Most custom software projects in the UK land between £15,000 and £120,000. Our minimum build engagement is £10,000 — and over five years that build routinely costs less than the licence fees you would pay for software that never quite fits.
We publish this because the alternative wastes everyone’s time. You should be able to work out whether a conversation is worth having before you have it.
No competitor on the first page of Google publishes their prices. We checked. Every one of them asks you to book a call to find out whether you can afford them.
Where these numbers come from
Our prices are not invented, and you can check the basis.
UK contract rates set the floor for any honest quote. ITJobsWatch data for the six months to 1 October 2026 gives a median advertised day rate of £525 for UK software developers, with the 10th percentile at £366 and the 90th at £606. Software Engineer roles sit higher, at a £550 median. London carries a premium of roughly 15–30% over the national figure.
That is what it costs to put one competent developer on your problem for one day. Every agency quote in the country is built on some version of that number, plus overhead, plus margin, plus risk. Most just will not show you the arithmetic.
A rough sanity check you can run on any quote you receive: divide the total by the number of weeks quoted, then by five. If the resulting day rate is far below £400, ask who is actually writing the code and where they are based. If it is far above £900, ask what you are paying for beyond engineering.
Project bands
These are real ranges for real work, not brackets designed to make the middle one look reasonable.
| Band | What it covers | Typical range | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery & scoping | Requirements, technical approach, a costed plan you own and can take to any supplier | £3,000 – £8,000 | 1–2 weeks |
| Small system | One clear process. Internal tool, portal, booking system, integration between two systems you already run | £10,000 – £25,000 | 4–8 weeks |
| Mid-size platform | Multiple user types, real business logic, several integrations, reporting | £25,000 – £70,000 | 8–20 weeks |
| Large / core system | Replaces something your business runs on. ERP, operations platform, multi-tenant product | £70,000 – £200,000+ | 20+ weeks |
| Agentic AI feasibility | 2–3 weeks on your real data, measured accuracy, go/no-go | £6,000 – £12,000 | 2–3 weeks |
| Agentic AI production agent | One process live, monitored, audited, with human escalation | £18,000 – £45,000 | 6–8 weeks |
| Support retainer | Monitoring, fixes, small changes, defined response times | From £800/month | Ongoing |
| AI operations retainer | Evaluation runs, prompt and policy updates, model-change testing | From £1,500/month | Ongoing |
Our minimum build engagement is £10,000. Discovery and feasibility sprints sit below that on purpose — they exist so you can find out whether a build is worth commissioning without committing to one.
Fixed price is available on anything that has been through discovery. Before discovery, nobody can honestly quote a fixed price, and anyone who does is either padding heavily or planning to recover it through change requests.
The three things that change a quote most
After discovery, these three factors move a price more than anything else — more than the feature list, and far more than which framework gets used.
1. Integrations with systems you do not control
Connecting to a modern, documented API is routine. Connecting to a fifteen-year-old system with no API, undocumented behaviour and an owner who will not return calls can take longer than the rest of the build combined.
This is the single most common reason projects overrun. The Panorama 2026 ERP study of 170 organisations found that among projects that went over budget, 54.9% needed additional technology that was only discovered after the project began, and 51% saw the scope grow beyond the original plan.
We surface this in discovery by actually connecting to the system, not by asking whether an API exists.
2. How clean your data is
Migrating 40,000 clean records is a day’s work. Migrating 40,000 records where the same customer appears four times with three spellings, dates are stored in two formats and a third of the phone numbers are in a notes field is weeks of work.
Nobody enjoys hearing this. It is usually the difference between the quote you hoped for and the quote you get.
3. How many people have to agree
A project with one decision-maker moves at the speed of the build. A project needing sign-off from four departments moves at the speed of the slowest calendar. We have seen approval cycles add more to a timeline than the engineering did.
If you can name one person who can say yes, say so early. It genuinely reduces the cost.
What we do not charge for
- The first call. 45 minutes, no proposal attached.
- A proposal. If we quote, the quote is free and itemised.
- Change requests that are our misunderstanding. If we built the wrong thing because we misread the spec, we fix it at our cost. That is a defect, not a change.
- Handover. Source code, documentation and deployment instructions are included, not an upsell.
What you own
All intellectual property assigns to you on final payment. Source code, documentation, designs, infrastructure configuration.
Your system runs in your accounts, on your keys, on infrastructure you control. We do not host your business on our platform and we do not hold deployment access hostage.
This matters more than it sounds. A common and entirely legal arrangement in this industry is that the agency owns the code and licences it to you — which means leaving them means rebuilding. Ask any supplier you are considering: “Do I own the source code outright, and when does it transfer?” Get the answer in writing before you sign.
Why we are not the cheapest
Offshore development is commonly quoted well below UK rates — indicatively £150–£250/day, though this varies widely by region and supplier — and it is sometimes genuinely the right choice, usually for well-specified work with a strong technical lead on your side managing it.
We cost more because of what is included: UK-based engineering in your timezone, a named engineer who answers the phone, work tested before it reaches you, documentation written as the work happens rather than retrofitted at the end, and a handover that leaves you independent.
When you should not hire us: the work is fully specified and you have the technical capacity to manage a remote team; your budget is under £10,000; or an existing product does the job. We will say so.
Payment terms
| Structure | Milestone payments against accepted deliverables |
| Typical schedule | 30% on signature, 40% at agreed midpoint, 30% on acceptance |
| Never | Large upfront sums with no deliverable attached |
| Retainers | Monthly in advance, 30 days’ notice either way |
| Overrun | If we quoted fixed price and we were wrong, that is our risk, not your invoice |
Milestones tied to accepted deliverables protect you. If a supplier wants half the money before anything exists, that is a signal worth paying attention to.
What ongoing costs to expect
Published because the running cost is where budgets get caught out, and almost nobody itemises it before you sign.
| Cost | Typical | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | £10 – £400/month | Depends on scale. Small systems sit at the bottom of this. |
| Domain | £10 – £40/year | Registered in your name, in your registrar account |
| Third-party services | Varies | Payment processing, email, SMS, mapping. Your accounts, your billing. |
| Support retainer | From £800/month | Optional. Defined response times and a monthly change allowance. |
| AI model usage | £100 – £3,000+/month | Only for agentic systems. Scales with volume — we model it before you commit. |
| Model migration | £3,000 – £15,000 every 18–24 months | Only for AI systems. Providers deprecate models. |
No licence fees. There is nothing to licence, because you own it.
Compare that against per-seat software: 30 users at £45/month is £16,200 a year, rising at renewal, for ever, with nothing owned at the end.
The five-year comparison
The honest way to compare a build against a subscription. Example: 30-user operations system.
| Off-the-shelf at £45/user/month | Custom build | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | £16,200 + £8,000 setup | £45,000 + £1,200 hosting |
| Year 2 | £16,200 | £1,200 + £6,000 changes |
| Year 3 | £17,820 (10% rise) | £1,200 + £4,000 |
| Year 4 | £17,820 | £1,200 + £4,000 |
| Year 5 | £19,602 (10% rise) | £1,200 + £4,000 |
| Total | £95,642 | £68,000 |
| You own | Nothing | The system |
Not included in the left column: workaround labour. When a product fits badly, someone spends 30 minutes a day moving data between systems — roughly £1,900 a year, or another £9,500 across five years.
At 8 users the product wins easily and you should buy one. At 30 the build is already ahead. At 100 it is not close.
Frequently asked questions
How much does custom software development cost in the UK?
Most projects land between £15,000 and £120,000. A small internal tool starts around £10,000. A system your business runs on starts around £70,000. The honest answer depends on integrations, data quality and how many people must approve decisions.
How much does custom software development cost in 2026?
UK rates are set by contractor market rates. ITJobsWatch reports a median advertised day rate of £525 for UK software developers in the six months to 1 October 2026, with London 15–30% higher. Agency pricing builds on that figure. Expect £400–£900 per developer day all-in from a UK supplier.
Why won’t other agencies publish prices?
Partly because the honest answer is a range, and partly because it is commercially convenient to anchor the number to how much they think you can pay. A published range costs them that flexibility.
Can I get a fixed price?
Yes, after discovery. Before discovery, a fixed price is either padded to cover unknowns or will come back as change requests. Discovery costs £3,000–£8,000 and the output is yours to take to any supplier.
What is the cheapest you will work for?
£10,000. Below that, off-the-shelf software is nearly always better value, and we will usually tell you which product to look at.
Do you charge for the first conversation?
No. 45 minutes, free, no proposal attached. You leave with a realistic range and a clear view of what building would be worth.
What ongoing costs should I expect after launch?
Hosting and third-party services (usually £20–£300/month for small to mid-size systems), optional support retainer from £800/month, and for AI systems a model usage cost that scales with volume. We model all three before you commit so there are no surprises.
Do I own the code?
Yes, outright, assigning on final payment, along with documentation and deployment instructions. The system runs on your accounts and your keys.
What happens if the project runs over?
On a fixed price, the overrun is our problem. On time-and-materials, you get a revised estimate before the work is done, never an invoice afterwards.
Is offshore development cheaper?
In day rate, yes — offshore work is commonly quoted around £150–£250/day, though this varies widely by region and supplier. Whether it is cheaper overall depends on whether you have the technical capacity to specify and manage the work. Where it goes wrong, it goes wrong expensively. We are honest that it is sometimes the right choice.
How we compare on price
Useful context, since we are not the cheapest and we would rather say why than hope you do not notice.
| Supplier type | Implied day rate | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | £300 – £550 | Low cost, single point of failure, you specify |
| Us | £450 – £750 | UK team, published prices, IP yours, full handover |
| Mid-size UK agency | £600 – £900 | More capacity, more overhead, prices usually withheld |
| Enterprise consultancy | £900 – £1,500+ | Scale and process, priced accordingly |
| Offshore | £150 – £350 | Lowest rate, you supply specification and management |
Where we sit and why. We are above a freelancer because a project does not stop when one person is ill, and we absorb ambiguity rather than asking you to specify everything. We are below a mid-size agency because our overheads are smaller and we do not run a sales function.
Offshore is genuinely cheaper per day. Here is the full arithmetic including the costs that never reach the invoice — the real gap is 30–40%, not the 67% the rate implies.
What is included in every project
Not optional extras, not line items to be removed when the budget tightens.
- Discovery output you own, with the right to take it elsewhere
- Automated tests on the logic that moves money, allocates stock, calculates prices or controls access
- Security — validation at trust boundaries, proper authentication, least privilege, current dependencies
- Accessibility — keyboard navigation, contrast, labels, semantic markup
- Documentation written as the work happens, not retrofitted
- Deployment instructions another engineer could follow
- Infrastructure in your accounts, from week one
- A warranty period for defects after handover
- All IP, assigning on final payment
If a cheaper quote excludes three of those, it is not cheaper. Build the comparison table before you choose.
Next step
A 45-minute call. We will tell you the range, whether custom software is the right answer, and where to spend less if there is a cheaper way to solve it.
Written by Jas Singh, Founder. Last updated 8 October 2026. Prices reviewed quarterly.
Day rate figures from ITJobsWatch UK contract data for the six months to 1 October 2026. Budget overrun causes from the Panorama Consulting 2026 ERP report (survey of 170 organisations, January 2025 – January 2026), reported via secondary sources; we cite it as directional.
