The honest answer: it depends — but here's how to think about it
Every business asking "how much does custom software cost?" deserves a straight answer instead of "it depends." So here's the real breakdown based on hundreds of projects we've scoped and built.
The three cost tiers
Tier 1: €10,000 – €30,000 (Small tools and MVPs)
At this level you get a focused solution that does one thing well. Think:
- An internal dashboard that replaces a spreadsheet
- A simple web app with user authentication and CRUD operations
- An MVP to validate a business idea before investing more
- A customer portal with basic self-service features
Timeline: 4–8 weeks. Team: 1–2 developers.
This tier works when you have a clear, narrow problem and don't need integrations with complex external systems.
Tier 2: €30,000 – €100,000 (Business applications)
This is where most serious business software lives. You get:
- Multi-role access control with permissions
- Integration with payment systems, CRMs, or ERPs
- Custom reporting and dashboards
- Mobile-responsive design or a companion mobile app
- Multi-language support
Examples: a property management platform, a financial tracking system, an e-commerce store with custom logic, a booking and scheduling tool.
Timeline: 2–5 months. Team: 2–4 people.
Tier 3: €100,000+ (Platform-level systems)
Complex platforms with multiple modules, real-time data processing, or high compliance requirements:
- SaaS products with multi-tenant architecture
- Platforms processing financial transactions
- Systems requiring regulatory compliance (GDPR, PCI-DSS)
- AI-powered features with custom model training
- High-availability infrastructure with 99.9%+ uptime SLAs
Timeline: 4–12 months. Team: 3–6 people.
What drives the cost up
Integrations. Every external system you connect to — payment gateways, accounting software, shipping APIs — adds scope. Budget €2,000–€10,000 per integration depending on complexity.
Multi-platform. A web app is one thing. Adding iOS and Android multiplies the frontend effort by 2–3x, even with cross-platform frameworks.
Data migration. Moving from an existing system means mapping old data structures to new ones, handling edge cases, and validating everything. This often takes longer than people expect.
Compliance. GDPR, financial regulations, or healthcare data requirements add security layers, audit logging, and legal review that increase both development time and infrastructure cost.
Scale. A system for 50 users is architecturally different from one handling 50,000 concurrent users. Building for scale from day one costs more — but rebuilding later costs much more.
What drives the cost down
Clear requirements. The biggest cost driver in software isn't code — it's ambiguity. Projects with well-defined scope, user flows, and acceptance criteria cost 20–40% less than "we'll figure it out as we go."
Choosing the right stack. Using proven frameworks and existing libraries instead of building everything custom. Not every project needs a microservices architecture.
Phased delivery. Building an MVP first, validating with real users, then iterating. You avoid paying for features nobody uses.
One team, full lifecycle. When the same team designs, builds, and deploys, you eliminate the coordination overhead and lost-in-translation handoffs that inflate costs at larger agencies.
Red flags in pricing
- Fixed bid without discovery. If someone quotes a firm price after a one-hour call, they're either padding the estimate by 50% or they'll hit you with change orders later.
- Hourly without a cap. Open-ended hourly billing with no scope boundary is a blank check. Look for fixed-scope sprints with clear deliverables.
- Rates below €30/hour. In software, you get what you pay for. Ultra-cheap developers produce code that costs 3x more to maintain and fix.
- No discovery phase. Any serious project needs 1–2 weeks of paid discovery to define scope, architecture, and priorities before quoting the build.
How DSX approaches pricing
We don't do hourly billing. Every engagement starts with a paid discovery phase where we map the problem, define the scope, and produce a fixed estimate for the build. You know what you're paying before we write a line of code.
Our projects typically fall in the €15,000–€150,000 range, depending on scope. We handle everything — design, development, deployment, and ongoing support — so you're not coordinating between five vendors.
Need a realistic estimate for your project? Get in touch — we'll scope it in a free 30-minute call.