Have your own software developed: Costs & Advantages

Software development costs vary widely. If you are considering having custom software developed, you should quickly get an idea of the costs and benefits of your software application. Completely different factors affect the cost structure. Through clever handling and planning of software projects, costs can be positively influenced and reduced.

• The biggest advantage to custom software is that it can be tailored exactly to the needs of your business. The software is designed from the ground up and specifically tailored to your requirements.
• With custom software development, your company can clearly regulate by contract how the software will be developed and operated. As a rule, the concept and the developed software are the property of the contracting company. All rights therefore remain with you and you can decide autonomously about the future of your solution.
• An individual software solution often helps you to achieve a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and thus more success. This USP also increases the value of your organization and it is therefore advantageous to own all rights to such a software solution.

Over the past 20 years, soxes has developed custom software for many companies in Switzerland and can therefore draw on empirical values.

The cost of custom software development is influenced by a variety of factors and consists of two components:

1. Initial costs: costs for conception, development and introduction of a software. These can vary greatly depending on the complexity and usually range between CHF 20,000 and CHF 200,000.
2. Operating costs: Costs incurred for the operation and maintenance of the software after implementation. Here the costs vary depending on the service level agreement.

As an organization, having custom software developed can be costly. Often an organization is faced with the question of whether a solution should be implemented individually or on the basis of standard software (e.g. SAP). The price-performance ratio is often better when an individual solution is implemented by a professional company. Nevertheless, the cost-benefit ratio should be kept in mind right from the start.

We would be happy to provide you with an individual cost estimate that fits your requirements. Please contact us without obligation.

Software complexity

If you as an organization have your own software developed, the complexity is the first aspect that significantly influences the costs. The degree of complexity is determined by the requirements of the software solution.

As soon as the software application has to cope with complex analyses, evaluations, calculations and security requirements, we speak of high complexity. High-quality programming work is required.

With the necessary analysis procedures, as well as a large portion of experience
For this reason, the solution is already systematically structured and described in the detailed design phase.

Software scope and design

The number of entities, attributes, functions and screens of a software solution influence how much time is needed to build the wireframes and the design. Depending on your company’s requirements for application design, prices will vary. We recommend an experienced interaction designer especially for the design of application which will be used by your end customers.

Software system integrations

Depending on how many interfaces to other systems your solution provides, different amounts of time are needed for the integration of third party systems. If a ready-made interface already exists for the integration of a system, the effort is usually considerably less. However, extensive testing is also required in this case.

Customer-specific links to possibly in-house or other systems are programming in themselves. The conception of the logic, the software development of the interface as well as the testing then become a considerable sub-project of your software development.

Software migration

Migration involves the development and deployment of custom scripts that process the data from the old system so that it can be properly interpreted and processed by the new system.

Working out the “translation logic”, writing the scripts, and testing and performing the migration can also take considerable time.

A migration from an old to a new system is usually performed several times to ensure that everything has been transferred.

Software development costs vary widely. If you are considering having custom software developed, you should get an idea of the costs and benefits of your software application as soon as possible. To do this, sit down with experienced software developers and system architects for software.

When choosing your development partner, it pays to play it safe. Since many software development projects are strategically important, we advise you to let only proven professionals design and develop your software. In addition to more than 20 years of experience, soxes can show an ISO certification in the field of software development.

We will be happy to advise you on the costs of your individual software project. Contact us for a non-binding initial consultation.

Would you like to learn more about the competences of soxes in the area of individual software development or about our approach in general?

We wish you a good read and are happy to answer any questions you may have!