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Open the calculatorCustom Software Cost Calculator
How much does custom software cost? This free custom software cost calculator gives you a working estimate for an internal business system built to replace off-the-shelf SaaS: the workflows it covers, the systems it connects to, whether it migrates your historical data, and whether it needs reporting. You get an estimated build timeline, the build investment under a managed-team model, the ongoing cost to run and evolve it, and what a traditional agency would typically quote for the same scope.
Your Scope
Each end-to-end process the system runs: estimating, scheduling, job tracking, invoicing, customer management, and so on.
QuickBooks, email, a payment processor, an existing database, a vendor API.
Adjust the rates
Your Estimate
Estimated Build Investment
$20,000 to $30,000
Estimated build timeline
4 to 6 months
Ongoing management after launch
$17,940 per year
Estimated first-year total
$31,900 to $38,900
Typical agency quote, same scope
$96,000 to $144,000
Estimates only. Final scope and pricing come from an assessment. Nothing you enter here is stored or sent anywhere.
How the Custom Software Cost Calculator Works
Scope drives timeline, and timeline drives cost. Each core workflow adds build time, each integration adds a little more, and migrating historical data and building reporting dashboards each add their own. The calculator turns that into an estimated timeline as a range rather than a single number, because scope always moves once the real work starts and an estimate that pretends otherwise is not worth much.
How to count your scope
A workflow is something your team does end to end: estimate a job, schedule a crew, track work in the field, invoice, collect. If you would describe it as one screen with a list and a form, it is probably a workflow. An integration is any system the new one has to talk to: QuickBooks, your email, a payment processor, an existing database, a vendor's API. Count generously. Scope that gets discovered later costs more than scope that was counted up front.
The cost lines
Build investment is the timeline range times the monthly rate for a managed build, $4,995 by default. Ongoing management is what it costs after launch to host, support, and keep evolving the system, $1,495 a month by default. The first-year total combines the build with the ongoing months left in that first year. Both rates are editable under "Adjust the rates" if you already have a quote in hand.
The agency comparison uses one full-time developer at a typical US agency hourly rate for the same timeline. Most agency quotes also carry a project manager and a designer, so treat that line as the low end of what you would actually be quoted, not the high end.
Why the managed model costs less
An agency is paid to finish a project and leave. A managed internal systems team is paid to run the system for years, so the build is priced as the start of a relationship instead of the whole of it, and the incentives point at building something that is cheap to keep evolving. That is the difference between the two cost lines above, and it is the reason the ongoing figure matters as much as the build figure. The engagement model page lays out how that relationship is structured.
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