How much does it cost to build an app? What the figure doesn't tell you
How much should you budget to build an app? The figure alone is not enough: aim for a goal rather than a feature list, with users from the first month.
Bespoke business software development
Are your tools adapted to the way you work, or do you have to adapt to them? We develop your bespoke business software, usable within a month, on a fixed monthly budget, and keep adjusting it as your business evolves.
What a business application is for, and when off-the-shelf software is enough
A business application keeps track of your orders, your jobs, your cases and who has access to what. It often replaces a spreadsheet, or several tools where the same information is entered more than once.
It can be a customer management tool (CRM) built around the way you sell, or a management system that no off-the-shelf software covers.
Part of your business runs on software you will not replace, such as your accounting or invoicing package. Your application can connect to it, so that the same information is entered only once and stays consistent from one system to the next.
Three needs each have their own page: automating a process, with AI where it helps; developing a mobile app; taking over or modernising an existing application.
If off-the-shelf software already covers your need, and its vendor makes the adjustments you ask for, it remains the simplest choice.
What we develop
A dashboard that shows real usage
A dashboard brings together data you already have, scattered across several tools, and makes it readable at a glance. What it shows should help you make a decision.
A monitoring tool that warns you before things break
A monitoring tool checks, at regular intervals, the state of what you need to keep an eye on: servers, licences, renewal dates. When a threshold is crossed, it alerts the right person before the problem reaches your users.
A back office to track every case
A back office is the internal tool where your teams, or your partners, track the status of each case and what remains to be done.
A customer portal, or a back office open to your partners
A portal gives your customers or your partners direct access to what concerns them: the status of their orders, their cases, their listings. Each user sees only their own screens and data.
A job board, or another matching platform
A matching platform brings two groups together: candidates and employers, customers and service providers. Each of them must quickly find what they are looking for, based on reliable profiles.
Inside an application, AI takes on a task
We give the AI one specific task of your business, inside the application.
Connecting the software you already use
Part of your business runs on software you will not replace, such as your accounting or invoicing package. Your application can connect to it, so that the same information is entered only once and stays consistent from one system to the next.
How your application moves forward
We start by talking with the users of your application, to understand their needs. From those needs, we specify each feature, then we develop it.
We test and sign off every feature before it goes live. If you would rather not delegate this, you test and approve it yourself.
What has been tested and signed off goes live. Every day, you see the application move forward on your acceptance environment.
The users of your application work with it from the first month of development, and how they use it determines the next feature or features.
What we have built
La Régie, the administration console of La Suite territoriale
For ANCT, France’s National Agency for Territorial Cohesion, we worked on the development of this console: role-based access control on email domains.
Secure email opened to 30 beta testers after six months of development.
Week and Go, a leisure-vehicle marketplace
For Groupe Rapido, a leisure-vehicle manufacturer, we worked on the development of its marketplace. The project had fallen behind with another provider. Together with the client and that provider, we refocused development on the essential features, the ones that brought the most value.
The new deadline was met with a minimal application; the other features were then added continuously.
A job board for apprenticeship students
For OMNES Education, a higher-education group, we worked on the development of this job board: filtering of offers, a role that fills in and validates profiles on the students’ behalf, and extraction of the profile from an image of the CV using generative AI.
Automatic CV analysis cut the time spent on manual data entry by 80%, above all for the group’s staff.
A dashboard of software licence usage
For a global automotive supplier, we worked on the development of this dashboard, which covers the licences of its mechanical design engineering software, on optimising the scheduled polling of the licence servers, and on alerts before expiry.
The dashboard showed when several engineers needed the same licence at the same time: the team in charge of licences reorganised usage rather than buying extra licences.
A fixed monthly budget, and what belongs to you
The budget is built with you, from your numbers and your objectives: together we set the amount and the problem your application has to solve. Your application is usable within a month of development. From then on, the budget covers its maintenance and evolution for as long as you want, so that it keeps adapting to your business. Invoicing is monthly and fixed, with no surcharge for licences or number of users. You know your exact spend before you start.
The source code, infrastructure, deployment pipeline and documentation are your intellectual property once the first monthly invoice is paid.
The zero-regression guarantee applies from day one. If an accepted and approved feature starts behaving differently after a change, we fix it at no extra cost and we lock the behaviour with an automated test so it cannot come back.
You can terminate the contract in writing at any time, without justification. During the reversibility month, we support your team until they can build, test and deploy without us.
How much does it cost to develop a business application?
The budget is built with you, from your numbers and your objectives: together we set the amount and the problem your application has to solve. Your application is usable within a month of development. From then on, the budget covers its maintenance and evolution for as long as you want, so that it keeps adapting to your business. Invoicing is monthly and fixed, with no surcharge for licences or number of users. You know your exact spend before you start.
How long does it take to get my business application into production?
Your application is usable within a month. After that, we adjust it as your business evolves, for as long as you wish.
Do I need a specification to get started?
If you have one, send it to us. We will look in it for your objectives, your constraints and the details that make this application yours, and unique. The only question we want to ask about your specification: was each feature defined with your users, based on their needs, or are they just your own ideas? At Microsoft, of the ideas tested with users, only a third improved the target metric, another third changed nothing, and the last third made it worse (Ronny Kohavi and Stefan Thomke, Harvard Business Review, 2017). That is why, from the first month of development, we aim for an application that is usable with a few essential features. It lets us complete a first full loop: start from your users’ needs, define with them what to build, develop it, put it online, then gather their reactions and their new needs. Each loop guides the next, feature by feature. The budget is set with you, according to the time you decide to invest in developing your application and in continuously adjusting it as your users’ needs evolve. We do not determine it from a list of features and estimates of the time needed to develop them.
How do I know whether the users of my application will use it?
We do not try to guess it in advance. Each feature goes into production as soon as it has been tested and you approve its release, or as soon as we approve it if you delegate acceptance to us. Based on what your users tell us, we remove what is not used or gets in the way, then we choose what comes next with you.
Will my business application be able to connect to my other software?
Yes, as long as that software offers a way to exchange its data, most often a data exchange interface (API). That way, each piece of information is entered only once and stays consistent from one system to the next.
Can you integrate AI into the application you develop for us?
Yes, for a specific task in your business. In the job board of a higher-education group, the task given to the AI is reading CVs. Our page on automating processes with AI explains how we prepare each integration before the AI model provider changes its model, its price or its terms.
Who owns the code of my application?
The source code, infrastructure, deployment pipeline and documentation are your intellectual property once the first monthly invoice is paid.
What happens during the trial period?
In the first month, the first 15 working days are a trial period. Delivered features are accepted as they come in, by you or by us if you delegate acceptance to us. If you do not want the deliverables and do not wish to continue, no invoice is issued and you owe nothing. If you want your application in production before the trial period ends, you can ask us in writing: we issue the invoice for the days worked, and we release to production once it is paid.
Can I stop the development of my application whenever I want?
No minimum commitment duration. You can terminate the contract in writing at any time, without justification.
Which business application do you want to put in your users’ hands?
Thirty minutes to understand your situation. If we can help, a second meeting takes place within 48 hours to build the quote together.