What custom software costs in 2026: our real price ranges
Most software agencies won't put a number on their website. You fill in a form, wait for a call, and only then find out whether the project was ever in your budget. We think that wastes everyone's time, so this post lists the ranges we actually quote, what each one covers, and what moves a project up or down within its range. All prices are in US dollars and are the same ranges shown on our service pages.
The short version
Business process automation: $5,000 to $12,000
Startup websites: $8,000 to $12,000, built in 4 to 6 weeks
Custom business websites: $10,000 to $15,000
MVPs: $12,000 to $20,000, built in 4 to 8 weeks
AI implementation: $15,000 to $25,000
Custom business applications: $20,000 to $25,000
Mobile apps (iOS and Android): $20,000 to $25,000, built in 8 to 12 weeks
Those are typical projects, not floors or ceilings. A very small automation can cost less, and a large platform with many integrations can cost more. Every project gets a written proposal with a fixed scope, milestones, cost and timeline before any code is written.
Business process automation: $5,000 to $12,000
This is usually the cheapest place to start, because it connects the tools you already pay for instead of replacing them. Typical work: routing website leads into your CRM, syncing inventory between systems, generating invoices when a deal closes, and building reports that send themselves instead of being assembled by hand every Friday.
The price depends mostly on how many systems are involved and how reliable their APIs are. Two well-documented tools talking to each other sits at the low end. Several systems, including an older one without a proper API, sits at the high end.
Websites: $8,000 to $15,000
A startup website, $8,000 to $12,000 and 4 to 6 weeks, is a focused marketing site that explains the product and converts visitors. A custom business website, $10,000 to $15,000, is a larger build with a headless CMS your team can edit, more pages and technical SEO built in. Both are custom-built rather than templates, which is where the price difference with a $2,000 theme comes from: speed, flexibility and a site that doesn't look like hundreds of others.
MVPs: $12,000 to $20,000
An MVP is the smallest version of a product that real users can sign up for and use, built in 4 to 8 weeks. The range depends on how many user types the product has, whether it needs payments, and which integrations it can't launch without. The most useful thing a founder can do to stay at the low end is to be strict about what is not in version one.
AI implementation: $15,000 to $25,000
This covers practical AI inside a business: assistants that answer from your own documents and data, and agents that carry out multi-step tasks across your tools. Most of the cost is not the AI model itself. It is the work around it: cleaning and connecting your data so the AI has something accurate to draw on, connecting it to the systems it needs to act in, and testing it so it gives grounded answers instead of confident guesses.
Custom business applications: $20,000 to $25,000
CRMs, client portals, inventory systems, workforce apps and internal dashboards, built around how your team actually works. For one client, WCC, we built a single platform that replaced five separate tools. Their manager credits it with a 40% increase in productivity and full visibility of their workforce.
Four things decide where an application lands in the range:
Integrations: every system it connects to, such as a CRM, ERP or accounting software, needs its own API work and testing.
User roles: each kind of user, from admins and staff to drivers and clients, needs its own screens and permissions.
Your data: moving spreadsheet or legacy data into the new system, and cleaning it on the way, is work in its own right.
Devices and AI features: a mobile-first app for field staff, or AI features, adds work beyond a desktop dashboard.
Mobile apps: $20,000 to $25,000
Cross-platform apps for iOS and Android from one codebase, built in 8 to 12 weeks. The same drivers apply as for business applications, plus app store submission and the extra testing that comes with running on many different phones.
Is custom worth it, or should you buy off the shelf?
Often off-the-shelf is the right call. If your process is standard, such as bookkeeping, payroll or email, a subscription will almost always be cheaper than building your own. Custom starts to pay off when:
your team keeps spreadsheets on the side to fill the gaps in the software you pay for;
you pay for several tools that don't share data, and staff copy information between them by hand;
per-user subscription fees keep climbing as your team grows;
how you operate is part of your edge, and you don't want a vendor's roadmap deciding how it works.
If your tools each do their job but don't talk to each other, automation at $5,000 to $12,000 may be all you need, and it is worth ruling that out before paying for a full custom build.
How we turn a range into a fixed price
Every project starts with a 30-minute discovery call. If it is a fit, we follow up with a written proposal that fixes scope, milestones, cost and timeline, so you know the number before anything is built. Nothing is signed on the call.
If you are a New Jersey business weighing up a custom build, see our software development services in New Jersey, or book a discovery call and we'll tell you where your project is likely to land.