The question "what will this software cost" is nearly impossible to answer on a phone call, and anyone answering immediately is guessing. But it is possible to be clear about what pushes the price up, so you can estimate for yourself and read any firm’s quote.
Price is not per screen
Many quotes list "20 screens × a price per screen". That is wrong at the root: a customer list screen and a screen computing pay by shift with sales bonuses and allowances differ in complexity by an order of magnitude.
Real cost comes from the number of business rules to encode and the number of states data can occupy. An order with four states is easy; one with eleven, including cancellation, partial return, exchange and reissued invoice, is several times harder.
Six factors that raise the price
| Factor | Why it costs | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Number of independent processes | Each is its own rule set and its own test set | Very large |
| Integrating other systems | Depends on the other side’s documentation and stability | Large and unpredictable |
| Migrating old data | Cleaning, mapping, reconciling — not fully automatable | Large |
| Fine-grained permissions | Rights by branch, by field, by state | Medium to large |
| A mobile app | Another platform is another development and test cycle | Large |
| Working without a network | Requires sync and conflict resolution | Large |
The last two rows get mentioned in passing during the survey and become a dispute at sign-off. If you need an app for field staff working where signal is poor, say so in the first meeting — it changes the architecture, not just adds a feature.
Three costs not inside the software price
- Infrastructure. Servers, domains, certificates, backups, monitoring. A mid-sized internal system typically runs from a few hundred thousand to a few million dong a month depending on load and backup requirements.
- Third-party services. E-invoicing, SMS, digital signatures, maps, AI models — each its own contract and usually billed on usage.
- Your own staff’s time. Surveys, pilots, training, and the period of doing the job twice while both systems run. That is a real cost; it simply does not appear on an invoice.
Fixed price or time and materials
| Model | Fits when | Your risk |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed price for a defined scope | Scope is clear and unlikely to move | Changing your mind mid-way needs an addendum and more money |
| Time and materials | Scope is still open and being shaped as you go | No ceiling on cost unless you set one |
| Hybrid: fixed core, flexible extensions | Most small and medium business projects | You must define clearly what "core" means at the start |
SealCore quotes a fixed package price after the survey, broken down by milestone. Anything outside scope is quoted before the work happens rather than added at the end — which matters more than the headline number, because it determines whether you get surprised.
Comparing two quotes three times apart
Before concluding which is expensive, check six questions against both:
- 1Is migrating the old data inside the price, or a separate line item?
- 2How many training sessions, where, and for how many user groups?
- 3How long is the warranty, and what does it cover — defects only, or small adjustments too?
- 4Is handover of source code and documentation in the contract?
- 5After handover, what does changing a form or adding a report cost?
- 6Who pays for infrastructure during development, and after handover?
Very often the quote that is three times cheaper has simply left four of those six outside. Add them back and the two numbers converge — the difference being that the cheaper firm presents the extra invoices when you are halfway in and cannot easily turn back.
Want to talk specifics?
SealCore surveys at your premises and sends a fixed quote after the first session — including when the conclusion is that you do not need custom software.
