How we price custom software

Why there is no price list here

A price range has to be wide enough to hold every project it might describe, and a range that wide says nothing about yours. Two builds with the same name can differ in everything that sets the price, from what the software connects to through to how much existing data it has to take in. So we publish no band, no hourly rate and no delivery range, on this page or any other.

What you get in its place is a number you can act on. Before any paid build work starts you hold a fixed quote, broken down by part, so you can see what each piece of the system costs. If the total is more than you want to spend, the breakdown shows what to cut or move to a later phase, and you make that choice before you commit to anything.

How a quote is built

A quote takes four steps, and the first two cost nothing whatever the project is.

Get your project scoped

Three ways to buy, each priced before work starts

Which of the three fits depends on how well the work can be described in advance.

• Fixed-scope build — one price for an agreed spec and date. It suits work whose scope can be written down, which is why scoping comes first.
• Dedicated team — a fixed monthly fee, agreed before the team starts, for senior engineers who work inside your team. It suits an ongoing roadmap whose next items are not yet fixed.
• Support retainer — a fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope of maintenance, quoted once we have reviewed the system. It is never an hours block or a charge per ticket.

A build can hand over to a retainer once it is live, and for software we built the retainer needs no separate review first.

What moves the number

Across every kind of software we build, the same few things decide how much work there is.

• Existing systems — how many the software has to connect to, and how usable their APIs are.
• Kinds of user — each role that signs in adds screens of its own.
• Existing data — how much has to be moved in, and how clean it is.
• Regulated data — health or financial records bring access rules and audit trails with them.
• A native app — a build for the app stores is a second codebase.
• What must be real on day one — the more of the system that has to work at launch, the more there is to build first.

Scoping measures each of these for your project, and the itemized quote shows what each one costs.

The cost drivers for your kind of build

Each service page has its own cost section, written for that kind of work. Start with the one closest to yours.

• A first version of a new product: what moves the cost of an MVP, and what Scope week settles before you pay for anything.
• A company website or an online store: the five things that price a website build.
• A system a whole organization runs on: how an enterprise system is quoted, including when a paid assessment comes first.
• A subscription product sold to many customers: what a SaaS quote depends on, from tenant isolation to billing.
• Software that is already live: how a maintenance retainer is priced.
• Software for schools and edtech companies: what moves the price of education software.
• Software for carriers and internet providers: the five things that price a telecom build.
• Software for a plant: what a plant's systems do to the price.