Is Custom Software Really More Expensive?

Whenever you’re buying a customized product whether it be furniture, art, or anything else you typically associate it with a higher cost. This is because it requires work to create the product specifically for you and also carries a higher risk if you choose not to purchase the product after its made. Most people keep this same association when talking about software as well, but is this true? Is custom software really more expensive than off the shelf software?

Initial Costs of Custom Software

While the initial cost of custom software almost always carries a higher initial price than premade software, its oftentimes offset by the lack of features you need or will need in the future. Premade software is designed to fit the needs of as many people as possible. This means the intention of the software does not revolve around your specific problem but rather the most common denominator. You may end up finding a premade solution that seems like it will fit your exact needs, but as your needs change the software remains the same.

When you purchase custom software, it is designed with your specific needs in mind. This allows you to fully automate a specific process that could be taking up large amounts of your employees time. However, when you use a premade software, you’ll usually need an employee dedicated to pulling as much value from that software as they can. With a custom software, that value becomes extremely apparent allowing it to simply work instead of you figuring out how it can work for you.

So, while purchasing a custom software carries a higher initial cost, it reduces your overall expenses in learning how to use that software. It also saves time for your employees by making the value of the software apparent instead of requiring your employees figuring out the best way to use it.

When is Custom Software the Least Expensive Option?

Custom software truly shines when you have a specific problem you want solved with that software. This allows your development company to create a solution tailor made for your specific problem. The most common case of custom software becoming the least expensive option is the automation of a specific business process.

Automating a specific business process can quickly become an extremely complex task once you dig into every role that process performs. Oftentimes, it requires an iterative process to truly refine the automation. When you use a custom software to automate the process, it allows you to fine tune how the software works through updates made for you.

Using an experienced software development company to create the automation you need also allows you to find other areas of your processes that can be automated. They can then incorporate these additional automations into a single, comprehensive software package. You can also continue to develop customized software, so it can grow alongside your organization. This saves your team time from integrating new softwares as your needs grow. They’ll continue to work with the same software as they were before just with additional functionality.