Working an 8 to 10 hour job and then coming home to see a room full of laundry, doesn’t look like a pretty sight. According to recent statistics, half of the marriages in the USA were a dual-career couple and around 63% of the couples having children were also dual-career couples. Similar numbers are showing up in various other countries which bring in great demand for online on-demand solutions due to the lack of time. Especially, when it comes to chores like laundry, people now prefer a more efficient on-demand service than doing it by themselves.

One such service is on-demand laundry, according to Statista, the online on-demand laundry market is going to be around $96B by the year 2024. 

But what makes such services attractive is the low costing possible due to the economy of scale.

The real evidence of the success of this model is the on-demand laundry app Cleanly or now known as ByNext. With its disruptive approach, it has become one of the most popular “uber for laundry” services among other dry cleaning & laundry booking apps. But to understand its success, it is important to understand what it is and how it works. 

About Cleanly App

Tom Harrari, a working professional realised the problems and hassles of finding a good laundry service in New York and started Cleanly. The idea was able to get attention from the famous Y Combinator and secured $2.25 Million in seed round funding. Later it received further fundings bringing the total tally to around $7 Million. In February 2020, it merged with NextCleaners to form a new company by the name of ByNext.

Cleanly provides its service through its laundry management app available on popular OS platforms like Android and Apple. Here the users can book a laundry pickup and delivery all within 24 hours.

Currently, Cleanly claims to be the largest dry cleaners in New York. Additionally owing to their popularity, they have also forayed into providing home cleaning service along with laundry. A laundry booking app like Cleanly requires a precise and swift logistics system to back it up, which is also a main feature of the application. This assists the handling of a large amount of laundry at once, preventing the loss and mix of clothing. Further, the aggregator model is all the rage now as it does not require the business to own any kind of inventory to be in business. Cleanly has effectively used this opportunity to build a laundry booking app that provides an aggregation platform for both the consumers and laundry businesses.

Despite having competition from many other app like Cleanly, the company has managed to maintain a steep growth trajectory. This is mainly possible due to the largely untapped market where the competitor can stay without diluting each other’s market share. Thereby owning an on-demand laundry application like Cleanly presents a great business opportunity for entrepreneurs to take advantage of this opportunity. 

Not only laundry, but the features of the app also make it open to enter further spaces, just like Cleanly entered the home cleaning business. But before building a laundry app like Cleanly, it requires a person to understand the popularity of the app and the underlying reasons for such rapid growth.

Popularity of Cleanly

From the date of its launch, Cleanly has adapted itself very smartly to meet the challenges in the sector. Here are some numbers to help you gauge the popularity of the app.

• The laundry booking claims to have around 50000+ active customers.
• It has around 30000+ home cleaning bookings in just 18 months
• It has served a total of 150000 retail customers.
• The total order number is cloaked at more than 15000000.
• Further, it also owns 20 branded retail marquee locations.

What’s more surprising is that these numbers are only from a couple of cities where the company operates.  Also when it comes to explaining these numbers, there are multiple reasons for it such as 

• The main focus of Cleanly is being environmentally friendly, the company says that it only uses green earth solvents for its dry cleaning service.
• Additionally, it also uses electric vehicles for its delivery services helping it to maintain its image of an environmentally conscious company.
• But what makes the app stand out is its competitive pricing model. With its exceptional logistics system, the company is able to maintain its profit margins while offering its services at low costs. The app charges around $1.50 per pound of Laundry, making it one of the most affordable laundry services.
• The app also gives a 24-hour turn around for the laundry, not to mention a flexible delivery window according to the comfort of the user.
• A big problem identified by the founder of Cleanly was payments, most laundry businesses only accepted cash which made it a hassle for the consumers to get cash every time they had to make a payment. Cleanly comes with the option of receiving and payment options inbuilt within the application.

All this popularity and growth of this app has been only with the help of its great business model and working efficiency. That is why to build a laundry management app like Cleanly, it is important to understand its working first.

How Laundry Booking App Works

There are two common business models when it comes to creating dry cleaning & laundry booking apps. 

• The aggregation model
• The onsite model

In simple terms, the aggregation model refers to building an online marketplace where the service provider and the consumers can meet. The app acts as a facilitator for both the businesses and consumers with the help of services like delivery and efficient inventory management assistance.

On the other hand, the onsite model is best for the business who themselves are providing the service. Having an On-demand laundry application like Cleanly can give a boost to the reach of business helping them to cloak a greater sales number.

When it comes to Cleanly, it follows a simple aggregator model which allows it to provide laundry services without owning any washing machinery or workforce. Cleanly follows a simple five-step model to provide its services 

• Receiving orders, which is made possible through its simple ordering process within the app.
• Cleanly follows a scheduled pickup model which helps it provide faster deliveries while cutting the delivery costs.
• The third step is the processing of the orders, which is done with the help of its excellent logistics management system.
• After this, the clothes are sent for laundry, and again segregated and packaged to be delivered back.
• The last step in the process is the drop-off, which is designed to be compatible with the scheduling system of the app. This helps to maintain the identification of clothes and ensure that the right clothes are delivered to the right address.

Building a laundry app like Cleanly requires utmost expertise and experience. This is because the app comes with loads of features that help it to run its functions while maintaining an optimum experience for the users. These features included both back-end and front end features. Additionally, the app requires different functions for different parties working with the app. Here are some of the features you need to have when looking to create an app like Cleanly.

Key Features of the Cleanly App

To build an app like Cleanly, the developers are required to create three different platforms for the different parties connected with the app. Further, all three require different features to ensure smooth working of the whole system.

1. Customer App

The customer side of the laundry booking app is the most important part of the technical structure of the app. A Cleanly like app requires some personalised features to work effectively including 

• Registration and Login – As a service aggregator platform, the app needs a swift and secure registration and login option for users to maintain their privacy and security.
• Booking Dashboard – A clean and interactive dashboard makes it easier for a user to select the services they want to avail. Further, it also specifies various information regarding the costs and time required to perform the service.
• Delivery Tracking – This is the most important feature that needs to be incorporated on the customer side. To build an app like Cleanly requires a robust logistics management system and maps to track the delivery status.
• Payment – A secure and smooth payment gateway is the backbone of the financial viability of a Cleanly like app. This requires the integration of the app with various payment technologies to give a wide range of options to the user in terms of payment.
• Other features – The features mentioned above are just some basic features that any on-demand service app requires. Apart from this, it requires various other features such as a smooth UI, history dashboard, barcode and QR code scanner. 

Further, it requires two further apps for Cleanly to work swiftly.

2. Laundry Side app

A Cleanly clone app also needs to take care of the business that is registered on the platform. Thus, it requires to offer further features for a laundry side app. Apart from the above-mentioned features in the customer side app, the laundry app requires

• More advanced delivery tracking
• Order dashboard to check for any changes made in the order status.
• An employee management dashboard to keep track of the work going on.
• Payments dashboard to make a clear account of receipt and payment both by the customer and the app.
• It further requires an algorithm that specifies the order of work that needs to be done to maintain maximum efficiency.

3. Delivery App

Maintaining optimum delivery speed and accuracy is a principal focus for an on demand app like Cleanly. To maintain this, it requires features like

• Prompt notifications regarding pickup and delivery of the laundry.
• Detailed map with guidance to ensure delivery at the right address and within the provided time.
• A payment dashboard specifying the wages earned plus any commission or bonus.
• Customer profile for contacting in case of any query or confusion.
• Personal profile to track the work done by a particular delivery person.

Now after knowing about the feature, the next important question to ask is how to put it all together to create an app like Cleanly.

How to Create an App like Cleanly

When it comes to the question of “how to build an app like Cleanly”, it depends on a lot of factors that need to be considered in the development process. This can be demo-graphical, geographical or technical factors. 

But there are essential some simple steps that can help you have your answer to how to make an app like Cleanly.

* Conceptualization and Wire-framing

The first step to build a Cleanly like app is a vivid visualization of how you want the product to look at the end of the development process. Conceptualization and Wire-framing is the process of creating graphics and wire-frame structure to lay out the further plan. This step helps in filling the gap between the founders and developers regarding technical concepts. This requires you to have a service provider that has ample experience in designing and development.

* Focus on UI Design and Development

Cleanly like app development requires having a creative and dedicated team of UI/UX designers working for you. A great UI/UX not only gives an aesthetic appeal to the user but also helps in maintaining proper structure and hierarchy within the app. The UI design and development process also include choosing proper colour themes and font types to make it look consistent with the overall appeal of the business.

* Backend and Integration

The speed and connectivity of an app highly depends on the quality of back-end work that has been done by the developers. This includes the development of a server-side logic that decides what happens when users click a certain button. Further, it is also important to give ample room for automation to make the app more efficient. The app also requires proper integration of third party services such as payment platforms to ensure smooth transactions.

* Feature Implementation 

Proper integration of features within the app is a must, this includes both the major and minor features.  Although, it is equally important to respect the functionality and cleanliness of the app and avoid stuffing unnecessary features. It is prudent to also pay attention to the size of the application while working on an app similar to Cleanly. The higher size of the app can push potential customers away from the app and cause technical issues on devices.

* Testing

Testing is a crucial part of the app development process to find out about any bugs or issues within the app. This ensures that consumers do not face any issues while interacting with the app in real-world conditions. The testing of the product needs to be done within extreme conditions to determine the maximum load the application can handle. This further helps in reconciling the actual performance with the standard performance.

* Deployment

Completion of the development is not the end of the process while building an app similar to a cleanly order app. It is important to make sure that the app complies with the guidelines issued by platforms like Android and Apple. This makes it easier for you to be easily enrolled in their developer program and submission of the app.

How much does it cost to build an app like Cleanly?

We have discussed the features of the app and how the Cleanly app works. But now it is time to pay attention to an important factor of the app development process that is the Cleanly app development costs. Normally, mobile app development services are charged by the number of man-hours required for building the app.

As in the case of cleanliness,  app development company need to develop three different apps for different parties connected to the app.

a. Customer-side App

For the customer side app, the android app design hours come at nearly 82 hours and for the android app development process it requires nearly 516 hours. Similarly,  equal hours are required for the design and development of an app for the iOS platform respectively.

b. Delivery side app

For the delivery side app, it requires around 32 hours for the design of the app and 155 hours for the development of the app for android. Similar hours are required for the design and development of the app for the iOS platform respectively.

c. Laundry Management App

When it comes to the laundry management app, the work becomes a little complex. Thus the android app requires 94 hours for the design and around 455 hours for development. In the case of the development of the app for the iOS platform, it requires a similar number of hours for design and development respectively.

In addition to this, you may also need the development of an admin web portal based on the number of customers and daily order placed. The hours required for the development of such a portal comes around 112 hours for design and 545 for development.

When you are looking for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the app development costs between $500 and $1000 based on where you are hiring the services from and at what quality.

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Building a Cleanly services app requires a considerable investment of both time and money. That is why it is always prudent to consult a mobile app development company that is experienced and knows the precise details of the app development process. Consulting Whiz is a team of tech-savvy professionals with a vision of boosting businesses to become Market Leaders. We are a leading mobile app development company in USA. Discuss your project and understand your requirements with an expert in mobile app development.