Ask what a custom app costs and every supplier answers the same way: it depends. Here's a concrete range for three routes to a business system, what the price is made of, and why it's decided by the three-year total rather than the first invoice.
Try calling three software firms and asking what job tracking for a ten-person company costs. You'll get three versions of the same answer: “it depends on the requirements.”
It isn't a dodge - it genuinely does depend. But there is a range companies land in, and more usefully, there's a way to work the number out yourself before you call anyone.
Three routes to the same system
Custom development (agency or studio). You write a brief, get a quote, and three to six months later you have an app built exactly to your specification. A typical budget for a mid-complexity business system starts around €16,000 and passes €40,000 for more involved briefs.
A freelancer with AI. Cheaper to enter, faster to start. One person with AI tooling now does in weeks what used to take months. Entry cost tends to be €6,000 to €12,000. The risk is concentrated in a single individual.
A no-code platform. You assemble the system from ready-made blocks and pay a subscription. The upfront cost is mostly your time - days, not months. The annual cost for a smaller team runs into the low thousands.
What the price is made of (and what people forget)
The first invoice isn't the price. The price is the sum of these:
- Analysis and specification. With custom development that's 10–20% of the budget and it's the part you can't skip.
- Building it. What we usually mean when we ask what it costs.
- Rollout and training. Data has to move, people have to learn. Almost always more work than anyone expected.
- Changes. Not “just in case” - a certainty. The company shifts and the system has to follow.
- Operations. Hosting, backups, updates, availability.
- Key-person risk. What happens when the person who knows the system disappears.
The last three rarely appear in a quote. And they're precisely what decides the outcome.
The price you're quoted is the price of year one
Years two and three don't appear in the quote. And that's exactly where it's decided which route was cheaper.
The three-year total
A model case: a ten-person company needs job tracking with invoicing, deadline reminders and timesheets. The figures are indicative and meant for comparing ratios, not as a price list.
| Item | Custom development | Freelancer + AI | No-code platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 (build) | ~€34,000 | ~€8,800 | ~€3,800 |
| Year 2 (changes + operations) | ~€7,200 | ~€7,600 | ~€3,800 |
| Year 3 (changes + operations) | ~€7,200 | ~€9,600 | ~€3,800 |
| Three-year total | ~€48,000 | ~€26,000 | ~€11,500 |
| Who makes changes | The supplier | One person | Anyone on the team |
| Risk | Supplier dependency | Person dependency | Platform dependency |
Note the second row for the freelancer. The entry price is the lowest, but costs climb - generated code has to be maintained, and every year adds things nobody knows in detail. That's covered in more depth in AI will write your app. Who's going to fix it?.
Watch for the line that's never in a quote
What an hour of change costs and how quickly the supplier delivers it. A system where adding a field takes three weeks and costs €600 trains you to stop asking for changes - and back into a spreadsheet.
When custom development genuinely pays
There's no point claiming custom development never makes sense. It does, in three situations:
- The software is your product. You sell it, or it's your competitive edge. Then you have to own it.
- You have a requirement no platform covers. Non-trivial calculations, specialist hardware, extreme data volumes.
- You have your own development team. Then maintenance is internal capacity, not an external cost.
But if what you're building is a system to hold jobs, clients, deadlines and money properly, you're in the category where custom development is usually a more expensive way to reach the same place.
How to work out your own number
Before you call anyone, write down four things:
- How many people will use the system, and in what roles.
- How many different record types you need (jobs, clients, invoices, timesheets…).
- What should happen by itself - which emails, reminders, documents.
- How many times a year your process changes.
That fourth answer matters most and is skipped most often. A company that changes its process twice a year needs a different kind of solution from one that hasn't changed in five.
Current Apexloop pricing is on the Pricing page. What fragmented tools cost before you even start thinking about your own system is covered in What fragmented tools cost a company. The whole process of introducing your own system is covered in the guide to a custom business system.
Common questions about the cost of a business system
Why don't suppliers publish prices?
Because the spread is enormous - the same brief can mean €8,000 or €60,000 depending on the number of roles, integrations and exceptions. Whatever number went on the page would mislead most enquiries.
Is no-code always cheaper?
No. For very simple needs a free spreadsheet may be enough, and for genuinely specific briefs custom development may be the only route. No-code wins in the broad middle - business systems that are meant to change along with the business.
What if we want to take the system elsewhere later?
Ask about data export before you sign. You should be able to get structured data out at any time and at no extra charge - from a custom build and from a platform alike. If the answer is anything else, treat it as a warning.