Costs of Custom Software

Custom software can be a significant investment for a company, both in terms of time and money. The cost of custom software development varies widely depending on a number of factors, such as the complexity of the project, the size of the development team, and the length of the development cycle. Some estimates suggest that the cost of custom software development can range from $50,000 for a basic project to $1,000,000 or more for a complex project. Additionally, ongoing maintenance and updates to the software can add to the overall cost. However, custom software can also bring significant benefits to a business, such as increased efficiency and the ability to adapt to changing business needs. Ultimately, the cost of custom software development should be weighed against the potential benefits it can bring to the organisation.

Development Costs 

This is the cost to develop your initial custom software. Included in this cost is requirements gathering and documentation (completed by a business analyst), project management costs (done by a project manager or coordinator), software development (which includes planning, writing code, graphics and user interface design), and quality assurance testing.

Maintenance

Any custom application is going to need to be maintained – over time bugs and software conflicts will arise that need to be addressed. Inevitably, new functionality will be needed to keep the solution up to date. For any custom solution, its necessary to budget for ongoing maintenance.

Hosting

Hosting is an ongoing cost for custom software. There are a few options for hosting (cloud or on a secure internal network), however in both cases, you need to consider your bandwidth requirements and your anticipated future growth. Increased traffic to your web application is good for business, but you need to make sure your hosting can deal with increases in traffic. Security is another important factor to consider with hosting. Depending on the type of data your application will store, there may be security requirements you need to meet. For example, banks and financial institutions need security measures to ensure Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance. E-commerce sites will need to implement a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocol, which is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The added security required for some applications may require a more costly hosting solution.

Security Patches and Version Updates

Inevitably, those inconvenient update messages on our devices happen. Sometimes they even force us to reboot our devices so they can be installed. Similarly updates occur within software languages and frameworks. Often these updates have additional features and security measures that are very beneficial for your software. Letting version updates linger can have negative consequences such as having to pay more for updates because your custom software is out of date, an inability to install the latest security patches, and the inability to add features or fix bugs.

Feature Upgrades 

As your custom software solution is being used by your customers or employees, their feedback will guide your decisions for feature upgrades. Feature upgrades improve the user experience and functionality of your software. You should continuously set aside a budget for ongoing feature upgrades for the lifespan of your custom software.