When figuring out whether you should buy or build software, you might think that a big con to building is the cost. Most people associate anything custom with being expensive.
While the sticker price for custom software might seem like a big expense upfront, there are so many other long-term factors to consider that may actually show that custom software is a reasonable and necessary investment:
- Your processes are optimized for your business. To change them would result in inefficiencies and an overhaul of how things work in your organization, but you can’t find a good solution that will adjust to your requirements instead of the other way around.
- You plan on scaling and don’t currently have the infrastructure to support that in the most efficient way possible.
- You have people and resources dedicated to tedious work like updating spreadsheets, databases, or even documents on a consistent basis. (Find out why spreadsheets are costing you time and money.)
- You don’t have the know-how internally to create custom software, including development, business analysis, quality assurance, UX/UI, project management, and all of the other specialties that are needed to create effective and successful software.
These are just a few reasons why custom software could actually SAVE you money in the long run. But how can you get an idea of how much it will cost?
What Factors to Consider
Before you can determine a cost, take these factors into consideration:
- How many screens do you think your application will need? (Each time a page refreshes or changes, or a user clicks to a different page, that counts as a new screen.)
- How many reports will the application produce?
- How many other systems will your application need to share data with?
- What major functionality do you need?
Don’t expect to nail a specific budget number at first, instead, aim for a range. Your custom software development team needs to determine what it will take to solve the problems you want to be solved and what can be reasonably accomplished with those resources.
Learn More
Still need help figuring out what it will cost to develop your custom software? We’d love to sit down with you and chat about whether you should build or buy, what needs you have, and how we can help accomplish this project.
Request a free 20-minute phone consultation with use today to get started.