What drives the price up
- The processes it covers. A screen for entering orders is not the same as the whole path from order to invoice. The more steps and exceptions the process has, the more work.
- The integrations. Each system it has to talk to (the ERP, the shop, the bank, the carrier, email) adds work, and more so if it has no documented API.
- Users and permissions. A tool for three people in the office is simpler than a customer portal, with logins, roles and data that each person may or may not see.
- The data that has to be brought over. Moving years of history from spreadsheets or from an old program often costs more than it seems, because it has to be cleaned up first.
- Outside requirements: where the data has to be stored, what availability is needed and what the regulations in your sector require.
What barely moves the price is what you see first: the colors, the logo or whether it is a website or “an app”. The cost is in the logic and the connections.
Three ways to charge for it
- By the hour. The provider estimates a number of hours and bills the ones they work. It is flexible, but the risk is yours: if the project drags on, so does the bill.
- At a fixed price per feature. The proposal says what the software will do, piece by piece, and what each piece costs. If it takes longer, that is the provider’s problem; if you want to add something new, it is quoted separately before it is built.
- With a monthly fee. Some providers don’t charge for the development and recover it through a long-term fee. Look carefully at what happens the day you want to stop paying: whether the software is yours or whether you lose it.
What the quote leaves out
- Hosting: where the software will run and who pays for it every month.
- Maintenance: security updates, backups, monitoring and who responds if it stops working one night.
- The small changes afterwards: the missing field, the new report. Ask how they are charged before you sign.
- Third-party services paid by usage: email, maps, payments or AI.
- Your team’s time: someone has to explain the process, test each delivery and give the go-ahead.
How to ask for a price that doesn’t move
- Explain the problem, not the solution: what makes you lose hours today and what you would like to happen.
- Ask to see something working before the price: a prototype with your data says more than any document.
- Ask for the proposal per feature, setting out in writing what is included and what is not.
- Ask what maintenance and hosting will cost, and whether there is a minimum term.
- Make sure the code, the domain and the accounts will be in your company’s name.