Software Development Cost Calculator

With an experienced India-based team like QalbIT, a lean startup MVP typically runs $6,500–$20,000, custom business software or a CRM $10,000–$44,000, and a phase-one ERP or complex SaaS product $20,000–$75,000. US and Western European agencies commonly quote 2–3× these figures for comparable scope. The exact number depends on user roles, workflows, integrations and platforms — which is what this calculator estimates.

Yes, meaningfully. Our engineers work with AI-assisted development tooling that accelerates boilerplate, CRUD modules, test writing and integration scaffolding — cutting typical build time by around 20%, and these calculator estimates already reflect that. What AI does not compress is discovery, architecture decisions, UX judgement, QA of business-critical flows and stakeholder communication, which is why the savings are real but not the 80% some marketing claims suggest.

Scope is the biggest driver: the number of user roles, screens and workflows accounts for 60–70% of any quote. Third-party integrations come second — each external system (ERP, accounting, payments, telephony) adds design, build and testing effort. Building for both web and mobile adds roughly 40%, and a fully custom design system adds around 10–15% over proven UI patterns.

It produces realistic planning ranges based on QalbIT delivery data and 2026 market rates — accurate enough to set a budget and compare options. A final quote always follows a short discovery call where an architect reviews your exact workflows, integrations and constraints; that review is free, and most final quotes land inside the calculator range.

Senior engineer salaries in India are a fraction of US, UK or GCC equivalents, with no quality gap on modern stacks like Laravel, Node.js, React and Flutter. Working with QalbIT you also avoid recruitment fees and benefits overhead, while IST working hours overlap naturally with US mornings, the full UK/European workday and GCC business hours.

For a first release with definable scope, fixed-price phases are safer: you approve a budget and deliverables before work starts. Hourly or monthly dedicated-team billing suits ongoing product development after launch, where priorities shift sprint to sprint. QalbIT typically starts fixed-scope and moves to a dedicated squad once the product is live.

Cut scope, not quality: launch a lean first release around the single core journey, use proven UI patterns instead of fully bespoke design, integrate with existing tools (like Tally or Stripe) rather than rebuilding them, and phase secondary modules for after launch. A good partner will push for these trade-offs in discovery — it is the difference between a $20K launch and a $60K one.