Custom software
Custom software, also called custom business software, is a program built specifically for your company, shaped around the way you work, instead of an off-the-shelf tool you have to bend your business to fit. It runs your real processes (quotes, tracking, stock, scheduling, invoicing) exactly the way you run them, and the code belongs to you.
Almost anything is technically doable. The real question is elsewhere. When it's worth it against an off-the-shelf SaaS or ERP, how much it costs, and how to get it without a six-month tunnel.
Custom software usually costs between 30,000 and 100,000 € on the traditional market, depending on complexity. At 5000.dev, it's 5,000 € per working brick delivered in two weeks, source code included. If the scope goes beyond one brick, we cut it instead of inflating the invoice.
Custom is not always the right answer. Let's be clear about that before we talk budget.
An off-the-shelf tool covers 80 % of your need without contortion: accounting, payroll, a generic CRM, appointment booking. Keep it. Don't pay anyone to rebuild a mature tool worse than it already is.
You re-enter the same information across several tools; you pay 400 € a month for a SaaS your team uses like a spreadsheet; your business is too specific for any off-the-shelf software; you need to own the code, manage roles and permissions, integrations, sensitive data; you spend more time working around your tool than working with it.
An eight-person kitchen fitter running its job sites across twelve Excel tabs doesn't have an off-the-shelf software problem. It has a copy-paste problem, and only custom business software built for it solves that, which is exactly what a business application delivers.
| Off-the-shelf SaaS | SMB ERP | Custom software | |
|---|---|---|---|
| For what | A standard, common need | Running several integrated functions at once | A specific, lasting process |
| Cost | 200 to 600 €/month, forever | Often 10,000 to 50,000 € + yearly licences | 5,000 € per brick, once |
| You own | Nothing, you rent | Nothing, you rent the modules | The code is yours |
| Fit | You bend your business to the tool | You adopt the vendor's standard | The tool fits your business |
| Right moment | The need fits the standard offer | You want everything integrated and accept the standard | The standard tool holds you back more than it helps |
Plenty of SMBs pay for a heavy ERP or SaaS and use a fraction of it. The day you spend your weeks exporting to Excel to make up for what the tool won't do, custom often becomes the rational choice, and cheaper over time. We dig into the real trade-off in SaaS vs custom software.
The market will tell you "between 30,000 and 200,000 €", and that's the problem. On a typical quote, a large share doesn't fund your software: project manager, overhead, margin, and months of spec document. The part that actually produces code rarely tops a quarter of the quote. An SMB ERP, meanwhile, runs on a subscription for life, whether you use it fully or not.
Our stance is different: 5,000 € for a first working brick, deployed live, with the source code that belongs to you. Fixed price. If your full software goes beyond what we can ship cleanly, we don't inflate the invoice: we cut it into bricks, and you start with the one that carries the most value. For the full ranges, see the cost of developing an application.
Why this price holds today: AI cuts code production time by four, as long as senior developers orchestrate it. We hand that productivity back as a fixed price, not as billed hours. We break down the math in custom business software for 5,000 €.
| Project type | Market range | The 5000.dev approach |
|---|---|---|
| First module or simple tool | 15,000 to 40,000 € | 5,000 € per brick, 2 weeks |
| Full business software | 40,000 to 100,000 € | Several bricks at 5,000 € |
| Complex platform (high volumes, integrations, roles) | 100,000 € and up | Cut into successive bricks |
Over three years, an ERP or SaaS rented at 600 € a month costs 21,600 €, and you own nothing. A first custom brick costs 5,000 €, once, and the code is yours.
The price depends on a few concrete factors.
For years, custom business software was reserved for big budgets: six months of specs, eighteen months of development, five years of maintenance. Many SMBs took an ERP or a SaaS by default, because they couldn't afford anything else. That made sense.
AI broke that math. Senior developers who orchestrate AI well ship in two weeks what used to take two months, and the cost of producing code drops by roughly four. Custom software, long out of reach for an SMB, becomes affordable.
Watch the opposite trap: a non-developer coding on instinct with AI (so-called "vibe coding") produces technical debt that breaks the moment a real business rule, a payment, or sensitive data comes into play. AI speeds up senior developers who know how to scope, sort, and ship; it does not replace that scoping. That framed productivity is what we hand back to you as a fixed price.
Discovery call. We understand your business, your problems, and what you concretely do today.
Technical call. We dig into your data, your constraints, the integrations with your existing tools.
A clear spec page drawn from the two calls. You read it, you validate it. Go or no go.
Mockups of every page of the final software. You picture it before a single line of code is written.
Go, the clock starts. Fifteen days of development, and the software is delivered.
Building brick by brick cuts the risk through small concrete deliveries, instead of promising the perfect software in six months and delivering it in two years. To choose who you trust with it, read our guide on picking an application development agency.
Concrete case
A regional distributor ran its business on data spread across five sources: a market-data tool exported to Excel, sales files emailed in by each retail chain, its internal ERP, and an in-house database updated by hand. An analyst spent entire days copying and reformatting instead of analyzing. First brick: a single hub that automatically ingests all those sources, removes the re-entry, and outputs clean reports with restocking alerts. We didn't rebuild the whole system at once. We made the point that cost the most time reliable, brick by brick.
Dead before it's finished: nobody reads it in full, it freezes choices too early, and it bills months of scoping before any result. One clear spec page is enough to start.
The bigger the scope, the longer it drags on and the more it costs, and the risk climbs with it. A first brick running in two weeks teaches you more than six months of meetings.
A screen is simple to display; what can be complex is the action it triggers. A good partner translates your need into the simplest solution that works, not everything you imagine.
The same trap eats many projects: see how to avoid the pit with a custom web application, or how SMBs replaced their spreadsheets in a business app for SMBs. For a concrete case, look at our custom software page.
The code belongs to you, delivered and deployed. You're locked into no one. The rest, we handle only if you want us to.
Every brick ships with three months of warranty. We fix bugs and the adjustments planned in scope, at no extra cost. That window also lets you measure your real needs before talking about a plan.
If you want us to keep going, the plan starts at €200/month for security and fixing any bug. Depending on the volume and real needs of your project, it scales up to €1,000/month at most for regular improvements. We calibrate it after the three-month guarantee, at the right level. The plan is optional and runs on a one-year commitment, and nothing stops you from leaving with your code.
Our €50/month option runs on a server we manage for you, with backups, monitoring, and visit statistics. If you'd rather host elsewhere, the code is yours and we deploy you there (500 € for a first deployment off our servers; on ours, the deployment setup is included in the brick).
Your requests go through WhatsApp and a ticket-tracking tool, so you keep a clear view of progress.
If you re-enter data from one tool to another, if you rent an ERP or a SaaS you bend into a spreadsheet, or if no off-the-shelf software fits your business, custom is probably the right answer. You start with a concrete, bounded first brick, live in two weeks, nothing like a six-figure project.