How Much Does Custom Software Development Cost in Ireland?
Most custom software for an Irish SME lands between €8,000 and €45,000. Where yours lands depends on four things you can control before anyone writes a line of code. Here are the bands, the drivers, and how to keep the first version affordable.
The short answer
Custom software is priced by scope, not by the hour you happen to ask. The same “booking system” can be a €6,000 internal tool or a €60,000 multi-tenant product, and the difference is almost entirely decided by questions you can answer before a quote is written: who uses it, what it has to connect to, how many roles and rules it has, and what happens when it fails.
These are the bands we quote for the Irish market. They are ex-VAT, for a first production version built by a small senior team, and they are the same figures our cost calculator and service pages use — so you can check them against each other.
| What you are building | Typical first version | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow automation or integration between existing tools | €2,000 – €15,000 | 2–6 weeks |
| API or integration layer for an existing product | €4,000 – €18,000 | 3–8 weeks |
| Custom CRM or internal operations tool | €4,000 – €20,000 | 4–10 weeks |
| Bespoke business software (portal, booking, quoting, field ops) | €8,000 – €40,000 | 2–5 months |
| Mobile app (iOS and Android, one codebase) | €12,000 – €35,000 | 3–6 months |
| SaaS product with sign-up, billing and accounts | €12,000 – €45,000 | 3–6 months |
If a quote is far below these bands, ask what has been left out — it is usually testing, deployment, or the admin side nobody mentioned. If it is far above, ask what is in scope that you did not ask for. Both conversations are cheaper before signing than after.
What actually drives the price
Screens are the part of software that buyers can see, so they are what buyers tend to count. They are rarely what makes a project expensive. Four things are:
- Integrations. Every system the software has to talk to — accounting, a CRM, a payment provider, a supplier API, a legacy database — is a dependency you do not control. Well-documented modern APIs are cheap to connect. Undocumented ones, CSV exports and screen-scraping are not, and they are where estimates go wrong.
- Roles and rules. One type of user doing one job is simple. Customers, staff, managers and admins who each see different data, with approval steps and exceptions, multiplies the logic and the testing.
- Data you already have. Migrating years of records from spreadsheets or an old system is routinely underestimated. Messy data has to be understood and cleaned before it can be moved, and that work is invisible until it is done.
- The cost of failure. A tool three staff use internally can tolerate a bad afternoon. Software that takes payments, holds personal data or that customers depend on needs audit trails, backups, monitoring and GDPR-aware design — and that is real engineering, not polish.
What a realistic budget includes
A quote that only covers “building the features” is not the cost of owning software. Before you compare numbers, check each of these is in the price or priced separately:
| Item | Why it matters | Typical share of the build |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and scoping | Turns an idea into a list a developer can estimate honestly | 5–10% |
| Design of key screens | Cheaper to change in a prototype than in code | 10–15% |
| Build and integrations | The part everyone pictures | 50–60% |
| Testing and QA | The difference between a demo and something staff rely on | 10–15% |
| Deployment, hosting setup and handover | Documentation and access you own, not the agency | 5–10% |
After launch, budget for running costs and care separately. Cloud hosting for a typical SME tool is modest — often tens of euro a month, not hundreds — but third-party services (email, SMS, maps, AI APIs) are metered and grow with use. A maintenance retainer for updates, security patches and small changes is usually a small fraction of the build cost per year, and it is the line most often left out of a business case.
Off-the-shelf, low-code or custom?
Custom software is not always the right answer, and a good developer will tell you when it is not. The honest comparison is total cost over three years, including the cost of working around what the tool cannot do:
| Option | Upfront cost | Ongoing cost | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off-the-shelf SaaS | Low | Per-user subscription, rises with headcount | Your process is standard and the tool fits 90% of it |
| Low-code / no-code | Low to medium | Platform fees plus a builder’s time | Internal tools with simple data and few users |
| Custom build | Medium to high | Hosting and a maintenance plan | The process is your advantage, or no tool fits without costly workarounds |
A useful test: if your team spends hours each week copying data between tools, or you are paying for five seats of a product to use one feature, custom usually wins within two to three years. If the off-the-shelf tool does the job and you mainly dislike how it looks, it rarely does.
How to keep the first version affordable
The cheapest software project is the one that ships a small, useful version early and grows from evidence. Almost every overspend we see comes from trying to build the final product first.
- Write down the one workflow that justifies the project and build that first. Everything else is phase two until real use proves it is needed.
- Ask for a fixed price on a tightly defined first phase rather than an open-ended time-and-materials estimate on the whole vision.
- Use managed services for the solved problems — authentication, payments, email, file storage — instead of paying to rebuild them.
- Insist on owning the code repository, the hosting account and the domain from day one. It costs nothing and protects every euro you spend after.
- Check whether the project qualifies for support. Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices run digitalisation supports for eligible small businesses; eligibility and amounts change, so check the current scheme before you budget around it.
Questions to ask before you sign
Price is the easiest number to compare and the least informative one. These questions tell you more about what the price will turn into:
- What exactly is in scope, and what is explicitly out? Ask for it in writing.
- Who will actually write the code, and can I see something they have shipped that is still live?
- How do changes to scope get priced once we have started?
- What does handover include — documentation, credentials, a walkthrough?
- What happens if you are not available in a year? Could another developer pick this up?
FAQ
How much does custom software cost in Ireland?
For a small or medium business, a first production version typically costs €8,000 to €40,000 for bespoke business software, €12,000 to €45,000 for a SaaS product with billing and accounts, and €2,000 to €15,000 for automations and integrations between existing tools. Prices are ex-VAT and depend mainly on integrations, user roles and data migration.
How long does it take to build custom software?
A focused internal tool or integration is usually two to ten weeks. Bespoke business software, mobile apps and SaaS products typically take two to six months for a first version. If an estimate runs past six months for a first release, the scope is usually too wide.
Is it cheaper to hire a freelancer or an agency?
A freelancer often has a lower day rate, and for a small, well-defined tool that can be the right choice. For anything customers or staff depend on daily, weigh continuity: who maintains it, who tests it, and what happens if that one person becomes unavailable. Owning the code and accounts protects you either way.
Should I choose fixed price or time and materials?
Fixed price works well for a clearly scoped first phase and gives you budget certainty. Time and materials suits ongoing work where priorities change week to week. A common approach is a fixed-price first version, then a monthly retainer once the software is in use.
What does custom software cost to run after launch?
Hosting for a typical SME tool is often tens of euro a month. Add metered third-party services such as email, SMS or AI APIs, and a maintenance plan for security updates and small changes. Budget for these from the start; they are the costs most often missing from a business case.
Are there grants for custom software in Ireland?
Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices offer digitalisation supports for eligible businesses. Schemes, eligibility and amounts change, so check the current terms with your Local Enterprise Office before relying on them in your budget.
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