Introducing our free software cost calculator

We have launched a free software cost calculator. Answer eight short questions about what you want to build and it shows, as you click, the effort in hours, a timeline in weeks and the team a project like yours usually needs. If you want a firmer answer, you can send it to a founder, who reviews it and replies with a written estimate within one working day.

We built it because the first question almost everyone asks is "how long will this take, and how big is it?", and a useful answer should not require a sales call.

What the calculator asks

The questions cover the things that actually drive the size of a software project:

1. What you are building: a marketing website, a web application, a mobile app, a SaaS platform, an e-commerce store or marketplace, an AI product or feature, or an internal business tool.
2. How far the first phase should go: a clickable prototype to validate the idea, an MVP that real users can rely on, or a full first release ready to scale.
3. Which platforms: web, iOS, Android, or a combination.
4. Which features: from sign-up and user roles, single sign-on, payments and an admin panel to notifications, real-time chat, search, reporting, maps, several languages including right-to-left, offline use, an AI assistant on your own data or a custom machine-learning model.
5. How many other systems it connects to: payment providers, CRMs, ERPs and internal APIs.
6. Design: whether you already have designs, want a clean standard interface on a proven component kit, or need custom design with research and a design system.
7. Security and compliance: standard good practice, or the extra requirements of finance, health or government.
8. Starting point: building from scratch, or extending or rescuing existing software.

For a marketing website the platform question drops away, so you answer seven. "Roughly is fine" is the honest instruction on the features step: the point is a sensible starting range, not a specification.

What it shows, and what it does not

The result updates live beside the questions. It shows:

• Effort: a range of engineering hours, rather than a single number, because every project has unknowns until it has been scoped.
• Timeline: a range in weeks, based on the suggested team working on it.
• Team: how many people and which roles, for example a senior engineer as project lead, a product designer, web or mobile engineers, an AI engineer where AI features are involved, and a QA engineer on larger projects.

It does not show a price. That is deliberate. We set budgets per project, once we understand the scope, your existing systems and how much is already decided. A price produced by a form would either be padded to be safe or wrong in your favour until the real work starts, and neither helps you plan. Effort and time are what drive the cost of software, so that is what the calculator gives you.

How the estimate is worked out

There is no AI and no guesswork behind it, just a transparent model of how our projects usually go, applied to your answers:

1. A baseline for the kind of product. Each project type starts from the effort a typical first version takes. A marketing site is far smaller than a multi-tenant SaaS platform.
2. Scope, features and platforms. The phase you choose scales the baseline, each feature adds the effort it usually takes, and each extra platform adds the work it does not share with the others.
3. Integrations, design and compliance. Connections to other systems, the depth of design work, regulated-industry requirements and existing code each add a share of the effort.
4. Delivery and an honest range. Testing, project management and release work go on top, and the result is presented as a range.

All of this is plain arithmetic that runs in your browser as you click. Your answers are not sent or stored anywhere unless you choose to send the form, and then they go only to the Authect founders, together with your message.

From a range to a written estimate

When you ask for a founder's estimate, your answers and the calculated range travel with your message. A founder reads them, may ask a few questions by email, and replies within one working day with a written estimate and a suggested plan. There is no salesperson and no obligation.

If it makes sense to go further, the next step is a video call. Every client conversation with us starts online, by video call, email and shared documents, and meeting in person is only arranged later, once a project is under way. After discovery, the engineers who will build your product write the estimate, and a founder turns it into either a fixed price for a clearly scoped project or a monthly sprint budget when priorities are likely to change as you learn from users. Our guide to fixed price vs time and materials explains how to choose between the two.

Often the most useful part of that conversation is what to leave out. The quickest way to a shorter timeline is usually a smaller first phase rather than a bigger team, and we will suggest what to cut when we review your answers. Our guide to scoping an MVP without wasting budget covers how to make those choices.

Try it

The calculator takes a couple of minutes and is free to use: try the software cost calculator. For the thinking behind it, including how estimates are built and worked examples in hours and team shape, read how much custom software development costs. And if you would rather just describe your project in your own words, write to the founders.