How To Build An App Like Airbnb

How Much Does It Cost To Build an App Like Airbnb

Travelling across the borders is always thrill the excitement of many people around the world. While each corner of the world has a different charm to offer you, therefore, people travel to other destinations with a different perspective. But as soon as people start planning and rolling out with their bookings, finding the best place to stay around the world seems to be one of the most challenging tasks for the travelers.

However, with the launch of highly feature-rich travel app like "Airbnb", travelling has become far more comfortable and economical. Now, travellers don't need to explore dozens of applications in Google Play Store and Apple App Store for hotel booking, homestay, property rental or finding cheaper properties for their stay, as Airbnb is here to serve all these services at one place.

According to Statista, the number of 43.3 million users in 2020 from all across the world are accessing Airbnb and expected to reach by 45.6 million users by 2022 .

In the era of growing technology, investing in developing a fastest growing and billion-dollar valuation property rental booking apps like Airbnb, is a worthy decision for the startups, entrepreneurs and leading brands. But, "how much does it cost to develop an app like Airbnb?", is one of the most frequently asked questions by the startups and leading businesses.

Well, before jumping over the development cost, it is worth understanding what exactly Airbnb is, how it works, what features it has integrated, how it can help you earn money and what type of app development company you need to hire?

Here's what we have covered in this blog:

What is Airbnb: Understanding The Baseline of the Travel App
Airbnb: Important Statistics and Facts to Know
How Does it Work and It's Business Model?
Basic & Advanced Features Required To Build an App Like Airbnb
What is the Final Cost of Developing an Airbnb Like App For Your Business?
Final Words

Let's get started with the detail discussion of each point:

1. Airbnb: Understanding the Baseline of the Travel App

Airbnb was started in 2007 by Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, as an Air Bed and Breakfast website that used to charged guests $80 per night to sleep on the air mattresses. However, in 2011, Airbnb has crossed 1+ million night bookings along with 2500+ lights and 10,000 Airbnb users.

However, today, Airbnb has become a leading global platform that brings all the property owners and travellers at one place to enhance the traveller's experience. It is one of the fastest growing online marketplaces for travellers and property owners that allow travellers to rent a property as per their choice, budget, location and for a certain period of the time.

On the other side, the same platform allows property owners to list their apartments, home or room on this platform via their smartphone. The ease of exploring and booking the choice of property at the preferred location has actually made this service immensely popular all across the world.

Let's move to the market statistics and facts that help you understand whether developing an app like Airbnb is a worthy decision or not!

2. Airbnb: Important Statistics and Facts to Know

Here are the few market facts that help you understand why Airbnb app has become a current demand of the market:

Since its launch, Airbnb has hosted 400 million guests and has developed 34 offices in different corners of the world.
In 2017, Airbnb had generated approximately $93 million in profit out of $2.6 billion in revenue and expected to generate approx $3.5 billion by the end of 2020.
Airbnb has over 150 million users worldwide and over 650,000 hosts are managing their property from all across the globe.
91 million visitors in January 2020 visited the main website of Airbnb and 50% of traffic generated through mobile devices.
On average users spend 11 minutes and 31 seconds on the Airbnb app.
The forecast from Statista has revealed that the number of nights from 2015 to 2020 will be protected to reach by 187 million from 25 million.

The number of Airbnb listing has touched 7 million in 2019 from 0.12 million in 2012.

Wrap Up: With each passing day, the boom of the travel industry is increasing at the fast-paced. So undoubtedly, developing an app like Airbnb has become an impressive business idea these days. But if you are wondering that how can you analyse the cost to create an app like Airbnb , then don't worry here we will explain to you what factors are contributing to its costing and how does it works.

3. How Does it Work and It's Business Model?

While Airbnb is working with two types of users — guests and property owners, so developing an app like Airbnb is a complicated task. Many businesses prefer to hire a mobile app development company to customise this type of app, as it includes lots of functionality and services. But to create an app like Airbnb, you need to understand its intricate structure from both the user's point of view.

Airbnb working model for Guests:

Here are the 6 step structure you need to follow consider for the guests:

Step 1: Create a login process for the users that help in registering for the services through mobile or web version.
Step 2: Once they complete the profile, ask them to add individual pictures including their ID, contact details and more.
Step 3: Allow users to customise their search by using multiple filters such as prices, location, property type, space, period and more.
Step 4: Once the user put the request for a stay, they got a confirmation.
Step 5: After confirmation, allow them to pay for the stay by using multiple payment options.
Step 6: The final step is easy check-in and enjoy the stay.

Airbnb Working Model for the Property Owners:

Step 1: The users need to register or log the app as a property host, and they must be over the age of 18.

Step 2: Once they create the profile, they need to add the property details along with location, space area, the number of guests required, type of apartment, and more.

Step 3: The property host has to upload clear, real and high definition picture of their property and set the rent. Also, to help you display your property in the best way, Airbnb offers you to hire an official photographer to assist you to upload quality pictures.

Step 4: Host should mention all the details to the guest in advance like quiet hours, hygiene standards and more.

Step 5: If the guest is agreed with all the terms and conditions, the host has all the right to approve the stay or may reject the stay.

Step 6: The host will receive the payment in 24 hours after the guest check-in.

Business Model of Airbnb: How Can You Earn From the App Like Airbnb?

Since the entire architecture of Airbnb is based on travellers and owners, designer to browse inexpensive properties in more than 190 countries, therefore, Airbnb is earning money in various ways:

Airbnb charges 3 to 4% transaction fees to the property owner on every confirmed reservation.
The guest has been charged 6 to 12% booking fees, depending on the size of the reservation which includes cleaning fees, service fees, occupancy, extra guest fees, currency exchange charge and so on.
Airbnb also charges 3 to 5% fees from its registered host member for listing their property on this platform.
Usually, 10% of service fees are deducted on every booking received by the host.

Apart from commission fees, you can earn through advertising and offering subscription-services to the property owners and travellers. Also, you can hire an app development company for leveraging better business models.

4. Basic & Advanced Features Required To Build an App Like Airbnb

Features of the Airbnb app clone are complicated and considered as the biggest factor in contributing to the development cost of the application. So to create an app like Airbnb, here are the few major features that you need to integrate:

Registration: Just like another app, registration or login is the first thing to consider in the app that allows users to get register with the phone number and email ID and agreed upon the basic terms and conditions. To create these features, it will take around 12 hours which will cost you approx $200.
Create Profile: The users have to complete the details including number, email ID, username, birth date, gender, address, and some other information that may be needed to be added by the users. A developer can take up to 24 hours to build this feature that will cost approx. $450.
Filters: It has to be added in two ways- if a user is a guest, then filters should be used to search the suitable host and property. And if the user is the property host- then filters should be used to list the property according to the location and budget. A skilled developer can take up to 24 hours, but since it is complex to create, therefore, it can cost you around $600.
Room Variants: While using filters, users can see multiple options to book a property.

After tapping on the result, the user will see the detailed information of the room :

Pictures
Description
Location Map
Reviews
Rating
Terms and conditions
Prices
House rules
Cancellation rules
Minimum booking period
Amenities

To customise this feature it is recommended to hire a mobile app developer that can help you create this feature under less time able to cost you $5000.

Refer and Invite Friends: With social network integration, allow users to refer the services to their friends and invite them for the bookings. You can choose to customise these features by hiring expert developers who may charge you $400+ for building this feature.
Add to Favorites: The user can quickly tap to the property to add it to a favourite list so that he/she can quickly review the option at the time of final booking. It will take up around 11 hours to customise this feature and will incur approximately $300.
Map and Navigation: This is an essential part of your app as it helps in suggesting the perfect accommodation to the guests as per their landmark. And developing a Map service like Airbnb will take up around 14 hours and may cost about $650.
Push Notifications: This option provides in-app notifications to the travellers to inform about all the deals, offers or other alerts. It can cost you to develop approx $200 and 35 hours.
Booking History: Keep track of the previous accommodation bookings can be seen by travellers using this option and make it easier for them to rebook the same place without exploring the possibilities right from scratch. You can expect it to develop this feature under $300 and 43 hours.

These are the few essential features that you need to consider if you are trying developing an app like Airbnb. But the list of the features are not ending here, you can add various other features to increase the functionality of the app according to the budget.

5. What is the Final Cost of Developing an Airbnb Like App For Your Business?

Determining the final cost of developing an app like Airbnb is quite a challenging task. Still, with a thorough analysis and a discussion, all the features can help you know the overall cost of the application. Majorly, the factors that are contributing to the final development cost are features, project complexity, technology stack and cost of the developer per hour and more. According to the survey, the average cost to build an application like Airbnb is ranging from $40,000 to $ 55,000+, but it can be significantly fluctuated depending upon the requirements of your business.

Apart, here is the list of engineers you need for the app development estimated hours they take to customise the app:

UI/UX designer: 150–170 hours
Backend Developer: 200–250 hours
Frontend developer: 150- 200 hours
Project Manager: 100- 120 hours
QA Engineer: 160- 175 hours

To calculate the final cost of the app development, you need to calculate the "Total Number of Hours * Per Hour Development Cost" of the developer to get the final cost of the application development.

Conclusion

The travel industry will keep growing in the coming years, so investing in travel booking app like Airbnb is a worthy decision for the startups. Hopefully, with the help of this blog, you have determined the essential features and components along with its development cost.

But to determine the exact cost of the app development, it is recommended to hire a software development company, as they evaluate your requirement and integrate the best suitable technology and then help you understand the exact cost of the app development.