Today’s users don’t just want mobile access; they expect it. Think about it: whether it’s booking a weekend stay, renting a bike, or finding a local service, most of us don’t even open a laptop anymore — we just pull out our phones and tap away. If your marketplace isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re already losing out on a huge slice of potential users who crave speed, convenience, and that “always-in-my-pocket” accessibility.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Building a Sharetribe mobile app isn’t simply about shrinking your website down to fit a smaller screen. It’s about crafting an experience that feels native, smooth, and trustworthy for both buyers and sellers. And if you’re not careful, you can easily burn through time, money, and energy without actually giving your users the mobile experience they deserve.
The good news? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. As a Sharetribe development company, Roobykon has been helping marketplace founders develop a marketplace app on top of Sharetribe for years, and we know what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to going mobile. From wrapping your existing site into a Sharetribe app, to building a progressive web app (PWA), or even creating a fully tailored native app from scratch — we’ll break down the real options and help you see which path makes the most sense.
So grab a coffee (or your phone — because let’s be honest, that’s probably where you’re reading this), and let’s explore how to develop a Sharetribe mobile app without the stress, confusion, or nasty surprises.
Core approach: leverage Sharetribe’s backend with a custom mobile frontend
If you’re serious about creating your own marketplace app, the smartest path forward is using Sharetribe’s powerful backend as your foundation while crafting a custom mobile frontend.
Why does this matter? Because building marketplace infrastructure from scratch — payments, transactions, user accounts, messaging, security – takes not just months, but years. Sharetribe already solves these heavy-lifting challenges for you. What you really want is the freedom to design a mobile experience that feels smooth, modern, and tailored to your audience. And this is where the advantages of a marketplace app truly shine. By connecting a custom iOS or Android app to Sharetribe via its Marketplace API, you get the best of both worlds: battle-tested backend + complete control over the frontend.
This way, you’re not stuck with cookie-cutter interfaces or limited design options — you can shape exactly how your Sharetribe application looks, feels, and performs, without worrying about breaking the engine running underneath.
Development architecture
Here’s where the beauty of Sharetribe’s headless architecture comes into play.
In simple terms, “headless” means the backend and frontend live separately. The backend is where all the heavy operations happen: processing transactions, managing payments, storing user data, and enforcing business logic. The frontend, meanwhile, is just the interface your users see and interact with, whether that’s a web portal, a mobile app, or both.
This separation is a huge advantage when building a marketplace app. It gives you the flexibility to design any kind of frontend you need while keeping Sharetribe’s reliable infrastructure at the core.
Key components of the setup
Let’s break down what this architecture looks like in practice:
- Sharetribe backend – Think of this as the engine of your marketplace app development. It handles accounts, listings, bookings, transactions, payments, notifications, and all the business rules behind the scenes.
- Admin console – This is your control room. From here, you (or your marketplace operators) can monitor activity, manage users and listings, oversee payments, and keep the ecosystem running smoothly.
- Custom mobile app (iOS & Android) – This is the layer your users interact with. Built specifically for your brand and audience, it communicates with Sharetribe via the Marketplace API.
Key steps to build a Sharetribe mobile app
So, how do you actually go from idea to a fully functioning Sharetribe mobile platform? Let’s break it down into clear, actionable steps.
1. Design the app
The journey begins with design. Your goal isn’t just to “fit” your marketplace into a smaller screen but to create an experience that feels natural and delightful on mobile. Start by sketching out the user flows: how people browse listings, send messages, make payments, or leave reviews.
If you’re aiming for B2B marketplace app development, this step becomes even more crucial — business users expect efficiency and clarity at every interaction. A clunky design can be the deal-breaker.
Sharetribe already offers responsive web templates that give you a sense of how the platform works on mobile browsers, and those can be a helpful baseline. On top of that, Sharetribe provides design files in tools like Figma and Sketch, which you can adapt into a mobile-first interface. This step is where you lock down your marketplace’s look, feel, and unique branding elements before a single line of code gets written.
In short: with the right design and UI approach, your Sharetribe mobile-friendly app can feel polished, powerful, and tailored to your audience, whether they’re individual consumers or business clients.
2. Build the marketplace UI
Once the design is ready, it’s time to bring it to life. Here, you need to decide:
Should you build for iOS first, Android first, or go cross-platform?
Swift or Objective-C for Sharetribe iOS apps, and Java or Kotlin for Sharetribe Android apps. Native apps typically deliver the best performance and integrate deeply with each platform’s ecosystem. If you want maximum polish and platform-specific optimization, this might be your path.
Sharetribe already provides a JavaScript SDK that works with React Native, making the job easier for a Sharetribe developer Android specialist or iOS engineer. With this toolkit, you can quickly tap into marketplace essentials without reinventing the wheel.
3. Integrate the Sharetribe backend
Here’s where the real magic happens. Your mobile frontend needs to “talk” to Sharetribe’s backend, and that’s done via the Marketplace API. This connection is what powers all the core features:
- User authentication
- Listing creation and search
- Transactions and bookings
- Payments and payouts
- Messaging between users
The best part? You don’t have to build any of this backend logic yourself. Instead, your hired Sharetribe developers focus on creating a smooth, branded mobile experience, while Sharetribe quietly powers everything under the hood.
4. Submit to app stores
Once your app is built and thoroughly tested, the final step is to make it public. To do that, you’ll need to prepare all the required materials — app descriptions, screenshots, promotional graphics, privacy policies — and then submit your app to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Keep in mind that publishing isn’t free: Apple requires a $99/year developer license, while Google charges a one-time $25 fee for a Play Console account. Each platform also has its own review process, which can take anywhere from a day to a couple of weeks depending on the app.
At this point, your marketplace is no longer “just” a Sharetribe site. Whether you’ve built an Android app for Sharetribe or an iOS version, you now have a fully functional, pocket-ready mobile product. It combines the robust power of Sharetribe’s backend with the polish of a modern user experience — exactly what you need when you decide to build a marketplace app that stands out.
Summary
Learning how to build a marketplace app for your Sharetribe platform isn’t about reinventing the wheel — it’s about connecting the right parts in a smart and cost-effective way. You’ll need solid UX/UI design, mobile app development services for iOS or Android (or both), smooth API integration with Sharetribe’s backend, and finally, publishing your app to the app stores where your users can easily find it.
The best part? Sharetribe already covers the heavy lifting on the backend. With its APIs, plus the option to use third-party templates or even open-source projects, you can dramatically cut development time, reduce the cost of creating an online marketplace mobile app, and focus instead on what matters most: delivering an app your users will love.
Depending on your strategy, you can:
- Create marketplace apps with a fully custom mobile frontend while keeping Sharetribe’s backend as the engine,
- Use a ready-made partner template with features like push notifications and secure payments, or
- Start from an open-source React Native client and tailor it to your brand.
Whichever path you take, the ultimate goal is clear: give your marketplace community an app experience that feels intuitive, fast, and always within reach.
And if you’re unsure whether to go fully native (iOS/Android) or cross-platform, the Roobykon team is here to guide you. With years of experience helping founders create marketplace apps powered by Sharetribe, we know how to turn your idea into something users will want to download, use, and keep coming back to.
