How Much Does Custom Software Development Cost? Prices and What Drives Them
From a €990 integration to a multi-year SaaS build — a practical guide to custom software pricing: what actually drives the cost, typical price bands, and how to pay less without cutting quality.
The short answer: a standard integration between two systems starts from €990, a small internal tool typically lands in the low thousands of euros, and the first production version of a larger web application is a matter of a written, priced scope — with us, always at a fixed price agreed up front, never open-ended hourly billing. Why the range is so wide, and what you can do about it, is what we unpack below.
Why no serious vendor quotes a price without a conversation
“How much does custom software cost?” is like “how much does a house cost?” — it depends on what you’re building. A serious vendor can, however, give you a firm number in writing after a short conversation. If someone bills by the hour with no cap, the budget-overrun risk sits with you; if they put a fixed price on a written scope, it sits with them. That’s why our whole process rests on a free scoping call and a written proposal — you approve the number before the first line of code exists.
What actually drives the cost
- Feature scope. The biggest line item. Every screen, user role and process state is extra work — and half the ideas from the first brainstorm never get used in practice. Cutting the first version ruthlessly is the single best cost-reduction tool.
- Integrations. Connecting to accounting, ERP, CRM or a payment gateway is usually cheaper than replacing them — but every additional system adds testing and edge cases.
- Users and UX. An internal tool for five colleagues doesn’t need pixel-perfect design. A customer portal for thousands of people does.
- Compliance and data. GDPR, audit trails, archiving, encryption — in regulated industries, these legitimately raise the price.
- Operations. Software doesn’t end at launch. Monitoring, backups and security updates are an ongoing cost — with us, month to month, with no lock-in.
Typical price bands
| Project type | Indicative price | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Standard integration (two systems exchanging data) | from €990 one-off | 1–3 weeks |
| Small internal tool or automation | low thousands of € | 1–3 weeks |
| Web application / portal — first production version | per written scope | 6–12 weeks |
| SaaS product with long-term development | fixed-price stages | ongoing, two-week sprints |
The bands are indicative — you get the exact number in a written proposal after a scoping call that is free and non-binding. For what a larger project looks like in practice, see GeoSoft — a land-surveying CAD workstation in the browser, built as a multi-tenant SaaS.
How to pay less — without cutting quality
- Start with an MVP scope. The first version should do one thing well. Extensions are cheaper to add once production is running and you know what users actually need.
- First check whether you need code at all. If a plugin or a no-code tool solves it, we’ll tell you on the scoping call — we recommend the cheaper option before we price anything.
- Build on a proven stack. TypeScript, Node, Python, Postgres — technologies you’ll still find people for in five years. An exotic stack is a hidden future cost.
- Own your code. Full repository access and a documented handover mean you’re never held hostage by your vendor — and the vendor has to earn the next piece of work on quality.
When custom software is NOT worth it
The honest answer: when an off-the-shelf solution covers 90% of the need and you can work around the remaining 10% with process. Custom software makes sense when the workarounds cost more than they save — when your team retypes data between systems by hand, when a templated tool dictates your process instead of the other way round, or when the software is your product.
Next step
Send us a few sentences about what’s holding you back — on a free call we’ll establish the scope, and within a few days you’ll have a written proposal with a fixed price. To see how we work, visit our custom software development and web application development pages.
