Review App Like Yelp: Key Features & Development Cost
Yogesh Kumar
Published: Jun 06, 2022|Updated: Aug 19, 2025
Table of Content Table of Content
When you buy a product or service, what is the first thing you do? You check the reviews to know whether buying the particular product is worth it or not and how was the experience of the users of the product. An app like Yelp helps to know the reviews, connect people, and know better businesses and services.
More than 45% of customers like to check reviews on Yelp before visiting a business and buying a product. It is a trustable and successful business model, that is why people want to hire an on-demand app development company to make a review app like Yelp.
Since the Yelp app came into being and became successful, several businesses tried to repeat its success. That is why there are many apps like Yelp in the market. If you are also thinking to make a Yelp alternative, you must have details about its features, cost, and app development time.
What Is Yelp?
Yelp application was founded in 2004. It helps people to find local businesses such as Restaurants, Grocery shops, Dentists, Mechanic, Hairstylists, Home Cleaners, Plumbers, and Electricians, and the list is long.
You can check reviews for a particular service on the app and make a wise decision to buy it or not. Yelp receives around 178 million unique users monthly. They access the application from different types of devices.
So, to provide the best recommendation for such a large number of people, it needs a strong and scalable database. The user events are stored in different data lakes of Yelp. Moreover, it is one of the best app ideas to make money.
How Does Yelp Work?
Yelp is a popular business directory and is used by millions of people around the globe. You can check the reviews for restaurants, shops, and any other business through the website of Yelp and its iOS and Android app.
Have a look at the below image to know recommended review distribution and reviewed business by category for Yelp.
You can sort the lists of businesses and get the result as per the geographical location. Moreover, you can know about the price range and unique features like outdoor seating, if you are looking for a restaurant.
After visiting the particular business, the app users can leave comments regarding their experience and give ratings. Consequently, upcoming visitors can check the reviews. Moreover, Yelp promotes the most popular reviews to the Yelp elite status.
Are you also planning to make an app similar to Yelp? This app development guide will help you. What is so important for the development of an app? Well, there are many things, but deciding on the features is one of the crucial steps.
Since you know that there are already many Yelp alternatives in the market, so merely copying them will not help. Doing so can only give you a failure. So, what to do?
I am highlighting some of the vital features of the on-demand app like Yelp in the space below. Read them and decide which features are crucial for your app.
User Accounts
Review & Rating
Social Login
Business Pages
Location-Based Search
Activity Stream
News Feed
Well, these all are the important features. So, let’s know about each in detail below.
1. User Accounts
You can make two types of user accounts: personal and professional. A user account consists of information about users. They can access newsfeed, compliments, tips, bookmarks, and friends. A professional account is associated with business-related works.
2. Review & Rating
It is one of the most important features of the Yelp app. Users can write reviews on the Yelp app after visiting a place. Likewise, reviews can be text descriptions, photos, and 5-star ratings. It makes, it easy to select the top-rated places.
3. Social Login
To register on the app, you have to provide personal information like name, email ID, phone number, and address. But, Yelp allows you to log in with social accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Apple.
4. Business Pages
Business pages show the pictures of their products and services like types of food, dining table, reviews, ratings, directions, and working hours. So, the personal users can rate businesses, add reviews, and get information about the facilities.
5. Location-Based Search
Yelp users can search for businesses that are close to their places. You can filter the results based on categories like auto services, dry cleaning, nightlife, home services, repair, bar, gym, and others, and find search results as per your location.
6. Activity Stream
The professional account holders on Yelp can check the activity and track the business pages. They can know about the overall analytics through the activity stream. Moreover, you can know the statistical data about the popularity of your services and user experience.
7. News Feed
A lot of people use Yelp and connect. They share their experience with the services. That is why Yelp provides a news feed feature. Here users can check the chronological lists of the previous activities, notifications, and news.
Every application has its monetization model because ultimately generating good revenue is the aim. The company is expecting the net revenue for the year 2022 to be around $1.16-$1.18 billion. Yelp uses three types of monetization models. Let’s know them below.
Advertisement: Businesses use Yelp for self-promotion so that products can be promoted as sponsored search results. For this, search ads help to recommend the related businesses. Check out the advertising revenue by category in the below image.
Branded and Verified Profile: The businesses on Yelp can enhance their listings to get a branded profile with the help of premium Yelp features. These are like preferred images, videos, and company updates. Moreover, an enhanced profile stops the advertisements of other businesses from appearing on the particular list.
Transaction Fees: Users can make direct purchases on Yelp with the help of partner integration. In addition, businesses can use Yelp deals to prompt products as discounted deals. Yelp provides special gift certificates. The businesses can sell it to Yelp users.Subscription services, Yelp verified license, Reservations, Waitlist, and Yelp knowledge are also the monetization models of the Yelp app other than the ones listed above.
Cost to Develop an App like Yelp
You can know the app development cost after a thorough analysis of the requirements. App development doesn’t include the price of just coding, it is more than this. So, I will let you know the estimated price of different requirements for app development.
UI/UX Designing Cost: $5,000-$10,000 Development Cost: $10,000-$30,000 Salary of Team: $10,000-$50,000
If you have plans to outsource the app software, must have an idea about the app developer costs below.
Have a look at the app types, estimated cost, and time required for the development accordingly.
App Types
Estimated Cost
Time
Simple App Development
$10,000-$40,000
2-3 Months
Basic App Development
$20,000-$55,000
3-6 Months
Complex App Development
$30,000-$120,000
9+ Months
Now, you can decide how much time you can wait for your app to get ready.
A complete app like Yelp can cost you around $50,000. But the price depends on various factors. So, have a look at the factors that affect the Yelp-like app development in the below section.
Business Objectives: Business objectives are specific and measurable results. If you are clear about them, you can start working in the right direction. For this, understand your business model properly and analyze it.
Requirements: When you think of hiring on-demand app developers for your project, you must be ready with all the requirements. So that you can explain everything to them. If the developers know what type of features and functions you want, they can work accordingly.
Platform: Who is your target audience? Do they use iOS or Android or both? You have to think about it so that you can decide on the app development platform. If you are targeting both types of users, go for cross-platform app development.
Tech Stack: The technologies used to make an app, affect the cost of development. Developers have to use many app development Frameworks for fast and effective coding. Moreover, they have to choose the right databases. Yelp uses MySQL database. Likewise, focus on some app development trends.
Development Team: App development is a long process and requires many professionals for specific tasks. Front-end, back-end developers, quality analysts, and project managers are some of the members of the development team. Their salaries also affect the cost of app development.
The requirements determine the complexity level of the app and the more complex the app the more time it will take to complete.
Timeline of Yelp Application
Yelp application has evolved much since 2004. From letting business owners to contacting reviewers to introducing a video feature, you can notice many other advancements in the app. Moreover, now it has some new features as well. You can understand better by looking at the timeline of the Yelp app.
The right mobile app development company can include excellent features in your app so that it can become successful sooner than Yelp. But, for this, you should be aware of the application types because the inclusion of innovative features makes your app more complex.
What Are the Best Yelp Alternatives?
As you already know, there are many players in the market, so knowing about them will help to come up with a better application. Moreover, you can hire a mobile app development company that suits your business model. So, have a look at the Yelp alternatives.
1. Foursquare
Users can find and share personalized recommendations for the places they are going to visit using the Foursquare application. So, basically, it is a search and discovery service. Likewise, the app uses the geographical locations of the businesses to get you the best results near your location.
It helps the small and mid-size of businesses stay in touch and build a network with one another. The app connects businesses with their target audience. It helps to improve the services and is ultimately good for the user experience.
You can find and book travel accommodations. So, the service is related to finding, listing, and reviewing local hotspots at popular travel destinations. It includes nightclubs, theaters, sports venues, spas, restaurants, and unique shops.
If you are looking for more comprehensive reviews, Angi is the helpful platform. The feedbacks are brief so that users can know about the service quality better from its users. So, like Yelp, you can leave reviews and help people.
Many businesses want an app like Yelp because its monetization model is wide so they can generate revenue from many sources. If you also want such an app, know the features, cost, timeline, and monetization model effectively. And find the best on-demand app development company to turn your idea into reality.
Yogesh Kumar works at a top WordPress development company, Technource as a Digital Marketing Manager.
He is a passionate individual who has in-depth knowledge of SEO and uses natural search expertise to attain and sustain maximum marketing share for organic search across the industry. With his passion for writing, he delivers many informative articles and blogs on software development, that help many people to improve their knowledge of emerging technologies, and website & app development. He is featured on Hackernoon, Dzone, Newsbreak, Enlear Academy, Articlesfactory, and much more websites. He likes to cook in his free time and discover new recipes.
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