ChowNow Clone Development Cost: $2,199, Fixed
On a commission-free platform the expensive part is billing. Packages as priced objects that gate what a restaurant can actually do, recurring charges running on schedules that read live settings, locks so a slow cycle never bills twice, statements a restaurant can read without calling you, and every charge frozen at settlement so last month does not move. Quoted from scratch that is twelve to eighteen months of senior engineering.
Get a Fixed Quote →See FeaturesWhat a Commission-Free Platform Costs Each Way
Five routes to the same platform, and what each one costs you in money, time and ownership.
| Route | Typical cost | What you end up owning |
|---|---|---|
| Generic ordering script | $300 - $2,000 | A cart. Plans, recurring billing and statements are what is missing |
| Freelance team | $25,000 - $80,000 | Ordering that works, and billing bolted on beside it as a second system |
| Miracuves ready-made | $2,199 fixed | The billing spine finished rather than sketched, in six working days |
| Custom agency build | $80,000 - $250,000 | A bespoke platform, and a timeline in quarters before the first plan is sold |
| Enterprise programme | Six figures and up | A senior team over twelve to eighteen months, the honest figure for this depth from nothing |
Those ranges are observations of what comparable scope sells for, not offers from us. Ours is the highlighted row and it holds after scoping. Franchise groups, hospitality software resellers and white-label operators are quoted against their own final scope instead.
What the Price Includes
Everything transfers, and on a plan-led build the billing spine is the part that decides whether the business is even possible.
Nothing is charged per restaurant, per outlet or per order, which on a model whose entire economics are recurring revenue per partner would be exactly the wrong thing to be charged for.
What Moves the Number
Costs move only when you add integration work, and on a billing-led build the first item is the one most likely to apply to you.
Advanced billing behaviour
The base ships recurring billing with cycles, entitlements and locks. Proration when somebody moves plan mid-cycle, trial periods, dunning sequences and retry ladders on failed charges are not built. On a plan-led business these arrive sooner than most operators expect, so they are worth scoping in the first conversation rather than the third.
POS hardware and printers
The built-in till captures counter and phone orders in software. Receipt printers, cash drawers and payment terminals vary enough by market and by hardware that integrating them is scoped against the specific devices your restaurants already own rather than promised generically.
An outside courier company
Delivery is a per-restaurant choice between your riders, the restaurant's own staff and collection only. Connecting a third-party courier for operators who run no fleet at all is scoped separately and depends entirely on the API that company publishes.
The pre-launch hardening pass
The platform ships in test mode with one-time passcodes exposed, cross-origin rules permissive, transport and frame headers absent and no second factor on sign-in. On a console that can change what a restaurant is billed, closing those before your first billing cycle is worth scheduling early.
iOS releases and staff identity
The Flutter source builds for both platforms, but signing, store listings and release management are ongoing work across three applications. So are single sign-on for staff and a second factor in front of console and panel access, neither of which ships.
Accounting and warehouse feeds
Reports and exports are included. Shaping them into a feed for a warehouse your analysts run, or pushing plan revenue and payout rows into an accounting system in a particular format, is scoped against the systems you actually use.
Every one of these is quoted in writing before any work begins, and none of them is assumed into the fixed number. Larger custom engagements run two to eight weeks depending on what they cover.
The Six-Day Path to Live
What happens in the six working days, in the order it happens.
Design the packages
How many plans, what each costs, and what each one unlocks in the restaurant panel. This is the product design of a subscription business rather than a configuration step, and it is the most valuable hour of the engagement because a plan ladder is awkward to restructure once partners are sitting on it.
Branding across four surfaces
Name, logo, palette and invoice layout across the ordering website, the diner app, the restaurant app and the delivery app, with the console theme to match. Invoice layout matters more here than on most builds, because your restaurants read a bill from you every single month.
Deploy and connect your accounts
The Laravel application goes onto infrastructure you control with migrations applied in order. Your gateway credentials, your Firebase project and your maps key are connected with keys you hold, and the billing schedule is pointed at the cycles you decided on day zero.
Set the commercial rules
Plans created and priced, commission configured for the restaurants that will prefer it, the discount split decided, setup fee policy agreed, delivery pricing set for the zones where you carry, tax rules entered and disbursement scheduled. Staff accounts are scoped so support cannot reach billing.
Walkthrough and handover
We onboard a restaurant onto a plan in front of your team, place an order on its own branded ordering site, ring another through the till, run the billing cycle, and then read the statement the restaurant sees. Then we raise the plan price and show you last cycle's statement not moving.
The support window
Sixty days of launch guidance, six months of priority bug fixes and twelve months of updates. The hardening pass, advanced billing behaviour, POS hardware and iOS releases usually run inside this window on their own scoped schedule.
Six working days covers the plan ladder, branding, the commercial rules, your credentials and the Android builds. It excludes App Store review, which nobody controls, and it excludes the restaurants, which nobody can sell you.
Regional Development Rates
Nobody can quote a from-scratch build honestly without knowing your team. What can be stated is the duration, twelve to eighteen months of senior engineering, and what an hour of that costs where you would hire it.
| Region | Senior engineer, blended hourly | What a 12-18 month programme implies |
|---|---|---|
| North America | $120 - $220 | A year and a half of this is a seven-figure programme before anybody is signed |
| Western Europe | $90 - $170 | Employer costs and notice periods close most of the gap to North America |
| Eastern Europe | $45 - $95 | The familiar outsourcing route, where risk moves from cost to specification |
| Latin America | $40 - $85 | Chosen for time-zone overlap with North America rather than for the hourly figure |
| Gulf and Middle East | $60 - $130 | Frequently the market being served, which makes local hiring attractive and no faster |
| South and Southeast Asia | $25 - $60 | The lowest rate, and where much of the Laravel and Flutter depth actually lives |
Why we give you the rate instead of the total
A from-scratch total is four guesses about your team size, your region, your seniority mix and how well you specify billing before anybody starts, presented as though it were research. Taking an order is the easy part and it is what every estimate prices. Packages that genuinely gate what a partner can do, a charging cycle that reads live settings, locks that refuse a duplicate run, statements a restaurant will accept without phoning you, prices frozen so history does not move, and both charging models sharing one spine rather than fighting each other are unglamorous, mandatory and slow.
Blended indicative figures for billing and hospitality software work. Nobody is quoting from them, including us; they are here so you can multiply them out yourself and reach your own conclusion.
Why the Price Is Fixed, Not "Starting At"
What a fixed number commits us to
The scope is the demo. What you see across the ordering website, the three applications and the console is what ships. There is no discovery phase that discovers the price was optimistic, because the platform already exists and runs on live infrastructure.
No percentage of your plan revenue. Recurring revenue is the whole point of this model, and taking a share of it would be taking a share of the only thing you are building. Every plan you sell is yours in full.
No charge per restaurant or per outlet. Your two hundredth partner, and their sixth outlet, cost you nothing extra from us. On a business whose growth is measured in partners signed, a per-partner fee is the worst possible shape.
The limitations are named before purchase. No proration, trials, dunning or retry ladders, no POS hardware integration, no outside courier, test mode with exposed one-time passcodes, permissive cross-origin rules, absent security headers and no operator two-factor are all stated here and on the hub.
Franchise groups, hospitality software resellers and white-label operators are quoted against their own final scope rather than from this page.
Hidden Costs Most Quotes Leave Out
None of these are ours to charge. They are yours to budget, and on subscription economics they are shaped quite differently from a commission business.
The first three are the model. A commission platform spends on acquiring orders; a plan platform spends on acquiring and keeping partners, and the arithmetic of the whole business follows from that difference.
Who you hire decides what the number means
The six-step process, the nine questions worth asking anyone bidding on a billing-led build, the red flags, and the Flyereats engagement we delivered in 2025 - on the Development Company page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost?
What is not included?
How long does deployment take?
Why is there no from-scratch dollar figure here?
Do I need the advanced billing work before launch?
Can I charge a setup fee?
One fixed price, no cut of your plan revenue
Bring the plan ladder you have in mind and the restaurants you already know. We will confirm the number in writing before you commit to anything.
Explore the ChowNow Clone
$2,199 fixed. Six days. The billing spine included.
Four applications and one Laravel core on your infrastructure under your branding, with the plan builder, the charging cycle and the statements your restaurants read transferring alongside them.
Talk to Us →Miracuves is an independent software development company. We are not affiliated with, connected to, sponsored by, or endorsed by ChowNow.
“ChowNow Clone” is used descriptively. It is how the software industry refers to building a platform with functionality similar to ChowNow, and how clients search for it.
The entire design and codebase is built by our own team. The product contains no code, design, graphics, or content originating from the ChowNow website or applications.
ChowNow and all other third-party names and marks are the property of their respective owners, referenced here solely to describe the category of software offered.
