How much does a custom software project cost for a small business?

The short version

For a small business or nonprofit hiring an outside team in the U.S., most custom software projects we see land in one of three brackets:

• $8,000 – $25,000 — a focused internal tool, a single integration, a small portal. One core workflow, modest data, light auth.
• $30,000 – $90,000 — a real application replacing several spreadsheets and email chains. Multiple user roles, integrations with at least one external system, dashboards.
• $100,000 – $250,000+ — a product or operational platform your business depends on. Multi-tenant, billing, mobile, deep integrations, audit logs, the works.

Hourly rates for senior engineering in this market generally run $125–$225/hour. Offshore firms quote less; you usually find out why during the first round of bug fixes.

What actually drives the price

The number of screens is a poor proxy for cost. The things that actually move the budget are:

• Integrations. Every external system you have to connect to — QuickBooks, Stripe, Salesforce, a legacy ERP, an EHR — adds real time. Authentication alone for some of these can eat a week.
• User roles and permissions. "Admins, staff, and clients each see different things" is roughly 2× the work of a single-role app.
• Data complexity. A flat list of records is cheap. Records with versions, approvals, soft deletes, and audit trails is not.
• Compliance. HIPAA, PCI, SOC 2 readiness, or even just "donor data has to stay in the U.S." each carry both engineering and ongoing operational cost.
• Real-time requirements. "Updates appear immediately for everyone" is a different architecture than "refresh and you'll see the change."
• Mobile. A responsive web app is one project. A real iOS/Android app with offline sync is another project on top of it.
• Polish. A functional internal tool and a polished customer-facing product can have the same feature list and a 3× cost difference. Polish is real engineering.

Three example budgets, with what you get for the money

These are illustrative scenarios — not real clients, but composites of projects we and others in the industry quote regularly.

Scenario 1 — A regional coffee roaster's wholesale order portal. ~$22,000. The owner is tired of taking wholesale orders by text message and email. They want their café and restaurant customers to log in, see their custom price list, place a recurring weekly order, and have that order flow into the existing fulfillment spreadsheet. One user type (wholesale customer), one integration (the existing Google Sheet), Stripe for payment, no mobile app. Roughly six weeks of senior engineering, including a week of polish and onboarding the first five customers.

Scenario 2 — A 14-person dental practice's patient intake and scheduling system. ~$65,000. Three user roles (patient, front desk, dentist). Patients fill out intake forms on their phone before the appointment; the front desk sees flagged forms; the dentist sees a clean summary in the room. Integrates with the practice management system via a vendor API and pushes reminders through Twilio. HIPAA-aware design (BAAs, encryption at rest, access logs). About four months of work for a small team, with a follow-up retainer for ongoing changes.

Scenario 3 — A nonprofit's case-management platform across 12 program sites. ~$180,000. Case workers track families across enrollment, services, and outcomes. Five roles, role-based access to client records, an offline-capable mobile app for home visits, dashboards for funders, exports for annual grant reports, and SSO with the org's Microsoft 365. About nine months end-to-end, plus a dedicated post-launch support agreement. This replaces three SaaS subscriptions and roughly 40 hours of weekly manual reporting.

The line item most quotes hide: maintenance

Custom software is a living system. Browsers update, dependencies issue security patches, the IRS changes a form, an integration partner deprecates an API. A reasonable rule of thumb:

• Hosting and infrastructure — usually $20–$300/month at this scale, often closer to the low end on a modern platform.
• Ongoing maintenance — budget 15–25% of the original build cost per year. A $60,000 build typically needs $9,000–$15,000/year just to stay healthy.
• New features and enhancements — separate from maintenance. Most clients spend somewhere between 10% and 50% of the build cost per year extending the system, depending on appetite.

If a vendor quotes you a flat number with no mention of post-launch support, ask them what happens when something breaks in month four. The answer will tell you whether you're buying software or a one-night stand.

How to budget before you ever talk to a vendor

You don't need a specification to get a useful estimate. You need:

• The problem in one paragraph. Not the solution. The thing that's costing time or money today.
• The people involved. Who uses the software, what they're doing now, and what they'd do differently.
• The integrations you can name. List the systems the new tool has to talk to.
• A budget range, even rough. Tell vendors what you can spend. The good ones will tell you honestly if it's enough.
• A definition of "done" for v1. What's the smallest version you'd actually use?

A serious estimate takes a 60–90 minute conversation, not a three-line form. If you're trying to size this out, our first call is free — bring those five items and we'll give you a real range.