Your brand, every pixel
Logo, colours, photography, fonts — all yours. Custom splash screen, custom app icon, custom navigation. The app appears on customer phones with your name, not Katalyst’s.
Branded restaurant app builder
Your restaurant. On their home screen.
Launch your own iOS and Android app — your branding, your menu, your loyalty program, native ordering. Powered by Katalyst’s POS, submitted to the App Store under your name. No developers required.
iOS + Android, your branding
submitted to App Store and Google Play under your name
Push notifications included
lift open rates 3–5× over email for time-sensitive offers
App customers spend 2× more
vs occasional dine-in guests, on average across our portfolio
What you get
A branded app without the development team
Building a custom restaurant app from scratch typically costs $80,000–250,000 plus $30,000+/year in maintenance. Katalyst’s app builder gives you a real native app, your branding, your menu, all the modern features — at SaaS pricing, with maintenance handled.
Native ordering and reordering
Customers browse the menu, customise items, save favourites, and reorder in two taps. Same backend as your online ordering — one menu, one source of truth, instant updates.
Loyalty rewards in pocket
Loyalty points, tier status, available rewards, and gift card balance — all visible at a glance. Push notifications when rewards are earned or about to expire drive 30%+ redemption rates.
Push notifications and offers
Send geo-targeted offers, daypart promotions, or VIP-exclusive deals direct to opted-in customer phones. Email open rates run 18–22%; app push runs 60–80%. Critical for time-sensitive marketing.
Order ahead and skip the line
Customers order from home, work, or in-car — pickup ready when they arrive. Reduces counter wait time, increases throughput during peak, and pushes orders into traditionally-slower dayparts.
App customer analytics
See app vs web vs in-store conversion, repeat-rate by acquisition channel, lifetime value per app install. Optimise marketing spend based on which channels drive the best customers.
Why a branded app matters
Owning the customer relationship
Most restaurants’ digital relationship with customers happens through marketplaces (DoorDash, Uber Eats, OpenTable) — meaning the marketplace owns the relationship, charges commission, and competes with you for the next visit. A branded app inverts this: customers come back to YOUR app, not a marketplace, and every reorder happens commission-free.
The economics are stark. App-installed customers visit 2× more often on average and spend 2× more per year than non-app customers. Push notifications drive 3–5× higher open rates than email — making time-sensitive offers (rainy-day special, kitchen-overstock blowout) actually convert.
The historical reason most restaurants don’t have apps is cost. A custom-built native app runs $80–250K to launch and $30–80K/year to maintain. Katalyst’s app builder collapses that to a SaaS subscription — the difference between “maybe someday” and “live in 8 weeks”.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is this a real native app or a wrapper?
It’s a real native app — true iOS Swift code on Apple’s side, true Android Kotlin/Java on Google’s. We submit it to the App Store and Google Play under YOUR developer account (we help set this up). Native means proper push notifications, fast performance, and access to camera/location/biometrics — not a slow web wrapper that pretends.
Do I need a developer to build this?
No. Katalyst’s app builder generates the app from your existing menu, brand, and POS data. We handle App Store submission, ongoing OS updates, and version pushes. You manage menu, colours, and content from the same Katalyst dashboard you already use. Total time from contract to live app: 6–8 weeks (mostly App Store review queue).
How much does it cost?
Pricing varies by SaaS tier. The branded app is included in our enterprise plan and available as an add-on to standard tiers. Apple charges $99/year for an iOS developer account; Google charges $25 one-time for Play Store. Those are pass-through costs you pay directly. Beyond that, no per-download fees, no per-user fees.
What happens when iOS or Android updates break things?
We handle it. As Apple and Google ship new OS versions (typically yearly), Katalyst updates the underlying app code and pushes new builds to your customers automatically. You don’t have to track iOS 19 compatibility — that’s our job. Same for new device sizes (iPhone Pro Max, foldables, tablets).
Can the app handle reservations and gift cards too?
Yes. Reservations, gift card balance and purchase, loyalty rewards, and customer profiles all flow through the same Katalyst backend, so the app surfaces everything natively. One unified customer experience across web, in-store, and app.
What if I want to add a custom feature later?
Standard add-ons (loyalty tiers, referral programs, table reservations, scratch-card promotions) are available as configurable modules — no custom development needed. Truly custom features (e.g. integration with a third-party kitchen brand) are scoped as separate engagements via our partner network. Most operators find the built-in features cover 95%+ of what they need.
Your brand on their phone
See the Katalyst app builder in action
A 30-minute walkthrough — your branding, on a working iOS app. We handle the App Store submission and ongoing maintenance.