“Get advice from experienced healthcare experts with an online consultation app.”
Various healthcare concerns are affecting 8 out of 10 people daily. Additionally, it is getting difficult for them to visit doctors physically due to different challenges. This boasted the use of online health consulting applications. Businesses have started investing money to develop an online consultation app clone of famous platforms like Practo and Apollo 247.
In a recent report published by a well-known data agency, more than 62% of people worldwide are using online medical consulting services. So, it is a better chance for businesses to know how to build a consulting website and invest their money to create popular digital telehealth app clones.
Here, we will understand different aspects that may help entrepreneurs create healthcare consulting online app clones. Let’s get started and know more about it.
What is an Online Consultation App?
For remote consultations, an online consultation app is a digital platform linking users with experts in a variety of healthcare disciplines like medication, diet, and treatment.
It is important to use doctor on demand app development services so users can plan virtual visits and conduct video or chat-based consultations. They also get professional guidance right from their houses.
Having safe payment channels, encrypted messaging, and document-sharing tools guarantees a flawless and private experience. Popular in telemedicine, business consulting, and therapeutic services, online consultation apps improve accessibility, lower wait times, and provide convenience, making professional advice more reasonably available to a worldwide audience.
How Does an Online Consultation App Work?
An online consultation app simplifies user connection with experts for virtual advice and services. These apps operate to offer flawless and quick consultations in the following ways.
1. Create User Profile
Customers register by entering simple information, confirming their identification, and creating a profile. You can hire mobile app developers for developing healthcare applications with a fast and easy registration process.
2. Search & Select a Consultant
People peruse a list of qualified professionals arranged according to availability, ratings, experience, and specialty. AI-driven recommendations and filters enable them to identify the ideal fit for their circumstances.
3. Book an Appointment
Users can select a chosen date and time to set an appointment following the choice of a specialist. A mobile app development company can help you to implement a request-based scheduling or instant booking to guarantee users availability of consultations.
4. Payment Processing
Safe payment gateways let customers pay for consultations using subscriptions, digital wallets, credit or debit cards. A few apps also provide free first sessions or insurance integration.
5. Virtual Consultation Session
Visitors interact with consultants at the designated time by phone calls, chat, or video conferences. To fix sessions for real-time expert advice, document sharing, and conversations you can target Android app development solutions.
6. Get Prescriptions
Consultants for medical or advice applications might offer legal documentation, treatment plans, or prescriptions. Planned follow-up meetings help to monitor development and guarantee ongoing support.
7. Give Review & Feedback
End-users can evaluate and assess the consultant depending on their experience after the session. This guarantees the quality of services and guides the next users in choosing the top experts.
Market Stats of The Telehealth Industry
- By 2025, revenue in the online doctor consultations market is expected to be $10.14 Billion.
- With an annual growth rate of 25% CAGR between 2025 and 2029, revenue is expected to rise to $11.52 Billion by 2029, therefore influencing the projected market volume.
- In 2025 user penetration will be 63%and by 2029 it is projected to reach 1.75%.
- Expected to be $79.70is the average revenue per user (ARPU).
- Globally, the United States with a revenue of $2.58 Billion in 2025 will produce most of the income.
Key Features of Online Consultation Apps
Essential tools catered for both doctors and consumers help to guarantee seamless communication and service delivery on online consultation apps. These salient features improve usability and performance:
Doctor Panel Features
1. Doctor Registration
Adding qualifications, specialty, consultation fees, and availability helps doctors build and control their profiles. Verified credentials foster users’ confidence.
2. Patient Management
Doctors may effectively arrange, accept or reject appointments, and set their free slots. Businesses can create a mobile app with automated alerts to assist doctors in managing the number of patients.
3. Video, Audio & Chat
By means of video calls, audio conversations, and chat-based consultations, enables flawless communication, therefore enabling doctors to communicate with patients in real time.
4. E-Prescription
Digital prescriptions, medical reports, and treatment plans can all be created by doctors and distributed. This guarantees consumers fast access to medical records.
5. Bill Management
The program lets doctors get paid safely via linked gateways. To offer an affordable invoice mechanism for monitoring income it is mandatory to use MVP app development services.
6. Patient Medical History
Viewing past medical records, medications, and treatment histories allows doctors to offer improved and more individualized therapy during consultations.
7. Review & Ratings
By accepting and controlling patient comments, doctors aid in establishing credibility and raising the caliber of their services.
8. AI-Based Health Insights
Tools driven by advanced artificial intelligence help physicians with predictive analytics, symptom analysis, and automated diagnosis recommendations for improved decision-making.
User Panel Features
1. Profile Setup
People can enter basic information, check medical history, and get preferred consultation choices. You can use fitness app development services to provide a customized experience to users.
2. Doctor Search & Filters
Users may look for doctors depending on specialty, experience, reviews, and availability. AI-driven suggestions improve search outcomes.
3. Appointment Scheduling
Users choose their favorite time slots and schedule doctor visits. Automated reminders enable them to remain current with forthcoming consultations.
4. Multiple Consultation Modes
It gives consumers the freedom to consult via in-app chat, voice conversations, or video conferences, therefore simplifying the process and increasing accessibility.
5. Secure Payment Integration
For hassle-free transactions, reliable payment gateway integration services are used to support several payment options. It includes credit or debit cards, digital wallets, and insurance-based payments.
6. Access Medical Records
Past medical records, medications, and reports can be stored, accessed, and downloaded by users thereby facilitating follow-ups.
7. Feedback Feature
By rating doctors and offering reviews depending on their consultation experience, users enable others to make wise judgments.
8. 24/7 Customer Support
To guarantee seamless app use, a dedicated support system helps consumers with technical problems, appointment questions, or payment difficulties.
How to Create Online Health Consultation Apps?
Let’s discuss a generally used process to develop an online consultation app in this section. So, that you can easily manage the cost and other essential things timely:
1. Understand User Needs
Before starting the development process, it is crucial to research the target audience like patients and healthcare providers. So you can identify their pain points and expectations. This involves the use of healthcare app development services to understand key features like video consultations.
You should conduct online surveys to analyze the plans of other entrepreneurs. So that it could help you to build an online consultation app that is user-centric and delivers real value.
2. Planning Phase
In this stage, developers and stakeholders define the app’s goals, functionalities, and development roadmap. Wireframes and prototypes are created to visualize the app’s structure. Additionally, compliance with healthcare regulations like HIPAA or GDPR ensures data security and legal adherence.
Businesses need to specify budgets, list mobile app features, and include maintenance services. This documentation will help you to make suitable claims after the development process.
3. Hiring Development Partner
You should hire the right healthcare IT consulting company to make an online consultation app. Businesses can hire in-house developers, outsource to an experienced agency, or collaborate with freelancers for developing an online consulting platform.
The ideal team includes UI/UX designers, mobile and backend developers, testers, and security experts. So they can ensure smooth development with advanced services.
4. Build UI/UX
A user-friendly interface enhances patient and doctor interactions. The online consultation platform should have an intuitive design, easy navigation, and responsive layouts. Features like one-click appointment booking, real-time chat, and seamless video calls should be prioritized.
This ensures efficiency and productivity in using a web consultation app. You have the choice to expand your healthcare website by creating a clone app with an attractive interface.
5. Connect With Server
Secure backend development is essential for handling user data, managing medical records, and enabling real-time communication. By using messaging app development services you can integrate databases, cloud storage, and APIs for doctor-patient interaction and AI-based health insights.
A strong encryption ensures data privacy and security compliance. So you must invest in mobile app consultation services to implement backend tools with the existing app design.
6. Testing and Security
This is a very important stage where testing is conducted to identify bugs, fix errors, and ensure smooth performance across multiple devices and operating systems. Security measures such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and compliance with healthcare data protection laws are implemented.
To prevent data breaches and cyber threats businesses must use highly certified security algorithms that can block unauthorized access. This can avoid damage to the medical online consultation app.
7. App Launch
Once testing is completed, the app is deployed on app stores and cloud servers. An iPhone app development company may help you to optimize app stores and perform digital advertising for attracting users. Additionally, you can collect initial user feedback to make final decisions.
Businesses may promote their online fitness consulting mobile applications by collaborating with brand influencers. This will help them to market the product at affordable rates.
8. Maintenance and Updates
Entrepreneurs can use doctor consultation app development services after deployment for regular maintenance. It can fix bugs, improve performance, and update security protocols. Adding new features, such as AI-driven diagnostics or wearable integrations, keeps the app competitive.
It is necessary to continuously monitor to ensure that the app remains efficient, secure, and compliant with evolving healthcare standards.
Top 10 Online Consultation Applications
Virtual healthcare and online consultation applications have transformed access to professional services. These apps provide AI-driven recommendations and chat-based interactions. To build a doctor appointment app, you can follow the top 10 online consultation apps listed below to dominate the medical sector.
10 Leading Online Consultation Apps |
Supported Devices |
Downloads |
Ratings |
Apollo 247 | Android|iOS | 10M+ | 4.6 |
Driefcase | Android|iOS | 10M+ | 4.5 |
Practo | Android|iOS | 10M+ | 4.5 |
MFine | Android|iOS | 5M+ | 4.7 |
MediBuddy | Android|iOS | 5M+ | 4.5 |
Docon | Android|iOS | 1M+ | 4.7 |
Healthians | Android|iOS | 1M+ | 4.6 |
HealthTap | Android|iOS | 1M+ | 4.6 |
Pristyn Care | Android|iOS | 1M+ | 4.3 |
HotDoc | Android|iOS | 1M+ | 4.2 |
What is The Cost to Develop an Online Consultation App?
The cost to develop a mobile app for online doctor consulting varies depending on numerous elements, like technology, app complexity, and developer experience. Every component is quite important in deciding the whole required investment. Six major factors below affect the development expenses:
1. Change in Demography
Development expenses of the target audience are highly influenced by their geography and demography. Hiring developers from North America or Europe sometimes comes with more cost than from Asia.
Furthermore influencing the design, security features, and scalability of the app are local rules, compliance criteria, and user preferences, so impacting general costs.
Demography Factor |
Estimated Cost |
USA | $25000-$30000 |
Australia | $20000-$25000 |
India | $5000-$12000 |
UK | $15000-$20000 |
UAE | $8000-$15000 |
Brazil | $12000-$16000 |
2. Experience Level
Cost estimation mostly depends on the knowledge of the development team. Hiring established companies or highly qualified experts guarantees quality, security, and advanced features even when it results in more expenses.
On the other hand, using less seasoned teams or freelancers could reduce the doctor on-demand app development cost but may affect the performance.
Team’s Experience Level |
Cost Estimation (USD) |
Junior/Entry-Level | $8000-$12000 |
Mid-Level/Experienced | $12000-$16000 |
Senior/Expert | $16000-$20000 |
Professional | $20000-$24000 |
3. Application Complexity
An advanced platform with AI-driven medical suggestions, real-time analytics, and multi-device support costs much more than a basic consultation app with simple video calls and messaging tools, Furthermore influencing the total budget are the security implementations, user roles, and feature count.
App Complexity |
Development Time |
Estimated Cost |
Simple | 2-5 months | $5000-$10000 |
Moderate | 5-8 months | $10000-$15000 |
Complex | 8-12 months | $15000-$20000 |
Premium | More than 12 months | $20000-$25000 |
4. Frontend Cost
User experience and accessibility of an app depend on front-end development and UI/UX design. Expert designers and extra development hours are needed for a well-designed, responsive, aesthetically pleasing interface, hence driving expenses. Use of custom animations and interactive components also affect the Multiservice app development cost at a large scale.
Designing Cost |
Estimated Cost |
Navigable Panels | $5,000-$10,000 |
Responsiveness | $10,500-$15,000 |
On-Click Functions | $15,000-$20,000 |
5. Integration Rate
Development expenses are strongly impacted by the volume of outside interfaces like payment gateways, electronic health records (EHR), cloud storage, and chatbot support. More integrations are needed for further API licenses, development time, and testing to guarantee flawless app performance.
Backend Infrastructure |
Estimated Cost |
Databases | $8,000-$10,000 |
API Integration | $10,000-$15,000 |
Node Installation | $15,000-$17,000 |
Native Framework | $17,000-$20,000 |
6. Technologies Used
Technological stack like programming languages, frameworks, and backend solutions influences the custom mobile app development cost. Native apps cost more than cross-platform choices such as React Native or Flutter. Furthermore, increasing development costs include cloud-based hosting, AI-powered capabilities, and blockchain security.
Technical Model |
Estimated Cost |
Artificial Intelligence | $30,000-$40,000 |
Blockchain | $35,000-$50,000 |
Cloud Computing | $40,000-$45,000 |
Cyber Security | $45,000-$50,000 |
6 Ways to Monetize Healthcare Consultation Apps
Virtual medical services provided by healthcare consulting apps provide several monetizing techniques. Six smart strategies to make money from these apps will help you guarantee accessibility:
1. Paid Consultations
Charging consumers for online doctor visits is the most often used income stream. Patients pay each session either through tiered pricing depending on the doctor’s experience and type of consultation. So, businesses must use Mhealth app development services to implement this model.
2. Subscription Plans
Apps can provide subscription-based models whereby consumers pay a monthly or annual price for unlimited or discounted consultations. Premium memberships could offer extras such priority bookings, 24-hour medical access, and extra wellness services including mental health counseling or nutrition.
3. Commission-Based Earnings
Entrepreneurs can target commissions on consultations, medicines, and treatments. Additionally, they can invest in Ecommerce app development services to create a healthcare marketplace. This approach guarantees a consistent income source for the app and motivates additional doctors to sign-up.
4. In-App Purchases
Within the app, insurance providers, pharmaceutical businesses, and healthcare brands can highlight their goods or services. Targeted adverts, sponsored content, and featured listings assist provide extra income while maintaining the basic services free or more reasonably priced for consumers.
5. Lab Test Integrations
By working with diagnostic laboratories and pharmacies, consumers may order medications straight through the app. Use of IoT development services with mobile apps may result in a commission for the platform, which provides consumers with an all-in-one healthcare solution and boosts app income.
6. White-Label Licensing
Looking for a customized telemedicine solution, hospitals, clinics, or other healthcare facilities can license the app’s technologies. Offering white-label software or SaaS, the platform makes money via setup costs, license fees, and continuous maintenance support.
Blog Summarization!!
Different questions like what is a consultant website and how to develop an online consultation application are covered in this blog. Additionally, you have also understood their answers and already moved in the direction of knowing more about website consultation. At last, let’s identify some basic challenges in this domain:
- This industry is occupied by popular platforms making it difficult to build a mobile consultation application.
- Using less compatible custom healthcare software development services may affect your business model and development process.
- It is tough to create an online consultation app without the knowledge of modern technologies.
- You need to collaborate with doctors and hospital staff to brand your medical consult app.
The points that we have discussed right now may help you to answer how to create a consulting website and find errors in your business plan. Additionally, entrepreneurs can start earning money by easily investing in the telehealth business.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Which App is Best for Online Doctor Consultation in the USA?
With its large network of certified doctors, 24/7 virtual care, and flawless telemedicine systems, Apollo 247 is one of the top doctor consultation apps available in the USA. It provides mental health counseling, video consultations, and management of chronic conditions, therefore enabling healthcare from any location.
2. How to Reduce the Cost to Develop an Online Consultation Application?
-
- Use frameworks like Flutter or React Native to lower costs.
- Start with MVP development to add features.
- Hire experienced developers from cost-effective regions.
3. What is the Cost to Hire Healthcare App Developers?
In the USA, hourly prices often run from $25 to $50 and in areas like India or Eastern Europe, they run from $10 to $25. Depending on features and security needs, a full development team includes testers, backend developers, and UI/UX designers.
4. How Much Does it Cost to Maintain Telehealth Applications?
Telehealth app maintenance cost usually ranges from 15 to 20 percent of the yearly initial development rate. This covers security upgrades, bug repairs, server hosting, HIPAA compliance, and API integration. If the development cost is $20,000 then businesses have to spend $3,000 to $4,000 yearly on maintenance.
5. What are the Benefits of Online Consultation App Development?
-
- Users can contact doctors from anywhere.
- It helps to save healthcare infrastructure costs.
- Features improve service delivery through AI.
6. Which Technologies are Used to Create Online Consultation Apps?
-
- Frontend Development: React Native, Flutter, Swift, and Kotlin.
- Backend & Database: Node.js and Django with databases like MongoDB.
- AI & Cloud Integrations: TensorFlow and Google Cloud.