What custom software actually costs.
Most dev shops make you sit through a sales call to hear a number. Here's the honest version: real ranges, what moves them, and how milestone-based pricing means you never pay for work you haven't seen.
Typical ranges by project type
Market-typical pricing for the kinds of projects we build. Your quote comes after a discovery call — scoped in milestones, fixed per milestone.
Web application or client portal
Dashboards, portals, booking and payment flows. The wide range is scope: a focused internal tool sits at the bottom, a customer-facing SaaS at the top.
About this serviceCustom CRM
Usually equivalent to one to three years of a mid-size team's Salesforce bill — after which the subscription math flips permanently in your favor.
About this serviceCustom PLM system
Compare against enterprise PLM: seat licenses plus the dedicated admin you'd need to hire. Custom usually wins on three-year cost.
About this serviceAI agents & automation
Often the fastest payback: agents priced against the hours of repetitive work they remove every week.
About this serviceFive things that move the number
Scope of the first version
The single biggest lever. We cut the first milestone to the smallest thing that delivers real value — you can always add more once it's earning its keep.
Integrations
Each system yours needs to talk to (ERP, email, payments, CAD, phone) adds real work. Clean, documented APIs are cheap; legacy systems with no API are not.
Users and roles
An internal tool for five trusted people is much simpler than a customer-facing product with auth, permissions, and billing.
Data migration
Moving years of spreadsheets or a legacy CRM into the new system takes mapping and validation. Worth doing right — it's your source of truth.
AI components
Document extraction, agent workflows, and AI search add engineering for verification and approval gates — the parts that make AI trustworthy, not just impressive.
Milestones, not leaps of faith.
Every project is broken into milestones that each end with working software in your hands. Fixed price per milestone, agreed before it starts.
- See the full milestone map and prices before anything begins
- Pay when a milestone ships and works — not before
- Stop at any milestone and keep everything you've paid for
- Own the code and data outright from the first commit
Pricing questions
How much does custom software cost?
For the kind of mid-market projects we build: roughly $10k–$120k depending on type and scope, with most first milestones landing well inside that range. The honest answer to 'why so wide?' is scope — which is why we quote after a discovery call, not from a form. The ranges above reflect typical market pricing for each project type.
How does milestone-based pricing work?
We break the project into milestones that each ship working software. You see a fixed price per milestone up front, pay when the milestone is delivered and working, and can stop at any milestone with everything you've paid for in your hands. No giant deposit, no paying for work you haven't seen.
Is custom software cheaper than SaaS subscriptions?
Over three years, usually yes — a custom build is a one-time cost you own, while per-seat SaaS grows with headcount forever. Over three months, no. If a template tool genuinely fits your workflow, we'll tell you to use it; custom wins when you're paying for shelfware or working around the tool.
What about maintenance after launch?
Iteration after launch is part of how we work, and ongoing support is scoped to what you actually need rather than a mandatory retainer. Because you own the code outright, you're never locked into us for maintenance — which keeps our incentives honest.
Can we start small?
That's our preferred way to work. A first milestone in the $10k–$25k range that solves one painful problem is the best way to find out what working with us is like — and it usually tells us both where the real value is.