A price quoted before anyone has seen your process and your data is a guess. What you can do is understand what moves the number, estimate a range yourself, and make every vendor answer the same questions so quotes are comparable.
A way to estimate it yourself
Most custom builds price out as team size times weeks times a blended weekly rate, plus infrastructure and migration. Ask each vendor for those three numbers: how many people, for how many weeks, at what blended rate. Then check the weeks against the scope drivers below. A quote that will not show its assumptions cannot be compared.
What changes the scope
- Document types: sales orders, purchase orders, quotes, credit memos, transfers, returns. Each has its own screens, statuses, printouts and approval rules.
- Units of measure: a product sold by the each, bought by the case and stored by the pallet needs conversion rules everywhere.
- Multi-currency and multi-entity: both add accounting rules and reporting work.
- Integrations: each connected system adds design, build, testing and ongoing monitoring. EDI trading partners each bring their own specification.
- Approval matrices: how many levels, limits and exceptions.
- Records to migrate: how many customers, items, open orders and balances, and how clean they are.
- History: moving five years of transactions costs more than moving open items and archiving the rest.
- Reporting: five standard reports are small. A full analytics layer is a project of its own.
- Compliance and audit: audit trails, retention and access controls are worth doing properly and take time.
Ways to keep spending under control
- Phase the work. Launch one process or one location first and let real use decide the next phase.
- Pay for discovery first. A fixed-scope discovery turns unknowns into written scope and a fixed-price proposal for the first release.
- Fix scope and let features move. Agree outcomes and acceptance criteria, and push lower-value features to later releases.
- Name one decision-maker on your side. Waiting for decisions is a cost on every project.
What every quote must state
- What is included in the first release, in a written list.
- Data migration: what moves, how many rehearsals, and who signs off.
- Integrations: which systems, and the method for each.
- Training and documentation.
- Hosting: whose account, and the monthly cost.
- Support after launch: hours, response targets and price.
- The warranty period for defects after go-live.
- How changes are requested, estimated and approved.
- Who owns the code, and what you receive at handover.
- The assumptions the price depends on.
Budget for life after launch
Software needs hosting, monitoring, security updates and continuing improvement as the business changes. Plan for those from the start, whether you contract them or bring them in-house, and include them when you compare against per-user licenses over three years.