On-Demand Beauty Service App Development Cost & Features

Last Updated on January 21, 2022

The beauty and wellness industry is indubitably one of the most flourishing sectors. Going by stats, an average woman spends around $3,756 annually on different beauty services. And that is a big figure.

Now if you add an on-demand facility to your already soaring beauty service business, what you get is an unbeatable and hugely profitable business model.

What is an On-demand Beauty Services App?

In today’s busy working schedules, many people find it really hectic to visit the beauty salon for regular services. And the long waiting times at these salons make the situation even harder. Discerning customers require a more effective and efficient solution that carefully caters to their beauty services regimen. And this is exactly what an on-demand beauty service app delivers. Such apps enable the customers to get the required beauty services done at a convenient time and the comfort of their homes. Sounds brilliant, isn’t it?

Realizing the unmet needs of the people looking for professional beauty salon services, a plethora of beauty salon owners are joining the bandwagon by investing in an on-demand beauty services app. With these apps, the customer gets convenience and the business gets heavy footfall.

If you too are looking to scale your business with an on-demand beauty services app, you have come to the right place. here, we will talk about the different aspects of a beauty and wellness app and identify the cost of developing one.

Why Invest in Beauty Services Mobile App: Market Size and Stats

The global beauty industry is growing at an exponential rate as beauty brands are constantly looking to provide better alternatives. Currently, the global beauty industry is worth over $532 billion and is estimated to reach $716.6 billion by 2025. In a lifetime, an average woman spends over $225,000 on skincare alone.

Moving on, owing to increasing consumer demand for beauty services and shift to the online platform, the life of beauty freelancers has become much easier. Last year, out of the 1.2 million professionals, including stylists, hairdressers, and cosmetologists in the US, approximately 70% started marketing themselves through mobile applications.

According to another report, the spa and beauty salon market in 2017 was valued at $128.59 billion. And this is anticipated to reach $190.81 billion in 2024.

Revenue of the cosmetic/beauty industry in the US from 2002 to 2020

The above statistics point towards the massive valuation and wide user base of the industry. This implies that there is adequate potential for plenty of beauty on-demand service providers to coexist and succeed.

Understanding this gigantic potential, several investors have come forward and invested in popular beauty services. This is clear from GlamSquad, a New York-based startup’s whopping amount of funding raised.

How Beauty On-demand Mobile App Works?

Beauty on-demand service apps work just like Uber, but for offering beauty services.

After a user downloads the app, he/she can easily book a local stylist from among the options listed within the app. Once the booking is confirmed, a stylist will come at the chosen time and execute the mentioned services wherever the user requires.

This is a basic on-demand beauty service app that enables the users to get their beauty treatments done at their own convenience.

Developing Apps for the Beauty Industry

The different services that can be extended within the beauty industry include but are not limited to:

• Salon beauty services at home
• Hiring beauty professionals for an occasion
• Beauty products home delivery
• Appointment booking for beauty salons
• Skincare and wellness services at home

Types of Business Models for On-demand Beauty Service App

Dedicated/Self-owned Model

Dedicated apps are those which are created by a renowned beauty brand or an established salon to expand their business locally. With these apps, the service provider can make potential clients aware of their services and enhance the online presence of their company. Whenever a booking is made, it is directly routed to the app owner’s spa or salon. They then allocate a professional to visit the customer’s house and extend the service.

Aggregator Beauty Service App

Aggregator apps bring in all salons, makeup artists, hairdressers, and independent beauticians under one umbrella. If you develop an aggregator app, you need to partner with the beauty salons and spas services in your area. In these apps, the revenue is generated by charging a commission/fee on every transaction.

Scaling Your Beauty On-demand Service App

To stand apart from the crowd, several businesses are extending beyond the basic offerings and experimenting to scale their business in the following ways:

Adding new categories

Adding new categories such as Ayurveda, aquatic therapy, laser, nutrition consulting, etc. is a great way to scale your offerings.

Integrating eCommerce platform

Selling beauty and wellness products by adding an online store can help you achieve a competitive advantage.

Entering a new geographical market

If you want to reach more customers, you can choose to enter an entirely new geographical market.

Beginning with subscription boxes

Subscription boxes are great as they help the users to stay true to their everyday beauty regime. You can start delivering a customized box of beauty products each month to your customers for a fixed monthly price.

Launching an exclusive offline store

Once your brand has made a mark in the online world, you can even set up an offline store and earn from a franchise model.

Monetization Opportunities by On-Demand Beauty Service App

Featured Listings

In this, the aggregator apps can feature a few beauty service providers in the top section of the app or advertise them separately so they can grab the user’s attention. In return for this featured listing, the app owner can charge a specific amount of fee. A lot of service providers opt for featured listing as it helps to receive maximum sales.

Commission

In this, the mobile app owner charges a specific amount of money from the salons and beauticians listed on the app. This commission is charged for every order placed through the app. This is a popular source of revenue for aggregator apps that allows the owners to generate a large sum of income.

eCommerce Enablement

The app owner can add an online beauty store within the app to set up a parallel revenue stream. The app users can browse through the store and purchase beauty and wellness products directly from the app itself. This also helps to boost user engagement.

Ads Selling

The app owners can also earn money by adding PPC ads within the app. These ads can be anything related to the beauty and wellness industry. And in return for these ads, the app owner can charge a pre-decided amount from the advertising businesses.

Popular On-Demand Beauty Service Apps in Market

Soothe, BeYou, Beautii, BeautyLynk, StyleBee, and Veluxe are some of the most popular apps in the market.

General Features in an On-Demand Beauty Service App

User Panel

• Social Signup/Login
• View various beauty services
• Browse and select stylists or beauty salon
• Hire professional beautician
• Schedule appointment at the salon
• Integrated payment system
• Rate and Review beauticians and other services
• View past bookings and future schedule
• View and choose subscription packages
• Live Chat with the stylist/beautician

Beauty Salon owner panel

• Register via email id
• View user requests
• Catalog Management
• Manage services offered
• Schedule the stylist for users
• View ratings and reviews
• Accept/decline user’s request
• Manage pricing of services offered

Individual Beauty Expert Panel

• Register via Social/email id
• View and confirm bookings
• Manage calendar and availability
• Accept/Reject/Re-schedule user request
• List services and prices
• Accept payments
• Manage catalog

Super Admin Panel

• Manage stylist/beauty salons/beauticians and end-users
• Manage CMS
• Report generation
• Manage payments
• Manage subscription packages
• App monetization
• Manage marketing channels

Advanced Features of an On-Demand Beauty Service App

Social Signup/ Login

With a social signup option, customers can quickly signup for your app using any of their social media accounts. A simple, fast, and eye-catching sign-up page is an important tool for earning customer loyalty.

Service Rating & Review

This is a significant feature that enables the users to check out the ratings and reviews of each service, salon, or product, before booking it. This facilitates effective decision making. Besides, the customers can also leave detailed comments or reviews about the service providers after availing of their services.

Push Notifications

Push notifications help to keep the app users informed and updated. For instance, the service providers can engage the users by sending them beauty tips, information on advanced products, festive discount offers, etc. On the other hand, service providers can also receive notifications about important tasks, such as payment confirmation, new users, booking confirmation, and more.

In-app Chat with Providers

In-app chats help the customers to get in touch with the beauticians, stylists, and makeup artists, through messaging from within the app itself. They can easily communicate and clarify their doubts or issues regarding the services.

In-app Call with Number Masking

The app users can also make free calls to the service providers for any further interaction. However, the calls are made from within the app with complete number masking. This means that the real phone numbers are not given out.

In-app Navigation

Beauty on-demand service apps are also integrated with a GPS location identifier. This feature enables users to track the location of their service agents in real-time. Besides, the tracking screen also records and displays the tentative arrival time of the personnel. This helps to maintain complete security.

PIP Mode Tracking

Picture in Picture mode is also a very useful feature as the user can keep track of the beautician or stylist appointments in realtime.

SMS Authentication

SMS authentication is a robust feature that reinforces the security measures of the app. To avoid fraudulent practices, an OTP number is sent to the customer’s registered email address or mobile number. When the beauty professional reaches the customer’s given location or the customer reaches the salon, this OTP number needs to be shared to complete the services.

Upload Video Portfolio

Using this feature, the stylists and makeup artists can upload live makeup or hairstyling videos done by them. Looking at these videos, the app users can comprehend about the quality of services extended by the service provider and make the best choice.

Effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM plays a crucial role in managing customers. With an efficient CRM system in place, the app owners can quickly resolve all customer queries and offer an improved experience.

Efficient Content Management System

Content Management System helps to manage all the content that is available on the app. For instance, service providers can easily update information about their salon, services, contact details, open hours, addresses, etc. Similarly, the admin can maintain a style blog, where he/she inputs content on the latest beauty trends, top-selling products, makeup hacks, etc.

Real-time Dashboard & Analytics

A good beauty service app is integrated with a sound analytics dashboard. Here, the admin can view detailed information on important business metrics, such as the number of users, user acquisition rate, e-store numbers, retention rate, etc. It is an important feature as it helps the admin to monitor the performance of the app.

Multiple Mobile Wallet Integration

By integrating multiple payment options into the app, you can enable the app users to make quick and hassle-free payments from their desired mode of payment. They can use various mobile wallets such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, to book appointments and pay for the services.

Marketing & Promotion Tools

Marketing is the most important component of every business. A beauty service app integrates marketing tools, such as call, email, text, coupons, etc. to send special offers to the customers and persuade them to use the app.

Required Team Structure

For building a high-performing, feature-rich app, you need to hire an experienced team. Make sure the team comprises different professionals including project managers, UI/UX designers, developers, testers, and QA analysts. A skilled team with knowledge of all the updated tools, technologies, and frameworks will only be able to offer you a unique solution that addresses the pain points of your customers.

Required Tech Stack

Choosing a robust tech stack is very important to build a fail-proof app. Such an app needs to strictly adhere to all the quality standards and deliver optimized performance to stand tall amongst the competition. So, make sure to choose a mobile app development company that works with the following tools and frameworks:

• Payment gateway: Stripe
• Real-time app analytics: Hadoop. BigData, Spark, Apache, IBM, Cisco
• Data management: Datastax
• Push notifications: Apple push notifications, Firebase cloud messaging
• Database: MongoDB, Cassandra, Hbase
• Cloud environment: Google and AWS
• In-app chat: QuickBlox Chat
• Voice, SMS, phone verification: Twilio, Nexmo, Sinch

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Beauty Service Mobile App?

There is no easy answer to this. The exact cost of app development depends upon a wide range of factors, such as type of features, back-end, app complexity level, UI/UX needs, third-party integrations, etc. All these factors come together to determine the time taken to complete the beauty service app development.

Let us look at a couple of factors that directly impact the app development budget and timeline.

1. Platform

Developing a native app for both the platform, i.e. Android and iOS will result in increased time, effort, resources, and cost.

2. The number of screens

An app with a lot of functionalities and more screens will mean that the developers have to pitch in too much time in developing the app.

3. Design complexity

If you want a unique design that can immediately grab user attention, then you will definitely need to pay a higher price for it.

4. Device types

If you require the app to function seamlessly across all Android or iOS devices, such as the mobile, tablet, desktop, etc. then you need to pay a higher price. Making the app adaptable to different resolutions and screen sizes requires much more effort.

5. Third-party integration

Third-party plugin integrations to enhance the app’s functionality will also increase its development cost.

Apart from this, the location of the development company directly affects the overall cost. Most clients find India to be the most feasible destination for outsourcing mobile app development requirements. This is because, in India, the labor cost is around $20 to $70 per hour, which is very low in comparison to other countries like the USA and Europe, where it ranges between $50 to $250 per hour.

Wrapping Up

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to expand his brand outreach or simply create a steady stream on revenue, investing in an on-demand beauty services app is a great idea. The incredible app offers humongous comfort to the users who no longer have to face the unavailability of their preferred time or ignorance of the better deals offered by beauty salons and spas.

So get in touch with a reputed mobile app development company and get your hands on your own on-demand beauty services app right away.