Typical project shapes and what moves the price
Compare the options side by side, then choose the scope that fits.
| Project shape | Typical range (indicative only) | What usually moves it up or down |
|---|---|---|
| Product definition or discovery | Roughly $500 to $5,000 | Number of workflows reviewed, stakeholders interviewed and whether a clickable prototype is included. |
| Internal tool for one workflow | Roughly $5,000 to $25,000 | User roles, number of screens, reporting needs, imports from spreadsheets and one or two integrations. |
| Customer-facing portal or multi-team system | Roughly $20,000 to $80,000+ | Authentication, permissions, payments, notifications, mobile use, audit history and the number of connected systems. |
| Ongoing improvement and support | Often a monthly retainer | Change volume, response expectations, hosting responsibility and how often vendors change their APIs. |
What actually drives the cost
Most of the effort in business software sits behind the screens you see in a demo. The main drivers are the number of distinct user roles and what each may see or change, the number of workflows and their exceptions, integrations with tools such as accounting, calendars, payment providers or a field-service platform, data migration from spreadsheets or an old system, and the reliability standard the business needs. A form that saves a record is quick to build. A form that checks permissions, prevents duplicates, notifies the right person, survives a failed connection and keeps an audit history is a different piece of work. Ask which of these a quote assumes.
The phases you are paying for
A sensible project usually moves through definition, design, build, testing and handover. Definition turns the problem into agreed workflows, user roles, data and acceptance criteria; it is the cheapest point to discover that a feature is unnecessary. Design shows the screens and states people will use, including empty, error and pending states. Build and testing are where most of the budget goes. Handover covers deployment, documentation, access transfer and training. Moxisync offers Product Definition from $500 over 3 to 7 days so you can price the build against a written scope instead of a guess, and software builds are scoped after that discovery, typically running 4 to 12 weeks or more.
Ways to reduce scope without reducing value
Start with one workflow that costs the team time every week, such as turning an enquiry into an assigned job, and leave nice-to-have dashboards for a later phase. Use an existing tool for commodity functions like email delivery, payments or authentication rather than rebuilding them. Keep the first version to the roles that actually need it; a customer portal can often wait until the internal workflow is stable. Replace a complex integration with a reviewed export for the first release if the volume is low. Each deferred item should be written down, so the decision is visible rather than forgotten.
What a useful quote should include
A quote you can compare should list the workflows and user roles in scope, the integrations and who pays for their accounts, assumptions about data migration, the testing approach, milestones with what you review at each one, how change requests are priced, and what happens at handover. It should state who owns the source code, the hosting accounts and the domain. If a quote is a single number with a feature list, ask what is excluded. Fixed-price and time-and-materials can both be fair; the important part is that both sides understand what triggers a change in cost.
Running costs after launch
Software keeps costing money after it ships. Expect hosting and database charges, third-party subscriptions such as email or SMS delivery, usage-based API fees, domain and certificate renewals, backups, monitoring and periodic security updates for frameworks and dependencies. Vendors change their APIs, browsers change behaviour and your team will ask for improvements once they use the system. Budget for a support arrangement or a monthly improvement plan rather than assuming the build cost is final. Moxisync's Continuous Improvement plan starts from $750 per month, but a small internal tool with few changes may need much less attention; agree the expected change volume first.
How to sanity-check a number
Compare the cost with the time and errors the current process creates, but be careful with projections. Count the hours spent each week re-entering data, chasing missing information or fixing mistakes, and ask the team which step they would remove first. That gives a practical ceiling for the first phase without promising a return. Also compare against configuring an existing tool, which is often cheaper when your process is close to standard. Custom software is worth considering when the workflow is genuinely specific to how you operate, or when stitching several tools together already costs more effort than it saves.