What it costs
What custom software and AI work actually costs
Published build ranges run from roughly $25,000 for a narrow MVP to $400,000 or more for an enterprise platform, and the average custom software project ran about $132,000 and took 13 months. Those are published market figures, not ours, and the rest of this page is about why the spread between them is so wide and what the number actually depends on.
There is no rate card here, and you should be wary of one anywhere else. A firm that can quote your project before understanding the requirement is quoting a different project.
What follows is the published market evidence: how far apart quotes for the same brief land, what a build figure leaves out, and the one thing that reliably keeps a project inside its budget. Every number names its source.
The same brief, quoted ten times apart
This is the first thing to understand, because it explains why no honest number exists before scope does. Take one brief to several firms and the quotes will not cluster.
What one brief gets quoted at
The span between the cheapest and the most expensive quote for the same requirement, with the market average marked.
A ten times spread is not evidence that somebody is lying. It is evidence that each firm is quoting a different project, because the brief did not say enough to pin one down. The cheap quote is usually narrower, excludes integration, or prices a demonstration rather than something your business can run on. Comparing those two numbers is not comparing like with like, and the decision that follows from the comparison is wrong.
The number you are quoted is not the number you pay
A build quote covers building it. Most of what the software costs you arrives after it works, and it arrives every year.
Build cost as a share of five year ownership
What the quote covers, against what the software costs you over five years.
Annual maintenance commonly runs 15 to 25 percent of the original build cost, every year, which is the single most consistent figure in this category: five independent publishers land in the same band. Integration with the systems you already run is the other large omission, and it is the most frequent cause of overrun.
The two costs most often left out of a build figure
Both expressed as a percentage of the initial development cost.
Integration with existing systems, one off
Maintenance, every year after launch
For AI work the gap is wider still, because inference is charged by use and so the bill grows when the thing succeeds. Published figures put the 24 month total at 1.6 to 2.2 times the build cost once inference and retraining are counted.
One thing reliably predicts whether it lands on budget
Not the firm you pick, and not the technology. Whether the requirement was worked out before anyone committed to building it.
How far over budget projects land
Projects that defined the requirement first, against projects that went straight to building.
Skipped discovery
Did discovery first
Worth saying plainly: that figure is published by a firm that sells discovery, and we are a firm that would do the same work. Treat the direction as sound and the exact numbers as indicative. It is quoted here because it is the clearest published statement of an effect that the overrun data supports independently, not because the source is disinterested.
Five questions to ask before you sign anything
These work on us as well as on anyone else, and they are the fastest way to tell a scoped project from a hopeful one.
- 01
What is the three year total, split into build, running and change?
A quote that covers only the build is not a cost, it is a deposit. A firm that cannot produce the three year figure has scoped a demonstration rather than a project.
- 02
What is excluded, in writing?
Testing, monitoring, integration and post launch support are where a low number hides its real cost. Get the exclusions listed rather than described.
- 03
Who maintains this in year two, and have they been told?
The answer is revealing more often than it should be. A system nobody has been assigned to is a system that degrades quietly.
- 04
What happens to the number if the requirement changes?
Requirements always change. What matters is whether the contract treats that as a costed change with an agreed rate, or as an argument.
- 05
What would make you tell me not to build this?
If a firm has no answer, they have no criteria, and you are the one carrying the risk of a project that should not have started.
Questions people ask about cost
- How much does custom software development cost?
- Published build ranges run from roughly $25,000 for a narrow MVP to $400,000 or more for an enterprise platform. The average custom software project ran about $132,000 and took 13 months. Those numbers are close to useless on their own, because the same brief is routinely quoted at $40,000 by one firm and $400,000 by another. What the figure actually depends on is scope, the state of the data the system has to read, how many existing systems it must integrate with, and how wrong the software is allowed to be.
- Why do quotes for the same project vary so much?
- Because the brief is usually underspecified, so each firm is quoting a different project. A low quote often assumes a narrower scope, excludes integration, testing, monitoring and post launch support, or prices a demonstration rather than a production system. The spread is a signal that the requirement is not yet defined, not that one firm is dishonest.
- What does a build quote usually leave out?
- Integration with the systems you already run. Integration work commonly runs 35 to 50 percent of initial development cost and is the most frequent source of overrun. Then everything after launch: annual maintenance commonly runs 15 to 25 percent of the original build cost, every year, so initial build cost rarely exceeds 35 percent of five year total cost of ownership. For AI specifically, AI deployments routinely reach 1.6 to 2.2 times the build cost over 24 months once inference and retraining are counted.
- How long does custom software take to build?
- A focused MVP takes roughly 8 to 14 weeks, a full web application 3 to 6 months, and enterprise work 6 to 18 months. Build projects run about 38 percent over on cost and 42 percent over on timeline on average, so treat any quoted date as a best case unless the scope is genuinely fixed.
- How do I avoid overpaying for custom software?
- Define the requirement before you ask for a number. Projects that did real discovery before committing land within about 10 to 15 percent of budget, while projects that skipped it run 30 to 60 percent over. Ask every firm for the three year total broken into build, running and change rather than the build figure alone, and ask what is excluded in writing.
- Does Talavishiraaj Groups publish its rates?
- No. Any firm that can quote your project before understanding the requirement is quoting a different project. We scope the work first and then give you a fixed number for it, and we will tell you when the work does not justify itself before a proposal exists. Describe your situation and you will get a straight answer on cost for your case.
On these figures
Most published cost data in this category is produced by firms that sell the work, so it is not disinterested. Each figure above links to where it came from so you can judge it yourself. Where several independent publishers agree, that is noted. Ranges are quoted as ranges because that is how they were published, and a single number would be a false precision. The build versus buy framework works through the same decision without a number attached.
Want the number for your case?
Describe what you are trying to build and we will tell you what it would take, what it would cost, and whether it is worth doing at all. Book a call or send a few lines, whichever you prefer.