Short answerThe cost of custom software depends on five things: how many user roles and screens it has, how complex the business rules are, how many integrations there are and what state they're in, what data needs migrating and how critical the system is day to day. A reliable figure only exists once all of that is written down. That's why a short analysis phase often saves money: it turns a range of guesses into a scoped quote.
Why nobody can price it from one sentence
"An app to manage orders" can be a form and a table, or a system with pricing rules, approvals, stock reservations, ERP sync and a customer portal. Both descriptions are accurate, and the second can cost ten times more. Anyone who gives you a fixed price without knowing which one you mean is either padding the number heavily or planning to renegotiate later.
The five factors that drive cost
1. Users, roles and screens
Each type of user (admin, operations, sales, customer) sees different screens and has different permissions. More roles mean more screens, more permission rules and more testing. Counting roles and main screens is one of the best early indicators of size.
2. Business rules
Prices that depend on customer, volume and season; approvals by amount and department; exceptions that only apply to one customer. These rules are usually the real value of custom software, and also where most of the effort goes. They often aren't visible until someone analyses the process properly.
3. Integrations
Connecting to a modern system with a documented API is predictable. Connecting to an old ERP with no API, inconsistent data or a vendor that charges for access is not. Each integration needs assessing separately before it's quoted.
4. Data migration
Moving years of history out of spreadsheets or an old system means removing duplicates, fixing formats and deciding what to do with records that don't fit the new model. It's almost always underestimated.
5. How critical it is
A reporting tool used once a week can survive a bad afternoon. A system every order goes through can't. The more critical, the more testing, monitoring, backups and redundancy, and the more it costs to run.
The cost of building isn't the total cost
Budget for three things:
- Build: design, development, testing and launch.
- Run: hosting, third-party services, monitoring. Usually modest for business software, but not zero.
- Evolve: maintenance, security updates and the improvements you'll want once people use it. Plan for it from the start.
How to get a figure you can trust
- Start by describing the problem: what happens today, who does it and what it costs in time or errors.
- Ask for a written scope before a price. If the supplier can't explain what they'll build, the quote is a guess.
- For anything bigger than a small tool, consider a paid analysis phase. You get a scope, architecture and quote that are yours to show other suppliers.
- Split the build into stages. Start with the part with the clearest return and decide the next one with real usage data.
Signs of an unreliable quote
- A fixed price on the first call, with no written scope.
- Not a word about integrations, data migration or maintenance.
- No questions about how critical the system is.
- An hourly rate with no estimate of hours.
We don't publish rates for the reasons in this article. We take on anything from small jobs of a few hundred euros to complete platforms, and after a first conversation we send a written quote.
Published: · Digrow Technologies