Cost Guide · 2026
What Custom Software
Actually Costs
Real price bands, what moves them, and the questions that stop a quote from turning into a bill.
01 — The Short Answer
Price Bands, Not Price Lists
No two custom projects cost the same, but bands are honest enough to budget from. These are billtime's published rates for 2026.
| What you are buying | Band |
|---|
| Starter plan - responsive site, 5 pages, WhatsApp, basic SEO | ₹4,999 / month |
| Growth plan - full-stack app, cloud hosting, AI chatbot, payments | ₹12,999 / month |
| Custom web application, fixed scope | ₹50,000 - ₹5,00,000 |
| Enterprise, dedicated team and SLA | from ₹25,000 / month |
| Mobile app (Flutter, both stores) | quoted per scope, 6-16 weeks |
| Maintenance, hosting and updates | from ₹2,999 / month |
02 — The Drivers
What Actually Moves the Price
Six things account for almost all the difference between two quotes for "the same" project.
- Number of roles and screens. A customer portal plus an admin panel plus a field app is three products sharing one database.
- Integrations. Payments, WhatsApp, SMS, shipping, accounting and GST tools each add setup, testing and failure handling.
- Data migration. Moving items, customers and history from Excel or a legacy tool is real engineering, not a copy-paste.
- Offline and mobile use. Field teams with poor connectivity need sync logic, conflict rules and devices tested.
- AI features. Chatbots and document OCR cost more when they must answer from your own catalogues with sources.
- Compliance and audit. Roles, logs, backups and encryption are cheap early and expensive to retrofit.
03 — The Model
Fixed Price or Monthly Plan
Pick the model that matches how sure you are of the scope - not the one that looks cheaper on the first invoice.
Fixed price suits
- The scope can be written on two pages and signed.
- You want a known number before anything starts.
- The build ends and your own team or a support plan takes over.
Monthly suits
- The product will keep changing after launch.
- Hosting, updates, fixes and features should be one predictable line item.
- You want the team that built it still accountable for it - plans start at ₹4,999 and ₹12,999 per month.
Most Indian SMEs end up blending the two: a fixed price for release one, then a monthly plan that carries hosting, maintenance and the next set of features. The blend keeps the first invoice predictable while the product keeps changing, and it keeps one team responsible for both what was built and what happens to it after launch. Ask for that structure explicitly - vendors rarely offer it unless you do.
04 — The Clock
Time Is in the Price, Not Beside It
Timelines are published too, and they explain more of a quote than any hourly rate.
- Simple websites: 2-4 weeks.
- Custom web applications: 4-12 weeks.
- Mobile apps on Flutter, both stores: 6-16 weeks.
- A working prototype in week 1, then demos every week - so a wrong assumption is found cheaply, in week two, not at handover.
The Kumar Textiles billing system in Coimbatore went from kickoff to live in three weeks, because the scope was clear and the data was ready. Speed is mostly preparation.
05 — The Traps
Costs People Forget to Budget
The build price is not the whole cost of owning software. Ask about these before you sign.
- Hosting and backups after go-live - Indian data centres, daily backups, monitoring.
- Maintenance - bug fixes, OS and library updates. From ₹2,999/month is typical for our builds.
- Change requests after scope freeze. Weekly demos exist so these stay small.
- Third-party fees - payment gateways, SMS, WhatsApp Business API, app store charges.
- Your own staff time for reviews, data cleaning and training. Budget hours for them or the project stalls.
06 — The Process
How to Budget in Three Steps
You do not need a finished specification. You need an honest first pass.
- Separate must-have from nice-to-have. Release one earns money; release two improves it. Price only release one today.
- Get a written scope, not a number. A price without screens, roles and integrations attached to it is a guess wearing a suit.
- Hold a contingency buffer for scope you discover during discovery - the good news is that weekly demos keep it small.
Bring all three to the first call: the must-have list, the data you already keep, and the hours your team currently spends doing the task by hand. That last number is usually what decides whether a project pays for itself - and it is the one thing no vendor can invent for you.
07 — The Red Flags
Six Warning Signs in a Quote
Cheapest is fine. Unclear is not.
- No written scope, just a lump-sum number in a WhatsApp message.
- Full payment before a prototype exists.
- "Unlimited changes" promised in writing - scope that vague always gets enforced later.
- No demo until launch day. You should see working software within the first two weeks.
- No clause saying you own your code, data and accounts.
- A timeline with no weekly checkpoints or demos.
08 — Next Step
Get a Real Number
Send us how your team works today - even if that is just paper registers and WhatsApp photos. We will send back a scope, a timeline and a price.
Free consultation, no obligation, reply within 24 hours. If a standard tool genuinely fits your process better than a custom build, we will say so on that call.
See how a billtime build runs View published pricing