Tipplr Unlocks Cost-Efficient Growth By Switching to NextBillion.ai

About the Company

Tipplr is a Bangalore-based food and beverage discounting platform that connects customers to their favorite restaurants and allows them to book dine-in or order-in services.

The company uses a distance matrix API to calculate the distance between a customer and a restaurant/merchant. This helps them determine the delivery charges for each order.

In addition, the discounting platform works with a third-party delivery service for order fulfillment.

The Problem

With a steady rise in order volume, Tipplr’s existing distance matrix API provider was proving to be very expensive at scale. To secure its bottom line, it had to devise a sustainable cost-reduction strategy that involved swapping the current provider for an economical option.

The biggest challenge it faced as a start-up was finding an affordable mapping provider that could consistently deliver accurate and precise distances instantaneously.

NextBillion.ai successfully solved this problem. Let’s find out how we enable Tipplr to rapidly scale in a fast-evolving food delivery space at a fraction of the cost of standard distance matrix APIs.

Our Solution

With NextBillion.ai’s Distance Matrix API, the food aggregator gets everything it wants — i.e., more for less — high performance at a low cost.

• Standard distance matrix APIs support a matrix size of 25×25. But NextBillion.ai’s API can support a matrix of up to 5000×5000 origins and destinations. It computes accurate ETAs and distances within a few seconds. This feature enables Tipplr to support its existing operations efficiently and freely scale its expansion plans across the country.
• Prior to NextBillion.ai, Tipplr had tested other mapping providers’ APIs that were five times more expensive than ours. Those APIs produced similar results, but at a higher cost with matrix size limitations and no scope for customizations. NextBillion.ai’s pricing models are flexible and far more economical than those of any other player in the market.
• NextBillion.ai’s user-friendly dashboard helps Tipplr to track and view daily volumes of API calls. The company leverages this insight to project expenses and plan its day-to-day operations.

The Outcome

After switching to NextBillion.ai’s cost-effective Distance Matrix API, Tipplr has been able to reduce its operating costs and improve unit economics. The company was able to reduce its API costs by 60%.

“Utilizing NextBillion.ai Distance Matrix API, we show our consumers the distance between each merchant and the location of their order [delivery address]. We were quite pleased with their service, and the fact that it functions similarly to the Google Distance Matrix API. I contrasted the outcome with that of Google’s API, and they were exactly the same. Most importantly, their cost is lower than that of a rival. With their [NextBillion.ai] API services, we are quite satisfied,” said Srinivas Jayaraman, co-founder of Tipplr.

Improved cost savings had a direct impact on the company’s growth and expansion plans. It was able to increase its API consumption without affecting its allocated budget. This allowed Tipplr to roll out its services in Mysore and four other cities.

The company plans to use NextBillion.ai’s Distance Matrix API to calculate ETAs for first-mile and last-mile use cases when it builds its own delivery fleet. Tipplr is also planning to expand its operations to tier 1 cities, like Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

For the same, the start-up is very keen to use our route optimization and navigation mapping solutions as well.