On cost vs value: is custom software development worth it?

Abto Software
4 min readAug 31, 2024

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This post is a quick overview of an Abto Software blog article.

While requiring considerable time-to-market and investment, personalized applications provide important, business-specific functionality, flexibility, scalability, and performance.

More and more organizations are choosing custom development over ready-to-use, commercial applications. But with the time-to-market and investment bespoke development might require, it’s important to consider the advantages and disadvantages before choosing a strategy.

The cost of custom software development

Project scope

The scope usually includes the most important requisites: project objectives, deliverables, activities, and more. The broader the scope, the bigger the required upfront investment.

The factors to consider:

  • Project size
  • Project requirements
  • Complex functionality
  • System integration
  • Team composition and expertise
  • Ongoing support and maintenance

Software complexity

The complexity usually depends on several critical characteristics: user interface, client expectations, and more. The harder the coding, the greater the expenses.

The factors to evaluate:

  • More effort — complex projects will require more time and cost to implement advanced functionality
  • Detailed planning — complex projects also require extensive planning, architecture design, and analysis
  • Specialized expertise
  • Bug fixing
  • Detailed coordination
  • Risk management

Technology stack

A factor that’s affecting your budget — the chosen technology stack (frameworks, libraries, databases, tools). Frontend & backend technologies, cloud services, version control, operating systems, and other related factors will impact your investment quite heavily.

Team composition

Another factor that’s shaping your expenses — team composition (arrangement, functions, availability, roles). Geographical location, team expertise, industry-specific knowledge and experience, project management — these factors will influence your investment and future project success.

The outsourcing of custom software development

Geographical location

One contributor to your project’s budget if you choose outsourcing — the contractor’s geographical location. This involves economic landscape, industry-specific standards, tax policies, government regulations, and many other factors.

The cost of custom software development in 2024 across regions:

  • United States — 100–149 USD per hour
  • Canada — 50–99 USD per hour
  • United Kingdom — 100–149 USD per hour
  • Australia — 100–149 USD per hour
  • Poland — 50–99 USD per hour
  • Ukraine — 25–49 USD per hour
  • Spain — 25–49 USD per hour
  • India — 10–25 USD per hour

Team composition

Another determinant to your project’s expenditure if going with outsourcing — the required team composition. Remember specific project objectives, on-demand expertise & stack, team dynamics, needed competencies, and the provider’s rates.

The salary of on-demand software specialists in the United States:

  • Project manager — 57,138–138,658 USD per year
  • Product manager — 76,053–190,068 USD per year
  • BA specialist — 55,010–130,307 USD per year
  • QA specialist — 32,288–112,464 USD per year
  • .NET developer — 76,769–195,065 USD per year
  • C# developer — 76,769–195,065 USD per year
  • Senior software engineer — 101,415–217,104 USD per year
  • Senior data scientist — 103,604–214,869 USD per year

Is bespoke software development the strategy for you?

When choosing custom-designed software, you leverage market differentiation & competitiveness, and more. But considering the time-to-market and initially required investment, as well as challenges toward integration, is it the strategy for you?

When weighing the advantages and disadvantages, business leaders should consider several factors:

  • Business needs to address by choosing custom development
  • Commercial alternatives to consider before approaching custom development
  • Required costs — upfront costs, ongoing expenses (technical support and maintenance, updates, patches), and common hidden costs
  • Expected return-on-investment — now, finally, the leaders can estimate potential return-on-investment
  • Resource constraints — any organization should evaluate its capabilities and restraints
  • Stakeholder involvement — every company should prioritize stakeholder involvement

Is custom software development worth it?

On-demand functionality to match your operations

The most important feature — custom software can provide on-demand functionality to match your operations. User interfaces and dashboards, specialized billing and invoicing, access controls, data analytics and reporting — bespoke software might benefit business leaders across industries.

Business productivity to take your processes to a higher level

Another quite important feature — custom-designed software can align with uncommon business workflows. That means better communication and collaboration, flexibility, scalability, and, naturally, greater efficiency — bespoke software won’t let you down.

Increased scalability

Commercial applications come with database limitations, monolithic architecture, and other common issues. Custom software, on the other hand, can incorporate modern-day features to accelerate system scalability — cloud integration, microservices architecture, and more.

Enhanced security

Off-the-shelf applications also cause system vulnerabilities — data breaches, malware, ransomware, and else. Bespoke software, on the other side, can integrate cutting-edge mechanisms to streamline system security.

Summing up

Abto Software, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is your strategic partner to deliver enterprise-level products. Discovery phase, requirement documentation, design, engineering, quality assurance, product deployment — our engineers can cover every stage.

Our services:

Why delay digital transformation?

Partner with trusted providers to implement personalized functionality and enjoy high-level performance.

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Abto Software

We empower customers business with innovative software by applying science, R&D, and own IP at abtosoftware.com