How much does custom software cost in 2026?

You ask for a price. You get a wide range back, and you leave no better informed.

This is not a lack of transparency. The price of custom software depends on what you ask it to do, exactly as the price of a house depends on its size and its foundations.

Here are the real ranges, the calculation nobody runs, and the honest moment where it starts paying for itself, or does not.

The real market numbers in 2026

Most ranges you find online are theoretical. The ones below come from a French barometer built on 184 real project budgets, with data through June 2026. We quote it in euros and name where it comes from on purpose: it is the only benchmark we found built on work actually commissioned rather than on a published rate card, and dressing it up as US data would be dishonest.

The median software project comes in at €30,000. Half cost less, half cost more. The average runs past €51,000, pulled up by a minority of six-figure platforms, which is why the median describes the ordinary project and the average does not.

Two markers closer to you:

• For a small or mid-sized company, the observed median drops to €20,000.
• A business application, meaning an internal tool built around one precise use, sits at a €20,000 median as well, within a €10,000 to €50,000 range.

Above that the shift is clear. A structured platform, wired into your existing systems and built to last, starts around €50,000 and often passes €100,000.

The market then reads as three worlds, and knowing which one you are in beats any wide range:

Put another way, close to one project in three passes €50,000, and one in seven clears €100,000. If someone offers you a complete platform for a few thousand, that is not a bargain: it is almost always a stack of existing tools with no architecture behind it.

US figures run higher than these European ones on every survey we looked at. We have not found one we could read at the source, so we are not quoting a number we cannot stand behind.

At Lunnar, the entry point is $15,000, for a focused business tool, designed around one precise need rather than rebuilding everything at once.

If those numbers are out of reach for now, that is not the only door: a website package with published pricing answers a different need, being online fast with no cash upfront.

These figures say nothing about what makes them move. The next part is what actually matters.

One useful clarification: these ranges cover the design and build, not the upkeep that follows. Custom software lives on after it goes live, exactly as a website or a commercial space needs upkeep once built.

What makes the price move

The price of custom software depends on three main factors: the scope of what it has to do, the number of integrations with your existing tools, and the level of security and compliance your data requires.

Scope. A tool that automates a quote does not cost the same as a platform handling quotes, invoicing, scheduling and client follow-up. The wider the scope, the more decisions to make, edge cases to handle, tests to run.

Integrations. Connecting your tool to your accounting software, your bank, a payment service or an existing business tool takes specific work for each connection. Every integration adds design and testing time.

Security and sensitive data. A tool handling health data, payments or sensitive personal information needs a higher level of protection, thought through from the architecture onward. It is not an option added at the end, it is built into the foundations.

A serious quote spells out these three points. If it does not, the number does not mean anything yet.

A fourth factor, less visible, also plays a part: the time spent upfront understanding your business before proposing anything. A project badly framed at the start almost always costs more to correct along the way than a project framed properly on day one.

The calculation nobody runs: three years of your subscriptions

Before comparing a custom quote to “free”, you have to count what you already pay. Most businesses never do, because each subscription, on its own, looks small.

A number to place things: a company runs 106 online applications on average, down from 112 two years earlier (BetterCloud, State of SaaS 2025, around 600 IT professionals surveyed). All company sizes pooled, so it describes an average company, not yours. Even counting only the five or six tools covering the process that hurts today (invoicing, client follow-up, scheduling), add up their monthly subscriptions over 36 months.

Then add the time spent, every week, making those tools talk to each other, retyping by hand what should flow on its own, fixing duplicates. That time has a cost, even if it appears on no invoice.

That total, over 3 years, often goes past what you expected. And at the end of the 3 years, you still own nothing: you keep paying, or you stop and lose access.

Custom software flips that mechanism. You invest once, and the rent that climbs with your sales stops: your data stays yours, no commission comes off your sales, and nobody can change or pull the tool out from under you. Handing over the source code is a priced option, decided at the quote.

When custom starts paying for itself

Custom starts paying for itself when the cumulative cost of your current tools, subscriptions and lost time included, goes past what a tool designed once for your precise need would cost over a few years. Below a certain level of use, that math does not work in its favor, and that deserves to be said plainly.

If your business is still finding its shape, if your processes change every quarter, or if your data and user volume stay low, an off-the-shelf tool is probably still the right call for now. Investing $15,000 or more in a tool designed for a need that will have changed in six months is not an investment, it is a bet.

Custom makes sense when the need is stable, repeated, and off-the-shelf tools start showing their limits. Our article on the limits of no-code covers the concrete signals of that switch.

A simple way to decide: list your current subscriptions tied to one process, add up their cost over 3 years, and add an estimate of the time spent each week making them work together. If that total already goes past what a focused tool designed for that precise process would cost, the question is worth asking seriously.

What a serious quote must contain

A quote for custom software must spell out the exact scope (what the tool does, and what it does not), the planned integrations, the level of security retained, the delivery milestones, and what happens after it goes live.

It must also state, in writing, who owns the code and the data once the project is delivered. If that question has no clear answer, ask it before signing.

In short, before signing, check that the quote answers these points clearly:

• The exact scope: what the tool does, and what it does not
• The planned integrations with your current tools
• The level of security retained for your data
• The delivery milestones, with stages you can approve along the way
• What happens after go-live (maintenance, changes)
• Who owns the code and the data at the end

A quote that stays vague on one of these is not necessarily dishonest. But it is a sign the question is worth asking before committing, not after.

Our method covers how that scope gets built, upfront, before any pricing: immersion in your business, structuring the architecture, building in visible milestones, then going live. That design work is precisely what separates a tool that holds up in five years from a project coded in a rush, as we cover in our article on designing versus coding.

To give an idea of what that scope covers, we show examples of what we design.

If you want to weigh up your own situation, the best next step is to talk it through with us, rather than guessing at a number from an article.

Frequently asked questions

Can custom software be paid in instalments?

Yes, and it is the rule rather than the exception. Payment is structured in milestones: a share at the start, the rest spread across deliveries, so you pay as the work comes out and never everything up front.

With us the split is 40% on signature, then the balance across successive deliveries. Payment plans are possible beyond that, always with at least 40% paid at the start: that share funds the design phase, where the architecture gets decided, and it happens before a single line of code is written.

Ask any agency you talk to. A firm that wants the full amount up front, or everything at the very end, is telling you something about how it works.

Is maintenance included in the starting price?

No, they are two separate items, and it is worth checking before you sign: a quote that stays silent on maintenance does not remove the cost, it defers it.

Custom software lives on after go-live. It has to be hosted, monitored, backed up, and those backups have to be restored to prove they work. Things break and get fixed, security updates keep coming. With us all of that sits in a monthly subscription set at the quote, known before you start rather than discovered along the way.

A new feature, on the other hand, is not maintenance: it gets designed and priced separately, by the people who already know your platform. One more signal to watch on a quote is the absence of testing. Reliable software gets tested, and a budget that never mentions it simply moves that spending into maintenance, once you have signed.

Do I own the code at the end of the project?

Your data, yes, without conditions. The source code is a priced option: it is taken at the quote with a higher price, or requested after twelve months on a separate quote. It grants a license to use your platform, and we keep our know-how and our generic development tools, the ones that existed before your project.

Without that option, what you get is still solid: your tool is used by nobody else, the price does not climb with your growth, and no vendor changes the rules on you. Always ask for that clarification in writing, with us as with anyone else.

Why does Lunnar start at $15,000?

That amount matches a focused business tool, designed around one precise need rather than rebuilding all your processes at once.

It sits deliberately below the market markers. Across the 184 real budgets in the French barometer quoted above, a business application has a €20,000 median, and so does a project run by a small or mid-sized company. US surveys put their own market higher still. A $15,000 entry is a first accessible step, not a premium rate: what it buys is a scope kept tight around one precise need, with the design work done properly up front instead of a rushed do-everything build.