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At a fast pace, custom software development has emerged as one of the key go-to strategies for companies to embark upon their digital transformation journey.
Even though there are many commercial off-the-shelf software solutions available, businesses now go with a custom software development approach that helps them meet the specific needs of their organization or target users.
If you’re still torn as to whether you should consider buying an off-the-shelf software solution or building a custom product, this post is exclusively for you.
Through this post, we’ll bring light to the benefits custom software development brings to the table, whether it is the right approach for your business and the cost to build custom software.
So, without further ado, let’s begin with a quick introduction to custom software development.
What is Custom Software Development?
Also known as bespoke software development, custom software development is a process of planning, designing, building, deploying and maintaining software solutions for a specific set of users.
Unlike commercial off-the-shelf software that targets a broad range of needs, custom software solutions are built to address a very specific set of problems or requirements.
Typically, custom software development is performed either by in-house development teams or outsourced to a software development company.
Custom software solutions are built using the same processes and methodologies such as Agil, Scrum and DevOps as any software would be developed.
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The Advantages of Custom Software Development
Below are the benefits of investing in a customized software solution for your business:
1. Meets Your Business Specific Needs
Custom software development means you can build and customize the software as much as you want to meet the exact needs of your business and target users.
Unlike the off-the-shelf software that provides you restricted access for customization, you possess complete control over custom software development.
2. You Can Save Money
Using ready-made solutions could end up costing you more in the long run. These software solutions entail licensing fees for usage and add-ons that come at a certain price to meet your needs, which increases the overall cost.
With custom software development, on the other hand, you don’t have to bear the costs for unnecessary aspects in terms of software’s functionalities and features that you’ll never use.
3. Easy Integration with Other Tools
With custom software development, the integration of your new software product with already existing infrastructure to optimize business processes becomes easy.
Generally, when companies try to integrate existing software with off-the-shelf software solutions, it leads to errors.
4. Ensures High Security
With each passing day, we witnessed an increase in the number of cyberattacks. Often, hackers target off-the-shelf software solutions as the source code of these solutions is easier to crack.
On the other hand, custom software solutions include tailor-made offerings that are not publicly accessible and specialized encryption & security are present in bespoke solutions, which make them pretty challenging for hackers to attack.
5. High Scalability
As a business starts to grow, so do its needs. At that stage, businesses who rely on off-the-shelf software solutions may find it challenging to scale to meet current market demands or they may have to pay hefty licensing fees.
On the other, custom software development gives enough room to scale your business the way you desire and doesn’t restrict you from achieving new heights.
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Do You Really Need to Build Custom Software?
No doubt, custom software development has many advantages over buying off-the-shelf software solutions but do you really need to build custom software?
Well, it all boils down to the goal you want to achieve with the software.
If you want the software to handle a common aspect of your business such as payroll and bookkeeping, then there’s a good chance you’ll probably be able to find a great product already existing out there that can come to your rescue.
On the other hand, if you want software that helps you offer a personalized experience to target users to gain a competitive edge, it’s better to go with a custom software development approach.
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How Much Does Custom Software Development Cost?
Giving a precise cost estimate of custom software development is not feasible as there are several influencing factors. However, as per findings by GoodFirms, the cost of software development projects can range from $3000 to $120,000.
Let’s now have a look at some of the key factors affecting custom software development in detail:
1. Platform
You can deploy your custom software on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix and Web.
The type of platform you go with may affect the cost of custom software development.
For example, if you want to deploy your custom software on more than one platform such as Android, iOS and Windows natively, you need to deploy separate development teams for each platform you want to target.
Thus, multiple development teams will translate into higher costs than onboarding a single team.
One way to reduce the cost is to go with a cross-platform development team that can help you build custom software for multiple platforms using the same codebase.
2. Development Approach
There are different software development approaches to build a software product such as Agile, Scrum, Hybrid, Waterfall and among others. Each approach works differently, thus your choice of development methodology will affect the cost.
The agile development approach leads to significant cost-savings due to its fundamental principles such as simplicity and quick & iterative delivery and quality.
3. Software Complexity
The software can be categorized into three types in terms of complexity: basic, moderate and high. The more complex software, the higher budget it requires.
The software can be categorized into a basic version, moderately complex and highly complex app. The more complex app, the more investment it requires.
Software applications with a robust backend and 30+ screens are more expensive to develop than the ones with fewer screens and simple architecture.
Other aspects such as security, database migration and integration further increase the complexity of the project.
4. Design Requirements
When it comes to designing user-centric applications, you need strong and experienced UI/UX designers with a design-thinking mindset. That translates into higher costs.
5. Development Team
You can decide to build an in-house development team that encompasses several responsibilities on your shoulders such as sourcing & screening potential developers, training team, managing payroll & compliance, infrastructure setup and among others.
Thus, it goes without saying that building an in-house team would probably take a great deal of your valuable time and money.
Hiring remote custom developers, on the other hand, does not demand training and infrastructure investment. Moreover, hiring a dedicated team of managed developers from a software development company can further save you from the administrative hassle.
How InfoStride Can Help You?
At InfoStride, our software development teams have been at the forefront of building custom software solutions for businesses across industries since our inception.
With expertise in various technologies and frameworks, our developers can help you design and engineer software applications that meet your exact needs.
You can hire a solo custom developer or assemble a dedicated team of tech specialists including developers and software testers for your project with us with the following advantages:
- Get access to vetted developers in terms of technical and communication acumen
- Our dedicated state-of-the-art development facility empowers our developers to deliver projects fast
- No administrative hassle on you; we manage everything from onboarding to compliance
- Our developers are well-versed with agile software development methodologies to ensure faster time to market
- Flexible engagement models; hire our resources on an hourly, monthly or project basis
Interested? Schedule your free consultation session with one of our experts to discuss your requirements today.
Also Read: Guide to Build Offshore Development Teams
Conclusion
With that, you now know the importance of developing custom software for your business.
Taking the benefits custom software development offers to customer-facing businesses into account, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it is ideal to become big in the future.
