Custom business software and process automation
Custom business software is an internal application built around your own processes rather than a generic product you bend to fit. Budget €4,000 to €15,000 for a focused tool and €15,000 to €45,000 for a full system, delivered in four to sixteen weeks. Firm quote within 24 hours.
What counts as custom business software?
Every company ends up with a handful of processes that no product on the market handles properly: a quoting method, a validation chain, a way of calculating commission, a document flow between three systems that do not talk to each other. Those processes usually live in spreadsheets, in email threads, and in the head of the one person who knows how it works.
Custom business software turns that into an application: one source of truth, rules enforced by the system rather than by memory, and an audit trail. It is not about replacing every tool you own — it is about building the one piece that does not exist, and connecting it to the ones that do.
The economics are simple and worth checking before you commit. A tool that saves two hours a day across three people pays for itself within a year at our rates. A tool that saves twenty minutes a week for one person does not, and we will say so during scoping rather than after.
What we build
Each project starts with a written process map: what happens today, step by step, and where the time is actually lost. The build follows from that, never from a feature list handed over without context.
Internal management tools
Case tracking, project management, planning, stock and equipment: the application that replaces the spreadsheet everyone edits at once.
Quoting and pricing engines
Business rules encoded once, applied consistently, with document generation. Typical use: multi-supplier comparison and instant quoting.
Process automation
Scheduled jobs, document generation, bulk emails, data imports and exports, alerting. The repetitive work that consumes hours every week.
System integrations
Connecting your existing tools — accounting, CRM, e-commerce, supplier APIs — so the same figure stops being re-typed in three places.
Dashboards and reporting
Consolidated indicators from your real data, with exports. Built on the sources you already have rather than on a new data entry burden.
AI features where they pay off
Extracting data from PDF invoices or contracts, classifying incoming requests, internal assistants querying your own documentation. Concrete uses, not research.
How much does custom business software cost?
Price follows the number of business rules and integrations, not the number of screens. These are our real ranges, set against French market rates, in euros excluding tax.
| Service | French agency | French freelancer | Externalize |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal tool / automation | 10 000 – 40 000 € | 5 000 – 20 000 € | 4 000 – 15 000 € |
| Custom CRM | 25 000 – 60 000 € | 12 000 – 30 000 € | 9 000 – 25 000 € |
| Custom ERP (per module) | 40 000 – 120 000 € | 20 000 – 60 000 € | 15 000 – 45 000 € |
| Developer day rate | 500 – 900 €/day | 350 – 650 €/day | 180 – 320 €/day |
Most projects start with one module in production rather than the full scope at once. It is cheaper, and it proves the approach before the budget is committed. Request a firm quote within 24 hours.
Our five-step process
- 1
Process mapping
We sit with the people who do the work and write down what happens today, step by step, including the workarounds. Most of the value of a custom tool is decided here, before any technical discussion.
- 2
Scope and cost-benefit
We cost the build against the time it saves. If the numbers do not work, we say so. If a subset of the scope captures most of the gain, we propose that instead.
- 3
First module in production
We build and deploy the single highest-value module first, used by real people on real data. Feedback from actual use is worth more than another round of specification.
- 4
Iteration on the rest
Remaining modules ship in one to two week batches, with a staging environment available throughout. Priorities can be reordered between batches.
- 5
Handover and support
Technical documentation, admin training, repository transfer. Then a support contract if you want one, or nothing at all — the code is yours either way.
Technologies we use
Mainstream, well-documented technologies with large talent pools, so you can bring the system in-house later without a migration.
Why a team in Madagascar?
Internal tools are the kind of project where communication matters more than anywhere else: the requirement lives in people's habits, not in a document. Our team works in French and English, from Antananarivo, one to two hours ahead of Western Europe. Workshops happen in your working day, not at the edges of it.
Local costs let us charge 50 to 70 percent less than a Western European agency at the same seniority. On a project that is fundamentally about saving internal time, that ratio is what makes a marginal business case a clear one.
We work on your repositories, your issue tracker and your conventions, and every change is reviewed by a second developer before production. If you later hire internally, the handover is a conversation rather than a rescue operation.
Frequently asked questions
Why build rather than buy an off-the-shelf product?
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How do you know the tool will actually save time?
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Can you connect the tool to software we already use?
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What happens to our data?
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Can you take over an existing internal tool?
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What if the person who commissioned the tool leaves?
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Ready to outsource your next software project?
Web app, internal tool or website — tell us about your project and get a free quote within 24 hours. Offshore rates, senior-level quality, no commitment.