On-Demand Food Delivery Platforms - Market, Trends & Opportunities

Mar 19, 2025

20 minutes

Contents

1. How to start business with Telegram mini app
2. How mini apps work in messenger apps
3. What Telegram mini apps offers companies
4. Telegram mini app as part of the business infrastructure
5. Peculiarities of Telegram mini app development
6. FAQ

Learn how to build a Telegram mini app and help your business gain contacts, promote products and services, test new features and services on the messaging app with 950 billion monthly active users.

How to start business with Telegram mini app

The basic question for every startup owner or entrepreneur: Where to launch your product or service? You can choose a simple landing page, a multifunctional web platform or a mobile application. According to Priory data statistics, there are currently 4.88 billion smartphone users worldwide, representing approximately 60.42% of the world's population. So it's better to choose the mobile app option.

And while large companies can afford to test multiple customer engagement channels, startups and small businesses need to choose one format to test their MVP (minimale valuable product) – a basic version of a product with limited functionality designed to satisfy early users and validate the core idea.

After conducting market research, getting early feedback on your product or service from focus groups, finding your niche, and launching your website or app, there are still three global tasks left:

Find the first users;
Engage them to sign up;
Retain users in the product.

What are the pitfalls that young companies can face here?

There is a universal media channel that every company's customers are present at and actively using every day. These are messaging apps. And the statistics prove their effectiveness:

94.7% of users aged 16 to 64 choose chats and messenger apps;
The messenger app audience is expected to exceed 4.1 billion users by the end of 2025;
People spend 3-17 hours a month on messenger apps.

Besides communication, messaging apps also solve everyday tasks. For example, you can get a reminder to pay off a loan and make a direct debit, shop using a bot, distract yourself by playing your favourite game, make an appointment to go to the hairdresser's or apply for insurance.

Medium and large companies are also using messengers as an additional tool for sales and process optimization to reduce the service load. According to statistics, 80% of customers rate their experience interacting with chatbots as positive. As a result, investments are growing: Juniper research shows that the total volume of the conversational commerce market is expected to reach $290 billion by 2025.

The next step in messaging app development is to transform ordinary chatbots into full-fledged apps and websites to improve the user experience, reduce incomplete purchases, and increase conversion rates.

Searching for a Telegram mini app development company? Leave your request!

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How web apps work in messenger apps

WeChat is considered the leader in multi-functionality. In 2011, this super app started as a simple messenger app. Today, people use it not only to exchange messages and files but also to buy apartments, take exams and even get married.

Businesses can integrate with WeChat in the following ways:

Create official accounts of two types — to communicate with customers or to send brand news to subscribers;
Develop WeChat mini-programmes — build embedded applications that work within the messenger as a tool for online sales, bookings, food and product delivery, gamification and other processes;
WeChat Pay integration — integration with one of the most popular mobile payment systems in China, allowing users to scan a QR code and pay for goods and services in WeChat.

Are you ready to integrate your app with a messenger? Let's take the first steps and meet
for a consultation!

Olga V.

Business Manager

Let’s meet each other online

Telegram Web App features

The European market is better suited to Telegram, Pavel Durov's messenger, which has every chance of repeating WeChat's success. The total number of downloads has already surpassed 950 million and continues to grow: in January 2025 alone, the messenger attracted more than 27.6 million new users worldwide.

Previously, companies could only use Telegram's capabilities by creating bots within the messenger. But now they can integrate a full-fledged web application — the Telegram mini app. For the user, it looks like a regular website without leaving the messenger. All the essential functions are available in the bot window. The interface can be customized in your corporate style to make the Telegram app more recognizable.

To showcase the technology, the Telegram team released a demo project, @DurgerKingBot, which describes the essence of its work for businesses. The web application represents a standard delivery service with a minimal set of features:

Choosing the item from a catalog with pictures and prices.

Order processing and leaving a special request on purchase.

Choosing the payment method.

Specification of the delivery details with the possibility to save them in the system of the mini app for the following orders.

For payments in Telegram and its integrated applications, you can use Wallet Pay. All accepted orders are automatically transferred to your POS system.

Personal account for b2b, business automation and digitalization

We helped to digitize the large businesses, reduce the labor hours on working with customers, improve the service, and step into a new digital era.

View case

To complete Telegram mini app development, you need:

• Choose the Telegram mini app development company with experience in building such products;
• Use the BotFather bot to create a bot in Telegram;
• Add an application to the bot's settings and place a link to the web application within it (we talk about this in detail in our other article).

The whole process of Telegram mini app development we've already described in this guide

Read article

Starting a business within Telegram mini app give companies the following advantages:

Direct communication — by implementing the entire funnel within the Telegram channel, the user doesn't have to navigate to other pages and take additional actions that can reduce conversion;
Quick launch — don't spend too much time integrating web applications with Telegram chatbots;
Interactivity — the functionality of a real website (catalog, shopping cart, account registration, loyalty program, payment, etc.) is implemented right inside the chatbot with quick and easy page navigation;
Development diversity — you can build web applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other languages (but we recommend React Native, and we'll tell you why next).

What Telegram mini apps offer companies

Most industries today are leveraging the power of simple web-based messenger apps:

Retail and e-commerce;
Financial products;
Hotels, restaurants, cafes;
Food and goods delivery services;
Education platforms.

Here are some solutions that companies are using with Telegram mini apps.

Online-shops

Organize a complete checkout cycle within Telegram, where your customers will:

Explore product cards and add them to the cart;
Pay for purchases in messenger apps by integrating with payment systems;
Track order status and receive delivery notifications.

How to Increase Retail Sales: 10 ways to make an e-commerce project from your store

Read article

Booking services

Allow users to sign up for services at your restaurant, hotel, beauty salon, medical centre or any other organization using the Telegram mini app. They can do it here:

Select a service or specialist;
Book an appointment using the calendar;
Receive a booking confirmation with a reminder.

Our experience

We first saw the advantages of Telegram mini apps while working on the KIK online project, which allows users to quickly and easily book various services via messenger. The solution's booking feature is suitable for both aggregators and individual establishments, as it allows to improve conversion rates, increase customer return rate, organize flexible workload management and revenue tracking. Try the demo here: https://t.me/olenevaa_kikbot

Customer support

Communicate with your customers where they are used to. With Telegram Web App, you can:

Keep track of customer interactions;
Collect feedback;
Set up automated responses to frequently asked questions;
Share information about order status, account balances, loyalty programs, etc.

Personal account

Retain your audience activity with Telegram mini apps. After connecting to a bot through a web application, users can not only leave their contact details but also manage their activity directly in the messenger:

Review and edit personal information;
Manage subscriptions or preferences;
View purchase history or order status for your shop or restaurant.

Read our article on why it is essential to think through the logic of working in the personal cabinet and what solutions increase the conversion of registrations into purchases.

One more case on developing a convenient Personal Account for B2B

Read article

Votes & Polls

Collect feedback on products and services with the following features:

Customize different types of questions (select one or more answers, enter the answer in text fields);
Organize surveys with involvement of all Telegram users;
Choose the variable formats of conducting surveys – forms, quizzes, polls;
Instantly analyze results and insights.

Our experience

The product was the result of our experiment on how to build a cross-platform Telegram mini app using react-native-web. It can be used as a tool to create ratings, get feedback, analyze needed metrics with ability to send direct links with questionnaires to different target groups.
See how it works here: https://t.me/OpenPollsBot

Gamification & Loyalty Program

Attract new audiences or replace outdated loyalty programs by launching branded games with prizes for activity on the Telegram mini-app. There, users can:

Play mini-games, complete quests and quizzes;
Receive branded gifts for participation;
Earn discounts and bonus points for their activity.

Our experience

We've recently launched Clicker – a Telegram mini app where the user has to 'tap' on the image of a coin to earn bonus points. The game also keeps track of the score and increases the speed if he/she wants to earn more points.
You can try it by following this link: https://t.me/ReactNativeWebClickerBot.

Our experience will benefit your business! Let's discuss the details

Olga V.

Business Manager

Let’s meet each other online

Telegram mini app as part of the business infrastructure

The Telegram mini app does not completely shut down any process but is a logical addition to the overall logic of the business. For example, booking a table in a restaurant can be done on the website, in an app, and in a messenger app. All orders are tracked in a unified system, giving users convenient choices and allowing the business to expand its reach.

You can use the Telegram mini app to perform the following tasks.

Data management

Telegram uses a web application API to receive, send and store data – everything in the messenger is automatically fed into the POS system and ERP. For example, in retail, the Telegram mini app will collect information about new user registrations, help customers track the status of their orders and offer new products. For fintech applications, it will send users transaction details, store their history, show their current balance, and perform other financial operations.

Retain and Return Users

If you already have a mobile app, set up Telegram mini app features to regularly bring users back to it to perform the necessary actions. For example, add nutrition tips to your chatbot messages with a pre-populated selection of products from your catalog, suggestions to place a repeat order, explore special offers, or test a new feature.

Peculiarities of Telegram mini app development

Telegram mini app doesn't need any special programming language – the same ones used for standard web development will do. The apps are located in the Telegram store, where the messenger displays them in its WebView, and the button to launch them is inside the bot.

Suppose you already have a mobile app and a website written in React Native. In this case, the Telegram mini app should be cross-platform and use the same code as other products. This approach will allow you to change processes and fix bugs faster and cheaper.

Recently, our team completed an experiment to build a Telegram mini app on React Native for the web and a mobile app on Android & iOS written in React Native. We have described the whole process and the results here.

We are ready to discuss your idea of Telegram mini app and answer your questions

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FAQ

Can I build my own Telegram app?

You can create your own Telegram mini app using Telegram’s API. Telegram allows developers to build custom apps or bots by providing free access to their platform. All you need to do is register as a developer, get an API key and start coding using TDLib or the Telegram API.

How to create a new Telegram application?

Find a Telegram mini app development company with a large portfolio and experience of successful mini apps launching. Or you can read our guides about developing and deploying Telegram mini apps.

How much does it cost to develop a Telegram app?

Although Telegram mini-app is a simple technical solution, the cost of development depends on the complexity of functionality and the need for custom design. A mini-app with a medium level of complexity will cost $20-30k.

Tags:

Foodtech Delivery Management E-commerce Startup Trends and Insights