How to build a website like Glovo (2026 guide)

Glovo connects customers, local businesses, and independent couriers in a single on-demand delivery platform. Founded in Barcelona in 2015 by Oscar Pierre and Sacha Michaud, it grew from a restaurant-delivery app into a broader "anything, anywhere" marketplace that also delivers groceries, pharmacy items, and retail goods. Delivery Hero took majority ownership of Glovo (about 94%) in July 2022, and in 2024 it also acquired Glovo's Latin America operations, folding Glovo into its wider portfolio of delivery brands across Europe, Central Asia, and Africa (Delivery Hero).

This guide breaks down how Glovo's marketplace actually works, what it costs to build something comparable, and the real decision points founders face: whether to compete head-on with a general delivery platform, or find a narrower niche where a leaner build can win.

What is Glovo and how does it work?

Glovo is a three-sided marketplace: customers order through the app, partner businesses fulfill or stock the orders, and independent couriers deliver them. The platform operates in more than 20 countries (Glovo), concentrated in Southern and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa, and processes a large volume of orders across its network every month.

Customers browse restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, and specialty stores in their area, see live availability and estimated delivery windows, and can order from more than one store in a single session. Partner businesses manage their catalogs and pricing through a merchant dashboard, some via direct point-of-sale integrations and others through Glovo-provided tablets. Couriers, working as independent contractors on their own bikes, scooters, or cars, receive orders through a dedicated courier app that assigns deliveries based on location, vehicle type, and current demand.

Glovo runs a hybrid fulfillment model: standard marketplace orders where a business fulfills from its own stock, and quick-commerce orders fulfilled from Glovo-operated dark stores for faster delivery on high-demand items. This split lets Glovo compete on speed for essentials while still offering the long tail of local retail through its marketplace side.

How Glovo makes money

Commission on partner orders is Glovo's primary revenue line. Restaurants and stores typically pay a commission of 15% to 35% per order, with food generally at the higher end and grocery or retail partners closer to the lower end, reflecting the thinner margins in grocery retail (Elluminati). Commission rates also vary by negotiated volume and by whether the business uses Glovo's fulfillment infrastructure or its own.

Customer-side delivery fees add a second revenue stream, priced dynamically by distance, order value, time of day, and demand. Glovo Prime, a monthly subscription that waives delivery fees on qualifying orders, increases order frequency among subscribers and improves customer lifetime value, a pattern common across subscription delivery products (DoorDash's DashPass and Uber One show similar frequency lifts, as DoorDash's own Q2 2025 results confirm). Small-order fees on baskets below a set threshold protect margins on low-value transactions that would otherwise lose money after delivery costs.

Advertising is the fastest-growing piece of the model. Partner businesses pay for featured placement, sponsored search results, and in-app promotional banners, a high-margin revenue line that doesn't depend on order volume the way commissions do. Enterprise partners also pay for add-on services like analytics dashboards and campaign management tools, a smaller but growing part of Glovo's B2B revenue.

What makes Glovo work: key features

Category breadth beyond restaurants. Glovo's defining feature is treating "anything in your city" as its catalog, not just restaurant food. This reduces the seasonality and single-category dependency that pure food-delivery apps face and gives customers reasons to open the app on days they aren't ordering dinner.

Hybrid fulfillment (marketplace plus dark stores). Running both partner-fulfilled orders and Glovo-operated dark stores for high-velocity items lets the platform offer near-instant delivery on essentials while keeping a long tail of local businesses in the catalog without owning their inventory.

Real-time courier dispatch and routing. The matching algorithm assigns orders based on courier location, vehicle type, and order complexity, then optimizes multi-stop routes. This is the operational core of any delivery marketplace: get it wrong and delivery times (the metric customers actually feel) suffer immediately.

Merchant tools tuned to partner sophistication. Large chains get API integrations; smaller independent shops get a tablet or phone-based order flow. Meeting businesses at their existing level of technical capability is what let Glovo onboard thousands of small, non-technical merchants quickly.

Dynamic, transparent pricing. Delivery fees adjust in real time for distance, demand, and courier availability, but the total cost is shown to the customer before checkout. Getting this transparent (rather than surprising customers at checkout) has been a differentiator in markets where delivery apps have faced regulatory scrutiny over fee disclosure.

Two-way ratings across three sides. Customers rate businesses and couriers; businesses can flag problem orders; couriers rate pickup experiences. Multi-directional trust signals matter more in a three-sided marketplace than in a simple two-sided one, since quality problems can originate from any party.

The competitive landscape

Uber Eats competes with Glovo in most of its markets and has far greater brand recognition and capital behind it, plus a built-in courier network shared with Uber's rideshare business. It leans heavily toward restaurant delivery with grocery as a secondary category, so it lacks Glovo's "anything" positioning. Its commission rates tend to run higher than Glovo's, which pushes price-sensitive small businesses toward Glovo or local alternatives, an opening for any platform willing to undercut on merchant fees.

Just Eat Takeaway dominates parts of Northern Europe with a model historically built around restaurants' own delivery staff rather than a third-party courier network. That keeps its operational overhead lower, but it limits how far the platform can expand into groceries or general retail without building courier infrastructure from scratch. Its lower commission rates appeal to restaurants that don't need full-service logistics, which leaves room for a delivery-inclusive competitor in markets where restaurants lack their own riders.

Deliveroo targets a more premium restaurant segment and has invested heavily in dark kitchens, positioning itself on food quality over category breadth. This focus means it competes less directly on groceries or pharmacy delivery, leaving that ground open in cities where Deliveroo has strong restaurant share but no general retail presence. Its geographic footprint is also narrower than Glovo's, concentrated in larger cities rather than secondary markets.

Wolt, now owned by DoorDash, built a loyal following in the Nordics and Baltics before expanding into Central and Eastern Europe, often earning higher user-experience ratings than Glovo for app design and customer service. Its category mix still skews toward restaurants relative to Glovo's broader retail catalog, and the DoorDash acquisition gives it more capital for geographic expansion, which raises the competitive bar in overlapping markets.

Rappi is the dominant super-app in much of Latin America, bundling delivery with financial services, digital wallets, and other on-demand categories well beyond what Glovo offers there. That breadth increases engagement but adds enormous operational complexity, and Rappi's super-app ambitions mean delivery logistics aren't always its sharpest focus. A leaner, delivery-only challenger can still compete on speed and reliability in specific cities Rappi has deprioritized.

The common thread: no single competitor combines Glovo's category breadth, geographic focus on secondary markets, and dark-store speed. Most new entrants win not by copying that combination but by picking one dimension (a category, a city, a delivery-speed promise) and executing it better than any generalist can.

How to build a marketplace like Glovo

1. Define your niche within Glovo's category

Glovo built its early advantage on category breadth, but that's the hardest starting point for a new entrant with limited capital. A more realistic wedge is a specific vertical (pharmacy delivery, alcohol, pet supplies), a specific city or region underserved by the majors, or a specific fulfillment model (courier network for independent restaurants that can't afford Uber Eats commissions). Pick a slice narrow enough that you can reach real supply-demand balance within months, not years.

2. Validate unit economics before building anything

Delivery marketplaces live or die on the math of commission revenue minus courier payout minus customer acquisition cost. Talk to 15-20 local businesses about what commission they'd actually pay, and calculate what a single delivery costs you in courier pay versus what you can charge. If the per-order economics don't work on a spreadsheet with realistic assumptions, no amount of good software fixes that later.

3. Choose your development approach

Vibe coding from scratch. AI tools like Cursor, Lovable, and Bolt can produce a working Glovo-style prototype quickly, useful for pressure-testing a concept or demonstrating it to early partners. For a platform that will process real payments between customers, merchants, and couriers, they're probably not sufficient on their own. What vibe-coded outputs reliably don't produce is the infrastructure underneath: payment escrow, dispute resolution, fraud detection, and compliance. A documented Sharetribe experiment ran 60+ hours to reach demo quality but revealed a critical checkout exploit that would have allowed any user to manipulate transaction prices via a direct API call. It's a useful prototyping tool, not a cost-effective path to launch.

Custom development from scratch. Hiring developers gives you full control over every workflow. A Glovo-type marketplace, with real-time courier dispatch, geo-matching, dark store inventory, and (eventually) native iOS and Android apps, sits in the highest complexity tier: $150,000–$350,000 or more, over 26–52+ weeks (Codica, RaftLabs). The low end assumes an offshore team; US or Western European teams push well past the top of that range. This tier applies here specifically because of real-time logistics matching, which most marketplace categories don't require. Makes sense only when your delivery-routing logic or dark-store operations are the actual product differentiator.

Building on a marketplace operating system like Sharetribe. You start at roughly 90% done on the standard marketplace foundation, payments, user accounts, listing management, messaging, transaction flows, and compliance, so your time and budget go toward the delivery-specific mechanics that make your platform distinct. Three paths within this approach:

• No-code builder. Configure a multi-vendor catalog, delivery-radius-based search, and a commission-based transaction flow from the Console, without writing code. This gets a single-category, single-city delivery marketplace live in weeks.
• AI-assisted development. Connect Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex to Sharetribe's open APIs and open-source template to build courier-specific features like route assignment logic or delivery-zone pricing. Because Sharetribe already handles the payment infrastructure, AI-assisted development on top of it carries much lower risk than building from scratch.
• Custom code. Build directly on the developer platform for deeper courier-app integrations or real-time GPS tracking, or hire from Sharetribe's Expert Marketplace.

Most founders start with the no-code builder to validate demand in one city and one category, then add courier-routing sophistication via AI tools or a developer once order volume justifies it.

4. Solve the cold start problem

A delivery marketplace has three sides to fill at once: customers won't open the app without businesses to order from, businesses won't join without customers, and couriers won't stick around without enough orders to earn a living. Glovo solved this by launching in a single city (Barcelona), starting with restaurant delivery only, and manually recruiting both restaurants and couriers before opening the app to the public.

Concrete tactics that work for a new entrant: recruit supply first by manually signing 20-30 local businesses before any marketing to customers, so the app never looks empty on day one. Focus geographically on a few square miles rather than a whole city, so courier density is high enough that delivery times stay competitive from the start. Consider paying couriers a guaranteed hourly minimum during the first weeks, funded out of pocket if necessary, since inconsistent orders early on will drive them to competitors. A tight, small launch that actually works beats a broad launch that disappoints everyone.

5. Launch, measure, and expand deliberately

Track order completion rate, average delivery time, and repeat order rate weekly during the first months, since these three numbers tell you whether the three-sided network is actually balancing. Expand to a second category or neighborhood only once the first one shows healthy repeat usage without heavy promotional subsidy. Resist expanding into new cities before your unit economics are proven in the first one.

Do you need to build everything Glovo has?

No. Glovo's dark-store network, advertising marketplace, and multi-country payment infrastructure took years and hundreds of millions in funding to build. None of that is required for launch. What you actually need on day one is a working catalog, an order flow that connects customer, business, and courier, and a payment system that holds funds until delivery is confirmed. Dynamic pricing algorithms, in-app advertising, and machine-learning demand forecasting are all things Glovo added well after it had liquidity in its core markets, not before.

The temptation to vibe-code a full clone runs into the same wall regardless of category: AI coding tools are good at generating interfaces and average at generating the trust infrastructure that money-moving platforms need. Starting on Sharetribe's foundation is faster even with AI tools in your workflow, because the payment escrow, user account system, and transaction logic are already production-tested. Your AI tokens go toward the delivery-routing logic and merchant tools that actually differentiate your platform, not toward rebuilding a payment system from zero and hoping it's secure.

Trust and safety for a Glovo-type marketplace

Delivery marketplaces carry specific trust risks on all three sides. Customers worry about order accuracy, food safety, and courier reliability. Businesses worry about payment timing and order cancellations. Couriers worry about safety during pickups and deliveries, and about getting paid promptly and fairly for completed work. Payment disputes (wrong items, late deliveries, damaged goods) are the most common issue and need a clear, fast resolution process, not a support ticket that sits for days.

Standard verification in this category includes identity checks for couriers (especially where they'll be entering customers' buildings or handling cash), business license verification for food and pharmacy partners, and photo or signature confirmation at delivery for high-value orders. Sharetribe provides payment escrow (funds held until the transaction completes), built-in transaction flows that structure the order-accept-deliver-confirm sequence, and optional identity verification on user accounts out of the box. What founders need to add is category-specific: courier background checks (via a third-party provider), food safety compliance documentation for restaurant partners, and a dispute resolution workflow tuned to delivery-specific problems like missing items or late arrival.

Running a marketplace like Glovo

Day-to-day operations for a delivery marketplace involve managing merchant onboarding and catalog quality, monitoring courier supply against order demand by time of day and neighborhood, and handling customer support for order issues. At Glovo's scale, this means dedicated regional operations teams, automated fraud detection, and 24/7 support infrastructure across dozens of countries. At launch scale, this is a founder and maybe one or two operations hires manually checking that businesses keep their menus updated and that couriers are showing up on time.

Sharetribe handles the recurring technical load automatically: payment processing and payouts to businesses and couriers, transaction state management (so an order can't get "stuck" between accepted and delivered), messaging between the three parties, and the underlying infrastructure and security patching. That leaves your team free to focus on the operational work that actually drives retention: keeping courier supply healthy, keeping merchant catalogs accurate, and resolving the inevitable delivery disputes quickly.

Development costs and timeline

Three realistic scenarios:

Vibe coding from scratch: Free or very cheap to start, and a working Glovo-style prototype (a browsable catalog, a basic order flow) is buildable in a day or two with AI tools. What you can't get from here is a production-ready platform: secure payment handling across three parties, real-time courier dispatch logic, dispute resolution, and fraud protection all require work that AI coding tools don't shortcut. A documented Sharetribe experiment logged 60+ hours to reach demo quality and still found a critical checkout vulnerability that let users manipulate prices directly through the API. A useful proof-of-concept tool, not a cost-effective path to a live business.

Custom development from scratch: Cost depends heavily on complexity tier. A single-category, single-city MVP without real-time dispatch could land at $80,000–$150,000, but a genuine Glovo competitor with live courier tracking, geo-matching, dark-store inventory, and native mobile apps for customers, merchants, and couriers sits at $150,000–$350,000 or more, over 26–52+ weeks (Codica, RaftLabs). The low end assumes offshore development teams; Western teams run higher. Real-time logistics and multi-app native development are what place this category at the top tier. Ongoing maintenance typically runs 15–25% of the original build cost per year on top of hosting. This route makes sense once you have proven demand and specific routing or fulfillment logic no existing platform supports.

Building on Sharetribe: Subscription pricing starts at $99/month on the Lite plan, $199/month on Pro, and $299/month on Extend (all billed yearly). This covers the transaction engine, payment processing, user accounts, listing and catalog management, messaging, and the infrastructure a Glovo-type marketplace needs on day one. Most founders reach a live, single-category MVP in weeks rather than months, then layer on courier-routing sophistication or dark-store logic via AI-assisted development or a developer once order volume justifies the investment. Custom work stays narrowly scoped because the transaction and payment engine is already built and tested.

Why Sharetribe for building a marketplace like Glovo

Sharetribe's transaction engine already models the core mechanic Glovo depends on: money moving from a customer, through a marketplace-controlled escrow, out to two different parties (a business and a courier) once a delivery is confirmed. That's a nontrivial payment flow to build correctly from scratch, and it's already tested and live on Sharetribe. The listing and catalog system supports multi-vendor product management out of the box, and Sharetribe's open API layer means courier-specific features like route assignment or delivery-zone based search can be added via AI-assisted development without touching the underlying payment or account infrastructure. For a founder targeting one city and one delivery category, that foundation is the difference between launching in weeks and spending a year rebuilding what already exists.

Frequently asked questions

How does Glovo make money from each order?

Glovo earns a commission of roughly 15% to 35% from the partner business per order, plus a delivery fee charged to the customer that varies by distance and demand. It also earns from Glovo Prime subscriptions, small-order fees, and advertising revenue from businesses paying for placement. A full custom build with real-time courier dispatch, geo-matching, and native mobile apps typically costs $150,000 to $350,000 or more and takes 26 to 52+ weeks (Simpalm).codica.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-marketplace-website/), RaftLabs). Building on Sharetribe starts at $99 to $299 per month and can get a single-category MVP live in weeks. The right choice depends on whether real-time logistics is your actual differentiator or a feature you can add later.

What's the hardest part of building a Glovo-style marketplace?

Achieving liquidity across three sides at once, customers, businesses, and couriers, is harder than any single technical feature. Most failed attempts either launch too broad geographically (courier density too thin to deliver quickly) or too broad by category (spreading merchant recruiting too thin). Narrowing to one neighborhood and one category first is the most reliable fix.

Can I compete with Glovo without building a delivery network?

Yes, if you find a category or geography Glovo and its competitors have deprioritized, like a specific product vertical (alcohol, specialty groceries) or a smaller city not currently served by any major player. A leaner, focused platform can beat a generalist on speed and merchant relationships in a niche the big players consider too small to prioritize.

Do I need my own delivery fleet to launch?

No. Most successful delivery marketplaces start with independent contractor couriers rather than an owned fleet, which keeps upfront costs down and lets courier supply scale with order volume. Glovo itself started this way and only added dark-store operations, which involve more direct control, after its core marketplace model was proven.

Is Glovo profitable?

Glovo has moved toward positive unit economics, with Delivery Hero, which became Glovo's majority shareholder in 2022, confirming that Glovo delivered positive adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2024 (Delivery Hero). Commission and advertising revenue growth, rather than delivery fees alone, has been the main lever for improving margins.

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