Cost Estimation for Making a Dog Walking App like Wag. Know Cost factors

Animal Care Industry Today

The animal and pet care industry has grown massively in the past decade. According to one of the studies by gminsights.com, the pet care industry is already around 223 US billion dollars in 2019. It is expected to grow by 5.9% in the next 6 years (2020-2026).

Technology today has played a big role in the growth of the pet care industry. People can keep eye on their pets without being there with help of various gadgets and dog care apps that are available in the market.

People choose dog walking apps like wag or rover to appoint dogwalkers online. Similarly, apart from dog walking, other apps that are related to nutrition, pet sitting, hygiene, and health of the pets are in high demand.

To acknowledge this statement, here are some of the facts that advocate the same.

• In today’s time, around 78 million dogs and 85.8 million cats are pets.- aspca.org
• 44% of households in the USA have a dog- aspca.org
• 85 million families in the USA have at least one pet.- franchisehelp.com
• Around €39.5 billion pet sale was done in Europe for the year 2018- petpedia.co

Thus, it is very evident that the animal care industry is growing because of technology enhancement. People today are owning pets and that is why pet care app development has a bright future. Let us now focus on why dog walking apps are the favorites of all in the pet care industry particularly.

The Craze of Dog Walking App

The dog walking apps have gained popularity recently in the mobile age. The changing technology and people’s dependency on the internet have also affected pet care. 

People find the dog walking app as a convenient way of shifting their responsibility dog walking routine to trusted sources. These apps keep tracking the location of the dogs and users know details about dog walkers, time of walking, and the payments.

Below is the standard functional model of a dog walking app or dog walker app.

Let us know each of these in details as follows-

• Register

The registration over the app both for the user and dog walker is very convenient. Simply register with email credentials, phone number, or social media platforms and get on board.

For the person applying as a dog walker, he needs to fill in his information like name, age, profession, and contact detail.

Likewise, the person who is interested in getting dog walking services fills in the information related to the owner- name and contact details and information about the dog- name, age. breed, health report, etc.

The registration allows them to sign up and fill in details and build their profile.

• Schedule Walk

After all the profile setting up and registration, it is time to get connected with the suitable dog walker just like you do in the online taxi booking app.

In the dog walking app, the owner of a dog is shown options of different dog walkers that are available in the nearby areas and match with the owner’s requirement.

On selecting any one of the walkers, the walking time is scheduled with the estimated time of walking, location of walking, and time of picking up a dog for the dog walk.

This avoids chaos and confusion about when and where to meet a dog walker for taking the dog out on a walk.

• Dog walking

The dog walking is done when the whole information is already provided to the dog owner related to the dog walker, the ratings, which track he has chosen for the dog to take on a walk, and estimated time by which the dog will return.

In this, many apps also offer live tracking app, just like you have in your online food delivery apps where you know which way and what route is taken by a delivery person. 

• Payments

The payment is done either done through post-payment or prepaid plans that are already in the app. The dog walking plan subscriptions could be taken off or you can pay on daily basis as per the requirement.

For payments, the standard payment gateways are enabled along with OTPs for payment security. E-wallets like Amazon Pay and Google Pay are also becoming a famous source of payments. Thus, these are also included with cash on delivery and standard online payment gateways.

Features that Contribute to Cost to Make App like Wag

Now as we know what are the basic things that happen in dog walking app. There are multiple features that you can think to add or subtract to affect the cost of the dog making app. The infographic below shows some features.

 Let us learn about the functionality of these features in a brief.

1. Ease of Registration

The person should be able to register over the app by simply filling in the email credentials or by signing up with some other social media platform. Signing up with a phone number should also be considered,

One the sign up is done. The logging in over the app should be possible with a simple tap or OTP that comes over your registered mobile phone post-registration.

2. Information Board

It is the profile center that is used for both the users – owners and the dog walkers. In the owner’s information board, the details like- name of the owner, the name of the dog, the age of the dog, the breed of the dog are fed.

The other part of the dog owner’s profile is for dog. A small introduction about the dog’s nature, their allergies, and health report all should b provided. Along with that contact details of the owner should also be built.

In the case of the dog walker, information like their name, age and profession should be displayed. With that, the other fields like feedbacks, ratings, the number of times dog walking performed all such information should be provided.

3. Scheduling Slots

The scheduling slots for walking dogs is very crucial. Once the owner appoints the dog walker, the dog walking app should provide the time calendar with date, day, time, and if possible venue from where the dog walker has to pick the dog.

This feature helps in sabotaging the overlapping of dog walking requests to one particular person.

4. Push Notification

When you are an app owner you have to think of many promotions and the scheme offers to keep your users engaged. Along with that, you have to keep sending them notifications about your app features or any other achievements that manage to have the attention of your users. 

For this, you need to keep sending them notifications. And feature like push notification allows you to send the message to users and dog walkers registered with the app. The owner has the freedom to send these messages anytime anywhere as per their requirements. 

5. Panel dashboard

Dashboards are the heart of any app. The importance of the admin panel, user panel, and dog walker is equally important. The panel lets them operate in their decided range provided through the app.

The dashboard for every panel should be self-explanatory enough that the person while using the dog walking app should know where to go, which tab to click for performing or seeing a piece of particular information.

6. Wireframes

As told the app should have a self-explanatory layout that eases the user experience and wireframes play a major part in it. Wireframes help in making tanks and buttons over the app that let them land directly to the desired page.

Working on compelling wireframes require intensive development that obviously affects the cost of mobile app development.

7. Chatbots

Making your app extra friendly with Chatbots increases customer satisfaction and goodwill to your brand. These chatbots can help your users to learn about things like- 

• How to book a dog walking service?
• What are the ways of payment?
• How to change dogwalker?
• How to track your dog?
• How to change the time of dog walking etc?

These are some natural questions that people might ask. Having a chatbot will resolve these queries immediately.

8. Filter Enabling

Just like the matchmaking is done on apps like Bumble, the matching and filtration happens here too. After all, dogs are pure love!

But on a serious note, the interests that the dog owner is finding relevant and important should align with the information and specification provided by a dog walker and similarly, vice-versa.

For this, they can use a filter based on the rating of a dog walker, area proximity, charges, dog breed, etc. This saves time for both the dog owner and the dog walker.

9. Live Streaming

This is one of the advanced features that is being demanded by pet owners. Live streaming. The dog walker can enable the live streaming option when they take out some dog for a walk. 

The owner can see their dog walking live at the app. This helps them to keep better track and assures that their dog is under good supervision. It enhances customer satisfaction.

10. Reports and Analysis

This feature could be used both by the dog walker and the admin but with different features. In the admin panel, the person can have a complete record of how many dog walking requests happened and how many were attended. They can also ascertain revenues and commissions that came in total.

In the dog walker panel, the user can learn about the number of requests they attended. What is their average rating and how much they have earned and given in commission to the app? 

This brings clarity. The reports could be fetched from particular time frames.

Average Budget Estimates for App like Wag

Now as we know what functions and features are generally considered to make a good dog walking app. The rough estimate is around 10,000 US dollars to 30,000 US Dollars. The budget is directly proportional to the features and functionality integration. 

If you think you are running out of your budget estimation, you can start with the basic features. And when revenues flow in you can integrate other advanced features in a later run.

Rest you can also work on geographical areas by limiting them or fixing your revenue and commission mode that does not affect your budgets. For more clarity, you can contact app developers, they could provide you better insights.

Conclusion

The dog walking app like wag got popular because they realized the need of the users. As shown in the blog above, the pet care industry is getting huge. It is the best option to build an app for the industry that is still growing and yet has fewer competitors.

People today are the generation of fast pacers. They are moving so quickly with their work and tasks that unintentionally they skip on paying attention to the things.

Pet Care apps have come to the rescue in this. People want to save their time and also pay full care and attention to their dog. And in such situations, dog-walking apps work as a bridge.