What influence software development cost?

Software development can be expensive. This is especially true when developing innovative digital products that provide a unique experience for your users. 

Building digital products involves a trade-off between complexity and cost. If you don’t dedicate enough resources, you risk building a half-baked app. However, if you make a product too complex, you can quickly go over budget and hurt your overall ROI. 

The question is: What influences software development costs? What should you consider when looking to optimize your software development cost?

Did you know the most cost-effective way to build software products is to work with a dedicated developer like Qarbon IT? 

In this article, we’ll discuss the most important factors that drive up software development costs and cover what steps you can take to reduce them. 

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Top Factors Influencing Software Development Cost

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1. Project Size & Complexity 

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This factor is fairly simple to understand on a surface level. A larger and more complex project will typically require more time and resources to complete, which will translate into higher costs.

What causes projects to increase in complexity and scope? 

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• Features: The number of planned features is predominately the main source of complexity and size. 

• Many companies suffer from feature creep when building digital products - a phenomenon where too many features cause a project to become bloated and over budget. Consider: which features are most important to your target user? 

• Planned integrations: While integrations with popular services and platforms are a good selling point, they can take a lot of development time to get right. 

• Building integrations requires developers that know how to use the integrating services’ APIs and often retrofitting your application to work with these API calls can be tricky. But, remember, dedicated developers often have the experience and pre-made components to simplify this process!

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2. Development Model: In-house vs Outsourcing

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Who will build your software product? This can have a significant impact on the overall cost of your project. 

Let’s discuss two popular development models and judge how they stack up on cost: 

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• In-house development team: This is, by far, the most costly model. This involves hiring an entire team to develop your product. It can take a lot of resources to find, interview, hire and train new developers. For smaller projects, it can be hard to justify these sunk costs. 
• Freelancers: Instead, you could work with freelance developers that have experience in the field or product you’re looking to build. This is a cost-effective choice for one-off projects, but it can take a while to find the right developers and scaling up your resources is difficult as freelancers can’t work for you full-time. 
• Dedicated developers: A dedicated developer is a professional software developer who works exclusively for a specific client or company on a full-time basis. These developers are organized and hired by a software company like Qarbon IT. This offers you instant access to your team and helps you build your product more quickly.

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For larger, ongoing projects, dedicated developers are usually the most cost-effective option. 

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3. Technologies and Platforms Used

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What will your developers use to build the product? What platforms will power your features and functionality? This can also influence how much your project will cost. 

Different technologies have different costs associated with them, including licensing fees, hardware requirements, and development time. 

Additionally, some technologies may require specialized expertise or training, which can also add to the overall cost of development.

If you’re working on a tight budget, you should consider using free or open-source tools to power your product & development workflow. For instance, working with an affordable authentication platform like 0Auth can help bring your project back under budget. 

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Drive down development costs with dedicated developers

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The most cost-effective way to build software products is to hire a dedicated development team with experience in building apps for your market sector. 

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At Qarbon IT, we offer businesses of any size a dedicated team to build their dream digital product. Our teams can create: 

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• Web apps
• Mobile apps
• Enterprise software 
• and more.

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We focus on providing businesses with a long-term tech relationship - allowing them to see their projects through and ensuring great results. 

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