The Cost of Custom Software Development: Factors to Consider

Every business is unique, and it is this uniqueness that help them gaining competitive advantage and it also attracts more customers. It is very obvious that businesses belongs to same industry must be selling almost similar products, however, most of the business leaders are agreed that every business took a different evolutionary path which is why every business has a distinct organizational culture, internal processes, workflows, mechanisms to deal with obstacles, strategies, policies and even goals. And the markets in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other cities of UAE are moving in a direction which will further amplify this diversification. Business leader all around the world encourage such evolution and encourage innovation. This proves that every business could have different business needs and internal workflows which demand a software solution that not only aligns with their unique business needs but also be supportive for their emerging needs and could remain relevant for coming years as well. The traditional off-the-shelf software solutions fell short in meeting unique business needs, as these solutions are designed for masses considering industry standards and popular trends. There is very little to no room for customization. However, the custom software development provides a tailor-made software solution which fully aligns with your unique business needs and requirements.

Why Businesses Prefer Custom Software Development over Off-the-shelf Solutions?

Over the time the custom software development have become an essential component of a business to support their growth by driving efficiency, performance and productivity. The custom software development is also considered more cost effective comparing to commercial off-the-shelf solutions. The off-the-shelf solutions offer very little customization, and that too is very expensive. However, a business can mold their custom software whenever they want and however they want. Unlike cloud-based or off-the-shelf solutions, the businesses owns the proprietary and full ownership rights to their customized software solution. Which also give them more security and allow them to host their crucial data with themselves. The off-the-shelf solutions evolve slowly, unless some requirement have become universal usually the vendors don’t include them However businesses can make any change any time to their custom software to maintain optimum level of efficiency and efficacy. All these advantages are turning most of the business in UAE to custom software development.

How much Custom Software Development Costs?

On an average a custom software tool could cost you from very humble AED 20,000 to a whooping AED 250,000 or it could be even more. The cost of a custom software development project depends on your requirements, needs, choice of platform, and even the choice of development team. Different experts charge on different rates, some would charge you AED 50 to AED 200 per hour, some might charge you even more, and it mainly depends on their expertise and level of experience and also on your technology choice. When it comes to custom software development, businesses often make several mistakes which later on cause them to pay more than they needed to. In this blog we will discuss the key factors that influence the cost of custom software development project and how businesses can be more mindful to minimize the cost and maximize the ROI of their custom software development project. Another important thing to consider is that you would be needing the maintenance service for your software as well. Usually business need at least one to three years of service, support, and maintenance for any particular customized software solution and that too should be considered during cost estimation.

Important Factors That Influence the Cost of Custom Software Development

There are several factors that can influence the overall cost of your custom software development. However, it is important to learn what those factors are and how you can optimize them to minimize your cost. Here are the most influential factors that would mainly determine the cost of your custom software development project:

Cost of Custom Software Development: Software Complexity

This is one of the major and most influential factor in determining the cost and planning of your custom software development project. If you are a small business or a startup, and you need to streamline an internal process, you would be needing a simple application, but if you are a large business, operating in many regions with multiple branches, then for the same purpose your software application would be much complex. The software complexity is usually determined by the software size, number of functions it has, number of users and user roles, and integration needs. For example, if you need to build a corporate website, it would have a homepage, some products/services pages and contact us page with a contact form and Google Map integration, however, if you need a SaaS ERP solution, that would be 100 times more complex and sophisticated than a humble website.

Usually the software complexity is classified in three groups:

Software Complexity – Basic: Fewer features, less users, and small size. It could cost you around AED 20,000 to somewhere around AED 40,000
Software Complexity – Medium/Average: Lots of features, user roles, multiple user groups, and comparatively large software size. It could cost your around AED 40,000 to AED 200,000
Software Complexity – High: Tons of features, dedicated dashboards, complex user roles, diverse user base, advanced technologies, highly sophisticated structure, large-scale integration and extremely large software size. It could cost your around AED 200,000 to AED 500,000+

Important Factors That Influence the Cost of Custom Software Development

Furthermore the user type of the software can also increase or decrease its complexity. For example, if a software is meant to be utilized by an internal team, let say the HR staff, that software might not be usable for a layman. However, if a business is offering some services from their online portal, that customer portal would be used by people with different levels of technical proficiencies and in some cases you might have to make it multi-lingual, however, for the HRMS or a tool for HR might not require that kind of simplicity. Therefore there are multiple factors that can add up to a software’s complexity or sophistication. The number of required functionalities could also make your custom software development lengthier and complex. It is not only about the number of functionalities but how these functionalities are working would impact the complexity of a software application. For example, a certain feature which requires a simple mathematical problems let say, calculating percentage is a simple function, however, a function that requires the software to communicate with other databases and interact with other software would be complex and complicated. So all these factors will determine the complexity of a software and the complexity of the software will influence the price of your custom software development project.

Cost of Custom Software Development: Software Complexity

Cost of Custom Software Development: Development Team

The software development team that you chose for your custom software development project could also make huge difference in the cost of the project. There are several factors that are important to understand the cost of the development team. For example, here in UAE businesses usually have two choices, on-shore team or off-shore team. There is a big difference between the pricing/rates of companies that are located inside the UAE or are from outside such as from India, Pakistan, or any other Asian country. This can make a huge difference, but it is also important that your agreement is only secured with the company or business that is located inside the UAE. Other off-shore software development agencies will most likely asked you for upfront. If you are hiring a team consisting of highly experienced developers then the cost would obviously be very high. This can be optimized based on the complexity of your software application. If you need a simple one you can chose a mid-level agency or team who can offer you best price without compromising on the quality. There is another most important factor, for example, if you need a CRM and the team you are hiring is specialized in developing webapps, then they cost would be high. The team is very much capable of building a CRM but they are not specialized in it, so they will take more time and they had to do more efforts to deliver it which will obviously increase your cost. So it is important to choose a team wisely and do some research to optimize the cost of your custom software development project.

Cost of Custom Software Development: Technology and Platform

Another most important thing to consider is the technology and platform that you are choosing. If we take an example of mobile apps, the native apps are always expensive and the hybrid apps cost you less. For native apps, you will have to have different developer for both Android and iOS. However, a single team can build a hybrid app for both of the platforms, this is why the native apps are expensive and the hybrid apps are very cost-effective. Similar if you need a web-app that would be cheaper than building a software tool for Windows OS or Linux OS. If you need a software solution then you must chose the platforms wisely because this could have a huge impact on the cost. Furthermore if we talk about the technology it is the tools and programing platforms. For example, the .NET and PHP are two widely used technologies for the backend development and widely popular not only in UAE but all around the world. Typically most of the developers chose to work with PHP this means the PHP developers are widely available in the market, however, the .NET developers are less. This also means that the per hour cost of a PHP developer would be lower than the .NET developer and this could have a huge impact on your overall cost. Therefore when you are choosing the platform and technology you should chose the ones that are more common and easily available in the market.

Conclusion

The customized software solutions are very common these days. Businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all around the UAE are turning towards custom software development to meet their exclusive and unique business needs. It is important for a business to stand out of crowd in a competitive market. And businesses tend to be different and unique from others even though they operate in a same industry or offer similar kind of products and services. This is the reason every business have their own unique needs, requirements, preferences, internal processes, workflows and even the entire organizational culture. The off-the-shelf software solutions are not designed for individual businesses, in fact these tools and apps are designed for masses based on industry standards and popular market trend. That is the reason the off-the-shelf software solutions failed to fully align with your business needs. Furthermore the businesses keep evolving and growing, a good software solutions must have to be able to support growth. That is only possible with a customized software solutions that is tailor-made for your needs and you have full control and authority over it. The custom software development is a crucial but expensive process. It requires a lot of research, patience and budget. However, some businesses due to lack of understanding of the custom software development process, eventually end up paying more for what they bargained for.

In this blog we have listed the most important and most influential factors that determine the cost of a custom software development project. If you follow the tips above and understand all these factors you can easily optimize the cost of your next custom software development project. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help with your next custom software development project, please feel free to contact us though our Contact Us page or leave a comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.