feature	Description	Estimation in Hours
Registration/ login feature	The user can log in via Email Phone number Social network	Around 10 to 16 hours.
User profile	The app user can modify  Profile picture  Password Contact details  Name Gender Phone number	From 60+ hours
Posting	Users can post  Images  Videos Users can apply editing tools Effects Filters Smileys  Emoticons	Up to 320 hours:  applying filters 120+ hours creating custom filters 120+ hours cropping and rotating photos 80+ hours
Embedded messenger	Enable users to exchange messages	Up to 40 hours
Total		From 430+ hours

The App Solutions experience

Our latest social media project is QuePro, a public chat mobile app that will connect users with professionals from various spheres.  QuePro allows users to post their queries or questions and receive answers from local professionals.

[QuePro Newsfeed]

• To speed up the development process we used EventBus, an open-source event library that simplifies communication between components and performs well with UI artifacts.

• We also enabled the app by sending notifications to users using Google Cloud Messaging.
• Despite tight deadlines, we managed to implement the critical features after just three months.

Read the full case study to find out more about this project.

We have also developed AllSquare, a social media application for golfers. AllSquare offers users many opportunities to share their golf achievements, engage with golfers from all over the world, and find a golf course nearby.

[AllSquare Newsfeed]

To create AllSquare, we used:

• Retrofit
• Okhttp 
• Picasso 

in combination with RX Java for accessing the app backend. 

In this way, we implemented the reactive programming paradigm for asynchronous operation with API, files, and databases.

Follow the link to find out more about this project.

The Bottom Line

Snapchat, one of the most popular social media platforms, provides users with numerous tools for photos and video editing. The most notable Snapchat features are lifters and masks, powered by a machine learning algorithm.

If you want to develop an app like Snapchat and make it accessible, you should consider these features. Besides, with many monetization options, you can make your app like Snapchat profitable.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO DEVELOP AN APP: DETAILED FEATURE BREAKDOWN

Since the platform has many integrations and sophisticated features, it is hard to give an accurate project estimation. However, you should take notice of the following – chat app development cost is determined by three main factors that have an impact on the total budget and project duration.

They are:

1. The project scope. It’s not obligatory to implement all of the features presented in Snapchat. You can choose some of the best features and then we will estimate how long it will take and how much it will cost.
2. The timing of the project. The same amount of work can be carried out in different time frames. It depends on the number of developers involved in the project.
3. Budget. We prefer Time&Material budgeting for smaller projects and Dedicated Team models for longer-term projects.

So, feel free to contact us with any questions on how to develop a chat application. The App Solutions team will help you to estimate and realize all of your project ambitions.