Custom software can cost a few hundred dollars or well into six figures. What sets the price is how many people use it, how many rules and exceptions it has to follow, and what it connects to.
As rough bands: under $1,000 for a small single-purpose tool; a few thousand dollars for a simple internal tool used by one team, such as replacing one shared spreadsheet; $10,000 to $50,000 for software several people use every day, with roles, rules, and reports; and $50,000 or more for a platform across devices or locations. These are examples to help you plan, not quotes.
A real example: $50,000 plus $2,000 a month
For a disaster-relief nonprofit, I built a warehouse screen for bins, donation lots, and holds, and phone screens at the dock for scanning lots, cold-chain holds, and missing photos. It cost about $50,000 to build.
Care is $2,000 a month. That covers hosting, updates, support, and new features as the warehouse changes. The price reflects a workflow with several roles, two kinds of screens, and exceptions that cannot get lost between shifts.
What you are paying for
Most of the cost is time: understanding the workflow, designing screens people can use quickly, building and testing them, moving existing data across, and launching without stopping the work.
The decisions that move the price most are the number of user roles, the rules and exceptions, connections to other systems, importing existing spreadsheets, the devices involved, and reporting.
Compare the build with the subscription
An off-the-shelf product has no build price, but it has a subscription, per-user fees, and setup time. A custom build has a build price and a monthly care fee. Compare both over two or three years, and include the cost of working around a tool that does not fit.
Ways to spend less
Start with a first version for the one handoff that breaks most often, and keep using existing tools for everything else. Reuse the data you already have. Leave reports and nice-to-have screens for a second phase once people are using the first one.
If an existing product handles the job, buy it. The custom-vs-off-the-shelf note covers how to decide.
Getting a number for your project
Send a brief with the workflow that is not working, who is involved, what you use today, and a budget band. We agree on the build price and monthly care before I start.