How much does custom software cost?

The usual reason is true: the scope of custom software varies enormously from one business to the next. But you cannot budget with 'it depends'.

So we show, line by line, what raises the scope. The exact figure always comes the same way: one call where we look at how the business runs and at your real forms, then within two working days a free written quote with a total that holds.

The table shows how a project grows, from a small tool to larger systems. The right-hand column matters most: it is what you can check any quote against, ours included.

When one quote comes in at twice another, the reason is almost always one of these four. Ask every quote about them, ours included:

Not every problem needs custom software. A ready-made tool is enough when your process is an ordinary one and few people work in it. Your own software makes sense when the rules, documents and way of working are genuinely yours, and several people work with them every day.

Often the right answer sits in between: you keep the accounting software you have and build only the missing part, connected to it. If a ready-made tool is enough for you, we say so.

Spreadsheets carry many processes they were never designed for: orders, stock, schedules, quotes. That works until it starts to cost. None of these signs is an emergency on its own, but with two or three of them the business pays every day in hours and mistakes:

• The same file exists in several copies, and nobody knows which one is current.
• Several people need it open at once, and someone is always waiting.
• Whoever opens the file sees everything, salaries and margins included.
• Only one person understands the formulas, and that person goes on holiday.
• The same data is typed two or three times: in the sheet, on the invoice, in the calendar.
• Nobody can tell who changed a figure, or when.
• The monthly report is assembled by copy and paste at the end of the month.

The switch does not need a big-bang day. We start with the process that takes the most manual work, and your existing data, customers, prices and history, is moved into the system rather than retyped. That migration is part of the project and is written into the quote.

Then, usually for about two weeks, the spreadsheet and the system run side by side. Differences get fixed while they are small, and only when the new system holds is the old sheet retired. The second process follows, paid for by the time the first one saves.

What this looks like in a real business is shown by the field-service platform in Switzerland: there it was not a spreadsheet but folders, paper job reports and around fourteen PDF templates, and they became one system for jobs, reports, equipment and hours.

The path is short and costs you nothing: a 30 to 45 minute call about how the business runs, the forms and files you use today, and the job that eats the most time by hand.

Within two working days of the call you get the written quote: what gets built, in how many phases, the fixed price of each phase, the dates and the maintenance costs. If we think an off-the-shelf tool is enough for you, we say so.

• A fixed price for a defined result, not an hourly rate.
• Payment: half at the start, half at launch; on larger projects, in three milestones tied to deliverables, never everything up front.
• Scope changes are quoted separately, before they happen.
• Any defect found within 30 days of launch is fixed at no cost.
• Domain, accounts and data in your name, exported whenever you want.

With an hourly rate, the risk of the work taking longer than promised sits with you. With a fixed price it sits with whoever builds it: if we misjudge the effort, we carry the difference.

That takes serious preparation, because without a fixed scope there is no honest fixed price, only a number that gets corrected later. After launch too, every change is quoted before it starts, not billed as an extra afterwards.

The most expensive software is rarely the one with the highest quote. It is the one with the costs no quote mentioned:

• Per-user licences, forever: the subscription looks small and over the years becomes the biggest line.
• Extras: whatever 'included in the price' does not list in writing gets billed separately later.
• Accounts in someone else's name: a domain, hosting and logins that are not yours make every future change of provider hard.
• Forced processes: when the business adapts to the software, you pay for it every day in working hours.
• Unwritten maintenance: 'pay once and it runs forever' is true of no software.
• Data migration nobody quoted: the work happens either way, the only question is who pays for it.