How much business software development costs

When you ask "how much does development cost?" and someone names an exact sum on the spot, it means one of two things: either the product is off-the-shelf and sold as a box (in which case it isn't custom development), or the figure was pulled out of thin air to keep you from leaving — and it'll grow along the way.

An honest estimate for custom software requires understanding the task, because you're not paying for "software in general" but for a specific system built around your processes. It's closer to building a house than to buying a finished apartment: until you know how many rooms and floors, and what kind of soil is under the foundation, any number is fantasy. That's why a competent contractor asks questions first and names a price only afterward.

This doesn't mean you have to walk into negotiations blind. Below are the very factors professionals use to do the math, so you can ballpark the order of magnitude yourself.

1. The type of solution

This is the main multiplier. Complexity and cost grow in this order:

• A landing page or a business-card site — the cheapest tier, essentially a storefront.
• A web app or a personal account — now you have logic, users, data.
• An accounting system (CRM/ERP, warehouse, manufacturing) — many roles, business rules, reporting.
• An AI project or automation — add models, training, and quality checks on the output.

A landing page and an accounting system can differ in cost by tens of times — which is why the first question is always "what exactly are we building."

2. Scale: roles and scenarios

The price is driven not by "company size" but by the number of different users and what each of them does in the system. One account with one role and three screens is one thing. A system where the director, the accountant, the warehouse keeper and the salesperson each have their own interfaces, rights and scenarios is something else entirely. Count not pages, but roles × key scenarios.

3. Integrations

Every link to the outside world is a separate piece of work: a cash register, a payment gateway, a bank, a partner's system, equipment, a messenger for notifications. One or two integrations barely register in the budget; five or six can become half the project cost, because other people's systems are rarely friendly and you have to work around their behavior.

4. The state of the source data

Where you start from affects the price more than it seems:

• A clean start (the new product doesn't exist yet) — the cheapest, no legacy.
• A migration from Excel — you have to untangle the spreadsheets, clean up duplicates, transfer without losses.
• A migration from a legacy system — the most labor-intensive: someone else's code, lost source files, non-obvious logic.

Modifiers: platforms and urgency

• Platforms. A single web app is cheaper than web + iOS + Android at once: each platform is a separate build and test cycle.
• Urgency. Tight deadlines require more people in parallel — this makes the project more expensive, it doesn't speed it up for free.

Let's fold the factors into the method our calculator runs on too:

Price ≈ a base range by solution type × a scale coefficient × a platform coefficient × (1 + the integrations share) × a data coefficient

• The base range is set by the type of solution (landing < web app < accounting system < AI project).
• The scale coefficient — small / medium / large by the number of roles and scenarios.
• The platform coefficient — one platform versus several.
• The integrations share — how many external systems we connect.
• The data coefficient — clean start / Excel / legacy.

The result is always a range, "from–to," not a single point. That's the honest way: until the task is broken down in detail, any single figure misleads. The range narrows to an exact sum at the concept stage — which is free with us.

We deliberately don't publish a ready-made table of "average prices in manats": dissimilar projects vary by multiples, and any public figure misleads. Instead — the cost-factor breakdown and the scope estimator: it shows the class and composition of your project, and the exact price is fixed for free after analysis, as agreed with you.

How the formula works on an example (an illustration of the mechanism, no specific sums)

To make the logic visible, let's compare two hypothetical projects in relative units — taking the cost of a simple web account as "×1":

• Project A — a personal account for client bookings. Type: web app (base ×1). Scale: one role, 3–4 scenarios (small, ×1). Platforms: web only (×1). Integrations: one — notifications (share 0.2). Data: clean start (×1). Total ≈ 1 × 1 × 1 × 1.2 × 1 = ×1.2.
• Project B — a warehouse system for a chain of three locations. Type: accounting system (base ×4 relative to the account). Scale: four roles, a dozen scenarios (large, ×1.8). Platforms: web + a mobile app for the warehouse keeper (×1.5). Integrations: three — cash register, supplier, accounting (share 0.6). Data: migration from Excel (×1.3). Total ≈ 4 × 1.8 × 1.5 × 1.6 × 1.3 ≈ ×22.

You can see that two "software projects" differ by roughly 18 times — and that's before urgency. That's why an answer to "how much does development cost" without analyzing the task is impossible: the question is which of these projects is yours. The coefficients here are illustrative and show the principle, not our price list; your real multipliers are plugged in at the free estimation stage.

You can deliberately lower the price before the start — and it's not "haggling," it's proper engineering hygiene:

• Start with an MVP, not with everything at once. The first version should cover the one or two scenarios the product exists for in the first place. The rest is added once the first part proves its worth.
• Cut integrations at the start. Some links to external systems can be deferred to a second stage without losing the point.
• Don't pay for extra platforms. If your users live on the web — a mobile app in the first version may be premature.
• Put your data in order ahead of time. The cleaner the source spreadsheets, the cheaper the migration.

A good contractor will suggest what to drop from the first version themselves — because they're interested in a working result, not a bloated invoice.

People rarely think about it, but the price of inaction is real too. Records spread across dozens of Excel files cost hours of manual work every week, errors in the data, and dependence on one person. An old system everyone's afraid to touch costs downtime and missed opportunities. Before you compare the cost of development to zero, compare it to the real cost of your current chaos — development often pays for itself faster than it seems.

Most studios take money up front, because that way all the risk sits with the client: you paid — now hope they finish. We built the model differently. The task analysis, the concept with a spec and a working prototype are done at our expense; the first working product (MVP) costs 10% of the fixed estimate; after that — staged payments for accepted stages. That way you pay for a result you can already see, not for a promise. In detail — how we work.

• Can I learn the price without a call? Yes — you can ballpark the order of magnitude in the calculator, with no form and no call. We set the exact fixed figure for free after analyzing the task.
• Why does no one name a price right away? Because custom software costs exactly as much as your specific task weighs; an honest estimate requires breaking it down. An exact sum named on the spot is almost always either a box or a guess.
• What's the 10% MVP? It's the first working version of the product for 10% of the fixed estimate. Before it — analysis, concept and prototype — you pay nothing.
• Can the price grow along the way? The estimate fixed at the concept stage doesn't change. It only changes if you yourself decide to expand the scope — and then it's discussed separately, between stages.
• What affects the budget most? The type of solution and the state of the data. A landing page and an accounting system differ by tens of times; a migration from legacy costs more than a clean start.