custom software cost UK
A typical Armdia Systems engagement falls between twenty five thousand pounds and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds depending on scope and runs from six weeks to nine months. Discovery starts at four thousand pounds and is fixed price. We do not charge open ended day rates.
Calculator
Four short questions. The number you see at the end is an estimate, not a quote. We will only quote in writing after a discovery conversation.
Indicative band
£60,000 – £180,000
The lower bound assumes a clean brief, a single named decision maker on your side and integrations whose contracts are documented. The upper bound assumes any of those break down or scope grows during build.
This is an indicative estimate. We do not commit to a number until we have walked through the discovery checklist together. Final figures often land within the band but can fall outside it for unusual constraints.
Engagement models compared
One column is rarely the right answer for the whole life of a project. Discovery and build are usually fixed price. Steady state is usually a retainer. Sprint capacity is staff augmentation.
| Aspect | Fixed price project | Monthly retainer | Staff augmentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ideal use case | Discovery and build of a defined scope with a documented end state. | Continuous operation, maintenance and small enhancements to a live system. | Filling a specific role in your existing team for a defined window. |
| Typical duration | Six weeks to six months. Renewable on a new statement of work. | Minimum three months, rolling thereafter with a sixty day notice period. | Minimum two months, typical three to nine months. |
| Typical price | GBP 25,000 to GBP 150,000 total, depending on scope and complexity. | GBP 4,000 to GBP 12,000 per month. Tier picked from the support page. | GBP 7,000 to GBP 14,000 per engineer per month. |
| Who owns the code | You, at the agreed handover milestone. | You, continuously. We retain access to do the contracted work. | You, always. Our engineer commits into your repository. |
| Who manages the deployment | Armdia Systems until handover, then your team or a retainer. | Armdia Systems, including out of hours incident response when contracted. | You. Our engineer follows your release process. |
| What happens at the end | Handover session, written documentation and a thirty day defect fix window. | Sixty day wind down. Knowledge transferred to your team in writing. | Engagement ends on the agreed end date. No automatic renewal. |
What we will not quote without seeing
A number quoted without these in place is a number that will move. We publish the list so the conversation gets shorter and the fit gets clearer earlier.
Category 1
Without a written description of the entities, their relationships and their lifecycle we cannot price the work without inventing scope. A short discovery turns the model into evidence we can both refer to.
Category 2
The choice between schema per tenant, row level security and a fully separate database has a five to ten times cost effect on operations. We will not quote until the decision is documented and signed.
Category 3
Digital Technology Assessment Criteria, operational resilience and information governance change the testing, hosting and documentation budgets. The risk session is short. It is the only way the number we quote is defensible.
Category 4
If we cannot inspect the source schema, the export mechanism and the volume, the migration estimate is a guess. A read only data drop in a sandbox is usually enough to write a real plan.
Category 5
Building artificial intelligence without an agreed evaluation method is a way to spend money on something nobody can sign off. The evaluation plan is the first deliverable, before any model selection.
Fixed price project for scoped delivery, monthly retainer for ongoing support and staff augmentation where an internal team needs senior capacity.
Discovery starts at GBP 4,000 and produces requirements, architecture notes, risks, prototype direction and a build quote.
Content website: GBP 25,000 to GBP 40,000. Customer portal: GBP 60,000 to GBP 90,000. artificial intelligence platform: GBP 150,000 upward.
Support tiers are presented as comparison data.
| Tier | Hours | Response | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 5 | Two working days | From GBP 1,500 |
| Silver | 15 | One working day | From GBP 4,000 |
| Gold | Reserved | Same day plus on call options | Quoted |
Third party licences, hosting, domain names, stock imagery, paid data sources and external penetration testing are quoted separately.
| Option | Best fit | Risk to check |
|---|---|---|
| Armdia Systems | Bespoke systems with clear ownership and United Kingdom first delivery. | Requires a proper discovery phase before fixed pricing. |
| Off the shelf SaaS | Standard workflows with little custom process risk. | Licence, integration and process mismatch costs can grow. |
| Freelance contractor | Small isolated tasks with limited governance needs. | Continuity, documentation and support coverage need scrutiny. |
Most Armdia Systems engagements run from GBP 25,000 to GBP 150,000 depending on scope. A paid discovery phase starts from GBP 4,000 and produces the evidence needed for a fixed price build quote.
Small discovery and build phases can run for six to ten weeks. Larger platforms usually take three to nine months because design, testing, security review and handover need proper time.
United Kingdom hosting is the default. Where a provider cannot support a UK region, we document the exception and agree the data processing position with the client before build work starts.
The client owns the bespoke code and project artefacts at handover subject to the signed agreement. We keep only pre existing tools, reusable know how and open source dependencies under their original licences.
Yes. We support public sector buyers with accessibility, security, procurement documentation, UK data residency and service standard evidence. Framework participation is listed on the certifications page as it changes.
The default stack is TypeScript, Next.js, React, PostgreSQL, Redis, Vercel, Cloudflare and GitHub Actions. artificial intelligence systems may use OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Mistral or open weight models depending on the data and evaluation needs.