Launching a food delivery app in Lebanon: what you actually need

A food delivery business looks like one app from the outside. Underneath, it is a small system of apps and services that all have to work together from the first order. This guide covers what you need to launch one in Lebanon, and the local details that are easy to miss.

Four products, not one

• Customer app: browse restaurants, customise orders, pay, track the driver live and rate the experience.
• Restaurant panel: receive and accept orders, mark items unavailable, set opening hours and see sales.
• Driver app: accept deliveries, navigate to pickup and drop-off, confirm delivery and track earnings.
• Admin panel: manage restaurants, drivers, delivery zones, fees, commissions, promotions and support.

Each of these has its own users, so each needs its own onboarding, notifications and support flow. Planning for only the customer app is the most common reason delivery projects run late.

Local details that matter in this region

• Cash on delivery. Many customers still prefer to pay cash, so drivers need to record cash collected, and the admin needs to reconcile it with each driver.
• Arabic and English. Menus, notifications and the apps themselves should work in both, with proper right-to-left layouts in Arabic.
• Addresses by landmark. Street names and building numbers are often missing, so a map pin plus a free-text description ("second floor, above the pharmacy") works better than a strict address form.
• WhatsApp. Customers expect to reach support, and sometimes the restaurant, over WhatsApp rather than email.
• Currency. In Lebanon especially, pricing in US dollars with a clear display is now common; decide early how you will show and collect prices.

The operational features that keep you profitable

Ordering and tracking get the attention, but margins are decided in the admin panel. Make sure you can configure these without a developer:

• Delivery zones and fees by distance or area, with minimum order values
• Commission per restaurant, and payout reports for restaurants and drivers
• Promo codes and campaigns with clear limits
• Order cancellation and refund rules, including who pays when an order fails
• Ratings for restaurants and drivers, with a way to act on bad ones

Third-party services you will pay for

Every delivery platform depends on outside services, usually opened in your company name and billed monthly or per use: server hosting, a maps and routing provider, SMS for login codes, push notifications, a payment gateway for card payments, and Google Play and Apple developer accounts. Budget for them separately from the build, because they grow with your order volume.

How long it takes

Built from scratch, a delivery platform with all four products is a multi-month project. Starting from a ready platform such as MoonFood, a standard setup with your branding typically takes 2 to 4 weeks, including publishing to Google Play and the App Store. Features specific to your market are added on top, following a workplan agreed before work starts.

Whichever route you take, plan the launch around restaurants and drivers, not only the app. A platform with fifty good restaurants in one area beats one with five hundred thinly spread across a country.

Next step

Request a demo from the MoonFood page to test a working admin panel and Android build with your team, or read how licensing works first.