Is a fixed price better than time and materials?

Fixed price is better for you when the scope is genuinely known, because the risk of getting the estimate wrong sits with the supplier. It is worse when the scope is still moving, because every change becomes a negotiation and the supplier is incentivised to say no. We scope properly first and then quote a fixed price for that scope, which is the arrangement that gives a buyer certainty without freezing the project.

What does bespoke software cost to run once it is built?

Budget for hosting, monitoring, backups and a support arrangement. For a system in the £15k to £25k band that is usually a modest monthly figure, and it buys you someone accountable when something breaks. The larger ongoing cost is usually change: a system that is used every day will generate improvement requests, and a business that budgets nothing for them ends up with software that slowly stops matching how it works.

Is bespoke software cheaper than a monthly subscription?

Over a long enough period, often yes, but that is the wrong test on its own. A subscription that fits your process well is good value at almost any price. The build case gets strong when the off-the-shelf tool does not fit, so you are paying a subscription and still doing manual work around it. Compare the build cost against the subscription plus the cost of the workarounds, not against the subscription alone.

Can I reduce the cost by doing some of it myself?

Yes, and the cheapest contribution is your time early on. Knowing your own process in detail, having decisions made by one person who can actually make them, and getting your data into a clean state before migration all remove real cost. Writing your own specification usually does not, because a specification written without knowing what is expensive to build tends to lock in the expensive version.

What should I be suspicious of in a quote?

A single number with no breakdown, no mention of what happens when the scope changes, and no line for testing, migration or handover. Also be wary of a quote that arrives without anybody having asked you difficult questions about your process, because it means the supplier has priced an assumption rather than your business.

Buyer's guide

How much does bespoke software cost?

Name: Turing IT
Address: Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, GB
Telephone: 01934 244 825
Price range: £££

A straight answer, then the part that actually matters: what drives the number, what you are paying for, and the ongoing costs most quotes leave out. Written to be useful even if you never hire us.

No sales gate
Real published bands
Supplier-neutral

Book a free process audit See our price bands

The short answer

Most bespoke business software for a UK SME lands between £15,000 and £60,000

That is the range we quote in, and it covers the great majority of projects a small or medium business actually needs: replacing a spreadsheet, replacing an unsupported legacy system, joining two systems together, or putting a portal in front of customers. A focused system that fixes one process sits at the bottom of it. A platform the whole operation runs on sits at the top, or above it.

Below that range you are usually not buying bespoke software, you are buying a configured off-the-shelf tool or a website, both of which can be exactly the right answer. Well above it you are into the territory where the cost is driven by scale, regulation or integration count rather than by the features themselves.

We publish our three bands, and what pushes a project from one to the next, on the bespoke software development page. The rest of this page is about how that number gets arrived at, which is the part that lets you judge anybody's quote, ours included.

The drivers

What actually moves the price

Almost none of it is the number of screens. These are the things that genuinely change a quote, roughly in order of how much they matter.

1
How many people use it, and how differently
One person doing one job is a small system. Five roles who each see different things, with an approval step between them, is a different build entirely. Permissions are where apparent simplicity goes to die.
2
How many other systems it has to talk to
Each integration is its own small project: an interface to build against, failures to handle, and two systems that disagree about what a customer is. One integration is routine. Four is a significant part of the budget.
3
The state of the data you are bringing
Clean, consistent data migrates cheaply. Fifteen years of a spreadsheet where the same customer is spelled four ways does not, and no amount of clever code makes that free.
4
How unusual your business rules are
Pricing that varies by material and area, a commission structure with exceptions, a workflow that changes in December. These are precisely why you are buying bespoke, and they are also what costs money. Worth it, but budget for it honestly.
5
Whether anyone outside the business gets access
The moment customers or suppliers log in, you inherit a higher standard for security, resilience and how it behaves on a phone. That is a real step up in cost, not a checkbox.
6
What you have to be able to prove
Audit trails, retention rules, sector regulation. If you might one day need to evidence who changed what and when, that has to be designed in rather than added later.

The breakdown

What you are actually paying for

If a proposal reads as one number for “development”, these are the parts hiding inside it. Ask which ones have been priced.

Working out what to build

Sitting with the people who do the job, mapping the process as it really runs rather than as the org chart says it does, and deciding what is in scope. Skipping this is the single most expensive false economy in software, because everything built on a wrong assumption gets built twice.

The build itself

The part everyone pictures, and usually less than half the total. Screens, business rules, the database underneath, the permissions that decide who sees what.

The unglamorous half

Validation, error handling, audit trails, backups, monitoring and the behaviour when something is unavailable. None of it demos well and all of it is why the system still works in year three.

Getting your data in

Migration from the spreadsheet, the old database or the twelve inboxes. Almost always messier than anyone expects, and priced properly or discovered painfully.

Testing and handover

Not just does it run, but does it do the right thing at month end and with a difficult record. Plus training, documentation, and the source code handed over so you are not dependent on anybody.

Someone accountable afterwards

Hosting, monitoring and a route to a human when something breaks on a Monday morning. A build with no support arrangement behind it is half a purchase.

How it is charged

The three pricing models, and who each one protects

Worth understanding before you compare quotes, because the model changes what the number means.

Fixed price

Protects the buyer, when scope is known

One number for an agreed scope. The supplier carries the risk of estimating wrong, which is why a sensible one will not quote it until they have scoped properly. The catch is that anything genuinely new becomes a change request.

Time and materials

Protects the supplier, and honest buyers

You pay for the time taken. Fair, flexible and the right model when nobody can yet know the shape of the work. It requires trust and a supplier who will tell you when to stop, so ask for a cap and regular reporting.

Retainer

For after launch, rarely for the build

A monthly amount buying a set amount of capacity, for support and continuous improvement. Sensible once a system is live and generating change requests. A poor fit for the initial build, where it can quietly become open-ended.

We scope first and then quote a fixed price for that scope, because it is the only arrangement that gives a buyer a real number without freezing the project the first time something changes.

The bit most quotes skip

What does it cost after it is built?

Software is not a capital purchase that sits in a corner depreciating. It runs somewhere, it needs someone accountable for it, and it will change, because a system people use every day generates ideas. Three things to have a number for before you sign anything:

Hosting, monitoring and backups. Where it runs and who notices at 3am. We host and monitor the systems we build, around the clock, because a system nobody is watching is a system that fails quietly.
Support. A route to somebody who can actually fix it, with an agreed response time. Ask what is included and what is billed, and get it in writing.
Change. The one people forget. Budget something annually for improvements, or accept that the software will slowly drift out of step with how the business works.

The reason to insist on these numbers up front is not that they are large. It is that a supplier who has not thought about them has probably not thought about what happens after handover either.

The maths

How to work out whether the number is worth paying

The comparison people reach for is bespoke against a subscription, and it is the wrong one, because it ignores what the subscription is costing you in work it does not do. The comparison that tells you something:

Cost of carrying on, per year

Hours a week lost to admin, re-keying, chasing information and correcting errors, costed honestly at what those people are paid. Plus any subscription you are paying for a tool that does not fit. Plus a realistic figure for what the mistakes cost you last year.

Against: the build, once, plus running it

A one-off number in the bands above, plus the annual running cost. Then look at how many years it takes to cross over. If the answer is two years or less, the decision usually makes itself. If it is six, be honest with yourself and keep the spreadsheet.

We would genuinely rather tell you the maths does not work than sell you a system you did not need. That is what the free process audit is: sixty minutes, usually on site, mapping what actually happens and where the hours go, ending in a straight answer.

Book a free process audit Should you build or buy?

Questions

Common questions about cost

Because they are rarely quoting the same thing. One supplier has assumed a rough shape and will discover the rest as they go; another has scoped it properly and priced the parts the first one has not thought about yet. Data migration, permissions, testing and handover are the usual gaps. A cheap quote and an expensive quote for the same brief usually differ in what has been left out, not in the hourly rate.

Want a real number for your project?

Tell us the process you want to fix and we will tell you honestly what it would cost, and whether it is worth doing. Call 01934 244 825 or book the free audit.

Book a free process audit