How much does custom management software cost?
Most leaders who ask have one fear in mind: the six-figure project that never ships. The fear is fair, but the number depends mostly on how you go about it.
On the traditional market, custom management software usually runs between 30,000 and 100,000 €, sometimes more for a complex platform. At 5000.dev, it is 5,000 € per working brick delivered in two weeks, source code included. If your full need is bigger than one brick, we cut it rather than inflate the bill.
What makes the price vary
The price does not depend on the software's perceived size, but on a few concrete things.
- The number of screens, roles, and flows to build.
- Integrations with your existing tools, since each connection adds work and edge cases.
- The volume and sensitivity of the data you handle.
- What happens behind the buttons: showing a list is trivial, syncing live stock or handling payments costs far more time.
Buy once instead of renting forever
Many SMBs compare this price to the monthly cost of an off-the-shelf tool. The comparison is misleading. A subscription runs forever. Custom software is bought once and belongs to you. Over three years, a tool rented at 600 € per month costs 21,600 €, and you own nothing. A first custom brick costs 5,000 €, once, and the code is yours.
Start with the right brick
The real saving does not come from negotiating the quote, but from bounding the scope. You do not need the full software on day one. You need the brick that hurts most today, the one where you re-key data or work around your current tool. We ship it, it runs, and you decide what comes next with a real tool in hand.
For the full ranges and the method, see our page on custom software and the one on application development cost.
The right next step
If you re-key the same information across several tools, or pay for an off-the-shelf tool your team bends into a spreadsheet, custom software cut into bricks fits an SMB budget. The starting point is not a spec document, it is naming the first brick.