Why nobody gives a straight number
Ask five agencies what custom software costs and you'll get five ranges that don't overlap. That isn't always dishonesty. Most of them genuinely don't know yet, because they haven't seen how your company works, and custom software is priced by the work it replaces, not by the number of screens.
The other reason is billing model. Studios that bill by the hour have no reason to commit to a number early. Every unclear requirement becomes more hours. That's how a project quoted at one figure ends up at twice that, with nobody technically lying.
So instead of hunting for a magic figure, look at the handful of things that actually decide the cost. Once you know them, you can read any quote and see where the money is going.
The five things that decide the price
Almost every custom business system is priced by the same variables. The tech stack matters far less than most buyers think.
- Roles: how many different kinds of people use it. An office admin, a field technician, a manager and the owner each need different screens, permissions and flows. Roles are the single biggest driver.
- Hand-offs: how many times work changes hands between those roles. Each hand-off is a rule the system has to enforce, a notification, and a place things used to get lost.
- Integrations: accounting, banking, email, calendars, payroll, e-commerce. Each connection to an outside system is its own small project with its own edge cases.
- Data migration: moving years of spreadsheets and exports into a clean structure. Messy data costs more to move than people expect, and skipping it is how new systems die in month two.
- Intelligence: whether the system just stores and shows data, or also answers questions, drafts messages, plans shifts and chases invoices through an AI layer.
What the ranges look like in practice
You'll see three rough tiers in the market. A small internal tool for one team and one workflow sits at the low end, often a few thousand to low tens of thousands. A system that runs a whole company, with several roles, migrated data and a couple of integrations, sits in the tens of thousands. Group-level systems that span several companies, countries and currencies go into six figures.
Our own pricing follows the same logic and it's public. Core is €18,000 for one company on one system with up to five roles, full data migration, phone and desktop access, and three months of support. Maxxed is €48,000 for unlimited roles, the AI layer, up to four integrations, automations and a client portal. Empire starts at €120k for groups of companies. Extra integrations are €4,500 each.
We publish these because a fixed number forces both sides to be precise about scope. If a quote can't be tied to roles, hand-offs, integrations and data, it isn't a quote yet.
Fixed price vs hourly: which protects you
Hourly billing makes sense for open-ended research or staff augmentation. For a business system with a clear goal, it moves all the risk onto you. You pay for the learning curve, the rework and the meetings about the rework.
A fixed price does the opposite. The builder has to understand your company before quoting, and eats the cost of their own mistakes. It also forces a proper scope conversation early, which is exactly when you want it.
If you go fixed price, check three things: what counts as a change, how changes are priced, and what happens after launch. A fixed price with no support period just moves the surprise invoice to month four.
The costs people forget
The build is only part of the bill. Before you compare quotes, add the costs that show up later.
- Hosting and monitoring: usually modest, but someone has to own it. Ask where it runs and in whose account.
- Support and changes: your company will change in the first six months. Budget for it or make sure it's included.
- Licences you can switch off: a good system retires tools. Count the subscriptions that disappear, they often cover part of the cost.
- Internal time: someone on your side has to answer questions and test. A builder who works from your real data needs less of it.
- Lock-in: if you don't get the source code and documentation, the real cost is every future change at whatever price they set.
How to know if the number is worth it
Custom software pays back through three things: hours no longer spent copying data between tools, mistakes that stop happening, and decisions you can make faster because the numbers are already there.
A simple test: list the people who touch spreadsheets, chats and re-typing every week, estimate the hours, and put a cost on them. Add the subscriptions the system would replace. Add one or two expensive mistakes from last year, like an unbilled job or a missed renewal. For a company of 20 to 300 people, that number is usually bigger than the owner expects.
If the payback doesn't show up on paper, don't build. Buy a SaaS tool, or fix the process first. Custom is worth it when your way of working is part of why customers pick you, and off-the-shelf tools keep forcing you to work around them.
How to get an honest quote fast
The fastest way to a real number is to show the builder the mess: the spreadsheets, the chat groups, the exports, the paper job sheets. Not a requirements document. The real thing, screens shared, in one call.
That's how we work at Company Maxxing. We reverse-engineer how work actually moves through your company, map every hand-off, then give you a fixed price. After kickoff you get a first working version on a sample of your real data within 24 hours, so you judge us on something you can click before paying the rest. If you want a number for your company, apply and tell us how things run today.