How expensive is software development?

What do you think software development costs?

A fictional calculation gives helpful indications

This calculation serves as an example and as a comparison to our product prices.

Price calculator

Select a product

Price for this product at the time this form was produced

€

Would you be willing to develop this product yourself?

Yes

What is your expertise with FileMaker (1-9)

Include testing and improving during development (requires time & costs)

Yes

Should it be an established product with a reliable track record? (requires time & costs)

Yes

Estimated number of hours to build a similar tool from scratch

hours

What is your hourly rate?

€

Your development costs

€

This is what to think about

Total development time: hours.
Total development costs: € .

This is roughly what the development of the selected product would cost you, either in time or money.

Is AI the solution?
Let's assume AI would reduce the time and costs. You are an AI-wizard and invested heavily to acquire the knowledge needed. Let's also assume that with AI you would only need 10% of the here mentioned time and costs. Would it be cheaper and easier to go that route instead of purchasing a well-tested tool?

Would you like to get this information sent to you per email?

Than add your email address and click "Send email".

What’s the point of this tool?

This calculator doesn’t give real quotes or actual commitments. It’s fictional by design. What it does show is how complexity, experience, and time stack up when software gets built and why that is relevant for pricing.

Good developers bring more than coding skills. They bring domain knowledge, practical workflow understanding, and the ability to simplify what’s actually complex. That combination takes years to build. It also costs accordingly.

The broader point: there’s no such thing as a free solution. Whether you build it yourself, hire someone, or buy a licence, you’re always exchanging something. Think of time, money, or control. A well-priced product can deliver more real value than a free alternative or a custom build ever could.

How are the hours calculated?

The calculator works with man-hours, based on this simple model:

5 hours of focused work per day
20 working days per month
That’s 100 hours per month, 1200 hours per year

More experienced developers typically need fewer hours, but tend to charge more per hour. Both can be the better deal, depending on what you need.

Where can you actually save?

Before deciding how to build or buy, it helps to ask a few honest questions:

Do you need full access to the solution, or just to your data?
Are you comfortable depending on an external platform (SaaS)?
Do you need your data hosted privately on your own servers?
Do you need offline access?

Your answers will point toward the kind of solution that fits and clarify where spending more upfront saves more in the long run. If this calculator changed how you see the cost of development, have a look at what a starter file actually saves you.

Introduction to Starter Files

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