When you ask three companies to quote a software project, you are comparing the wrong number.
The quote covers building the thing. But building it is the cheap part. Across the industry, maintenance — keeping software running, secure and current after launch — accounts for somewhere between 50% and 90% of a system's total lifetime cost. A project with a ten-year life might see one or two years of building and a decade of upkeep. The sticker price you are comparing is the tip of an iceberg.
That changes how you should read a cheap quote.
Where the money actually goes
Once software is live, it does not sit still. It needs fixes, updates, new features, security patches and adaptation as the business changes. Developers report spending 33% to 42% of their time not on new work but on rework, bug-fixing and maintenance. And the later a problem is found, the more it costs: studies consistently show a defect caught in design is cheap to fix, while the same defect found in production can cost on the order of 100 times more — a $100 fix becoming a $10,000 one.
None of that shows up in the build quote. It arrives later, quietly, month after month.
Why the cheapest quote is usually the most expensive
Here is the trap. A noticeably lower quote rarely means the same work for less money. It usually means corners — junior developers without the domain experience to make good architectural calls, skipped testing, no documentation, quick fixes that pile up. That pile has a name: technical debt. McKinsey estimates that 10–20% of IT budgets are consumed servicing it, and poorly built software can raise maintenance costs 15–25% every year.
The math is unforgiving. A cut-price customisation that costs a little today can cost several times that to maintain over five years — and more again to unwind when it finally has to be replaced. The cheap build did not save money; it deferred a larger bill, with interest.
The reframe: buy the lifetime, not the launch
So the number to compare is not the build quote — it is the total cost of ownership. Software built well the first time (clean architecture, automated tests, proper documentation) costs a little more to build and far less to live with. Every dollar spent on doing it right is estimated to save three to five down the line.
That is the lens worth applying to any quote: not "what does it cost to make," but "what will it cost to own for the next five years." The cheapest answer to the first question is very often the most expensive answer to the second.
How we think about it
It is also how we work. We build to last — clean code, automated testing, a clear handover — and we put it in a fixed, itemised quote up front, so the price you agree to is the price you pay, with no surprise bill arriving in year two. Sometimes that means we are not the cheapest quote on the table. Over the life of the system, that is rather the point.
If you are comparing quotes for a build, we are happy to give you an honest one — and to be clear about what it costs to own, not just to make. See what we build.
