Custom software development is the process of developing, releasing, and maintaining software for a certain set of functions, users, or organizations.
It involves a limited set of requirements and the development is typically performed by an outsourced third-party service provider or an in-house development team.
Now that, that’s been settled, let’s explore how much it costs for a software development company to develop customized software for you and the timeframe you would be looking at for it to go from idea to implementation.
What Is the Price Tag for Custom Software Development?
Software development pricing is a crucial for anyone who wants to build a technologically enabled product or software.
It is not easy to estimate its costs simply because there are a vast number of factors that need to be considered before arriving at a figure.
Some of these factors include software features, functionality, target platforms, tech stack, scalability, performance, UI/UX design, migration of existing data, project timeframe, etc.
It is estimated that a particular software can cost anywhere from $2,000 to over $100 million to develop depending on the kind of software you are looking to build.
Mobile and web applications can be approximately divided into 3 categories according to their level of complexity: basic apps, medium complexity apps, and highly complex apps. Other factors that will determine the cost of your software include:
Software Size
The more the number of pages or screens you require, the more the work that has to go into its development, and the more expensive it will be to deliver for a software development company.
Small apps can range from 10 – 25 screens, while medium sized apps have anywhere from 25 – 40 screens, and large ones have anything over 40 screens.
Software Complexity
As an application involves more complicated logic, the more time it takes to code and test. And if you are looking to build software that crunches a lot of numbers, conducts heavy analysis or scoring, or requires many combinations and permutations, its sheer complexity will require a bigger budget.
UI/UX Design
Fonts, animations, colour palettes, images, logos, user interfaces, and other components of design all lend your application some more individuality.
If your app needs a lot of bells and whistles to stand out against other equally attractive apps, you will need to shell out more money to the software development company developing your application.
Company Size
The size of the software development company developing your apps will also influence how much your software will cost to build. Some of the variations in company size include:
Enterprise custom software development company
These are usually the largest players in the market that have hundreds of certified developers, IT consultants, engineers, project managers, designers, and QA engineers at their disposal.
They also have thousands of clients worldwide. Projects for these companies cost anywhere from $500,000 to over $100 million and their hourly rates vary from $250/hour to $850/hour.
Big Business custom software development company
These companies offer custom solutions for companies with huge budgets that cannot afford the premium developers.
They develop high-quality products and their projects range in price from $125,000 to $5 million, which works up to approximately $200/hour to $300/hour.
Mid-market custom software development company
Software development companies of this size have up to 100 employees that serve only small or medium sized businesses and select Fortune 500 clients.
Their projects can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $5 million, which amounts to anywhere from $75/hour to $175/hour.’
Small custom software development company
These companies take on projects that can range in costs from anywhere between $10,000 to $500,000.
These are agencies that deliver solutions for local businesses and start-ups and they specialize exclusively in one area.
Freelance developers
These developers can either be amateurs or highly experienced professionals.
The junior ones will charge anywhere from $50/hour or $1,000 to $50,000 for the entire project while more seasoned ones will charge anywhere from $100/hour to $300/hour or $5,000 to $100,000 per project.
How Long Does It Take to Develop a Software?
Software projects can take anywhere from 4 months to over a year to design and develop.
The complexity and size of the project are the greatest factors that contribute to the length of time a project will take.
Projects that require multiple platforms, integration with multiple systems (HR, CRM, ERP, etc.), involves data migration, has complex business logic or reporting requirements, or need a data warehouse are considered highly complex and large projects which may exceed a year in development time.
Custom software development comes in all shapes and sizes. Because of the degree of variability that is involved in software development projects, it is difficult to estimate the cost and timeline of its development.
The price tag of a software ranges anywhere from $2,000 to over $100 million.
The factors that determine how much exactly you can expect to dish out include the software’s complexity, the size of the software development company, how sophisticated the UI/UX needs to be, the size of the software, among many others.
If you are looking to develop some software of your own, be sure to thoroughly account for all these factors so that your cost estimates do not come as a surprise.