How to Create a Laundry App With No Mistakes [2021 Overview]

The dramatic success of ridesharing company Uber has inspired a great number of entrepreneurs to open an Uber-like business and get a closer look at this business model. The laundry industry wasn't an exception. The Global on-demand laundry market is expected to reach $113.24 billion by 2027.

Applications of this type work in a simple way. At first, users make an order through a website or mobile application and choose the most convenient time for pickup and delivery. Then, a delivery person takes dirty clothes to the laundry or dry cleaning service provider. After clothes are washed, dried and ironed, the laundryman delivers it back to the client.

There are two popular options for payment. In the first scenario, a customer pays when the clothes are delivered. In the second scenario, the customer pays when he gets a notification that work is done. After the payment, a laundryman delivers clothes.

We found out the top reasons why on-demand laundry apps are so popular:

• Laundry pick up, also called Uber for laundry, can save a lot of time. There is no need for users to waste a couple of hours by washing dirty clothes or taking clothes to a laundry shop. In most cases, such apps also provide dry cleaning and ironing services. Just a few taps and all dirty clothes will be clean in a couple of days.
• Customers can schedule pick-ups and deliveries. What's more, they can customize their orders. For instance, a customer can ask for washing with eco-friendly cleansers or softener, and so forth. After placing an order, users can track it's status in the application. They can identify whether the order is in a queue or is already done.
• In case you have a laundry shop, you can create a laundry app to scale your company. By developing laundry management software, you will get increased customer loyalty and add new customers who don’t want to waste their time on the road to a laundry shop. Moreover, you can automate the whole process and make calculations easier.
• The application can also be a platform that connects customers and laundry providers. In this case, you can start a business from scratch but you’d need to cooperate with a laundry app development company to create a solution. Such an application is a marketplace, where users can find the nearest laundry shop. So you have no need to invest in equipment but will profit from the interest rate. But in this case, you need to find a laundryman who can pick up and deliver clothes.

So you can see that with the help of this application customers can save their time on doing unpleasant housework. That’s why the number of mobile laundry services is increasing every year.

The on demand model has integrated so well with today’s reality that traditional laundry setups have almost disappeared. Before we proceed to the business models of Uber for laundry apps, let’s take a quick look at trends that transformed the traditional laundry service into on demand one.

Now, let’s move to the two possible models for the on-demand laundry business.

Marketplace model is a great solution for startups that are on a tight budget. Your application becomes a platform where users can connect with local laundry shops they choose on their own. After work is done they can rate laundries. In this model, you can take a cut of every transaction. Cleanly, Mulberrys, DRYV use this business model. If you start your business from scratch, it’s important to make a partnership with local laundry owners. As far as your app is a medium between vendors and customers, building good relationships with each side is of great importance.

This model is a great solution if you already own a laundry shop, but have difficulties with attracting new clients and scaling your laundry startup. By creating a website or mobile application you provide customers with the ability to order laundry pick up and delivery in a few taps. This business model is used by Liox Cleaners, WashClub, and Hamperville.

Whether you selected a marketplace or on-site model for on-demand laundry app development, you should think through hiring a delivery man. Most companies usually hire freelancers who want to get some money. Cleanly and Rinse hire part-time employees with a car and pay them for each order. TaskRabbit company created a special platform where users can hire freelancers to wash and deliver their dirty clothes. The key difference is that customers choose not laundry shops, but people who are ready to perform chores, so the company has no need to think about delivery. TaskRabbit gains money from commission on each transaction.

One of the most frequently asked questions is “How can I make money by developing Uber for laundry?” In case you have your own laundry shop, it’s obvious that you will have increased revenue because of an increased client base. But what if you want to build a laundry app following the marketplace model?

Most software for laundry businesses earn money by setting fixed prices for each option. Other solutions are to set a delivery fee and get your interest from each in-app payment. Such popular way as advertising is inappropriate, while with advertisement your application won't look trustworthy. You also can provide your customers with additional services. For instance, in Rinse customers can get their clothes earlier if they pay extra $5.

The profit from developing Uber for laundry apps can also be illustrated by the success of companies. Let's consider the most famous companies providing users with on-demand laundry services.

In 2015 Cleanly participated in Y Combinator. Then it raised $2.3 million in seed funding, and after that $5 million more in the series A. Cleanly claimed that in 2016 their annual revenue in NYC alone reached $2.5 million.

It is an on-demand laundry and dry-cleaning delivery app available in the US. The company’s work cycle is not so complicated. After a user has placed an order, Cleanly concierge picks up his/her clothes and brings it to Fulfillment Centre, where clothes are sorted. After that, they take dirty clothes to a vendor. When the vendor finishes cleaning clothes, the concierge returns it to the customer at the chosen time.

The application has a unique feature - if the stain on clothes requires special attention, the customer can snap a photo and highlight this stain. It also provides users with the opportunity to track orders on the GPS map.

Talking about app monetization, Cleanly has a $4.99 delivery fee if customer’s order is under $30.

Rinse is another US-based laundry startup, which provides dry cleaning, press and laundering services. It was founded in 2013 and raised $23.5 million in total. A client can create an order at any time before 5 PM, then the so-called Rinse Valet picks up the clothes and delivers them to the local laundry company. It takes 3 days to wash and deliver laundry, but they can do it in 2 days for extra payment.

Rinse provides an opportunity to chat with human representatives in case you have some problems and track your order. The company also has a clothing repair service. Rinse has a fixed price list.

According to Crunchbase, Laundrapp has $2 million in revenue and has raised totally £14.5 million in 4 funding rounds. Laundrapp has fixed prices for each item starting from £2.

It works in the same way as previous companies. It also has a Quality Guarantee and like an Uber gives the opportunity to track an order on the map. The company plans to provide it's services in 15 countries by the end of 2018.

All these companies have both an application and a website for online ordering. To place an order, a customer enters a postcode and then selects all the needed options. You can also invest in website development services, and then have an extra profit from new customers.

After talking about top laundry apps, let’s discover common features of applications of this type. In case you decide to make your own on-demand app, this paragraph is essential while can help you with development cost estimation. Even though this application looks quite simple, it contains various basic features. To create a laundry app, you should take into account that Uber for laundry apps usually consist of several components.

This panel consists of the login form, customer data with all needed information (i.e. customer address, first name, etc). With the help of this panel, clients can calculate costs, make and track their orders. Basic features for customer panel can be the following:

This panel is useful for managing order delivery. It enables delivery men to process requests and choose the optimized routes. However, if you select the marketplace business model, you can save some money, as there is no need for this feature.

In case your mobile laundry business uses an on-site business model, there’s no need to develop a service provider model.

The most essential part is an admin panel, which manages interactions between all panels, store and analyze data. This feature requires a huge database that can cope with a big scope of data. In this case, the role of cloud technology cannot be missed upon.

So, how much can on-demand laundry app development cost you? The main price drivers are the development rates of an outsourcing company you partner with (depends on region), features, and platforms (iOS, Android or both).

Taking the average rate of $50/h in our region (Eastern Europe, Ukraine), we’ve estimated the approximate timeframe our development team would need for basic laundry app development.

All laundry apps require a thoughtful admin panel for managing users’ profiles.

In the tables above, you can see an approximate development time by modules telling that developers will spend about 2086 hours to implement those modules for both iOS and Android platforms. Dividing that time into smaller parts (called sprints), we'll get about 9 development iterations. Keep in mind that software developers aren't the only specialists you need on a team to build such a complex product.

Here's the full team composition you'll need:

• Front-end developer (2X) - all sprints
• Back-end developer (2X) - all sprints
• UI/UX designer - sprint 1-8
• Business Analyst - sprint 1-8
• Project Manager - all sprints
• QA engineer - all sprints
• DevOps engineer - all sprints
• Team lead - all sprints

Given that team composition and the amount of work, it'll cost you approximately $153,150 to create a laundry app. As a software service provider, we can guarantee successful product delivery within a specified time frame only if all needed specialists are on the team.

There's no denying that developing Uber for laundry app can be profitable for both startuppers and laundry business owners. But you can see, that the laundry app development cost depends on many factors.

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