The cost of a custom web application is the cost of the first workflow that has to work, the number of roles who use it, and the other systems it has to talk to. Feature lists are a weak way to price this work, because two “dashboards” can differ by a month of engineering.
A useful first release has one primary user, one job they can finish, and an admin path for the person who operates it. Accounts, permissions, file uploads, payments, and a migration from a spreadsheet are what move the quote. Each one is ordinary. Together they are the project.
What to ask a developer to price
- Who logs in, and who is never allowed to see a record
- The one task the first release must complete
- Which existing tool must receive or send data
- What is explicitly out of the first release
If you cannot answer those, you are not ready for a fixed price, and a serious team will say so. Market Shark IT writes that scope before build. The service is described on our custom web applications page.
A marketing website is a different quote. Do not let a vendor price a portal as if it were a homepage, or a homepage as if it were a product. Websites are scoped on the web development page.
