When businesses ask how much software costs, they typically focus on the development price tag. But the true cost of software includes several dimensions that, if ignored, lead to budget surprises and project stress. Understanding the full picture before you start is not just good financial planning — it is the difference between a software investment that pays off and one that becomes a money pit.
The most visible cost is development: the money you pay a team to build your software. Several factors drive this number. Complexity is the biggest lever — a simple landing page and a full SaaS platform are entirely different undertakings. Features add design, development, and testing time with every addition. Integrations with payment gateways, CRMs, or third-party APIs introduce both technical complexity and coordination overhead. Design requirements vary enormously between basic functional interfaces and premium UI/UX work. Platform scope doubles or triples effort when you move from web-only to web plus iOS and Android. In the Philippines market, typical ranges reflect this spread: a landing page or portfolio site runs ₱15,000 to ₱40,000, a corporate website with CMS falls between ₱50,000 and ₱150,000, a web application or SaaS product ranges from ₱200,000 to ₱800,000 or more, a simple mobile app costs ₱80,000 to ₱200,000, a complex mobile app runs ₱500,000 to ₱1,500,000 or more, and enterprise systems such as ERPs start at ₱500,000 and can reach ₱2,000,000 or beyond. At PROGREX, we provide detailed estimates only after a free discovery call — we analyze requirements first and never guess.
Ongoing costs are where most budgets get blindsided. Hosting and infrastructure alone can range from ₱500 to ₱50,000 or more per month depending on scale — with cloud services like AWS and Vercel, domain registration, SSL certificates, and CDN adding up quickly. Software is never truly "done," which means maintenance and updates are a permanent line item. Budget 15 to 20 percent of the initial development cost annually for bug fixes and patches, security updates, dependency upgrades, performance monitoring, and server maintenance. As your product matures, your users will request new features and your market will demand changes — ongoing development sprints are not optional if you want to remain competitive. Third-party services add another layer: payment processing through Stripe or PayMongo takes two to three percent per transaction, email services through SendGrid or AWS SES run ₱500 to ₱5,000 per month, analytics platforms can range from free to ₱20,000 monthly, and monitoring tools add another ₱0 to ₱10,000 per month depending on sophistication.
The pattern of choosing the cheapest option is one of the most expensive decisions a business can make. We have seen countless businesses select the lowest bidder, only to spend two to three times the original budget on fixes, rewrites, and delays caused by poor initial work. Quality software development has a cost — but it is an investment that pays dividends through reliability, scalability, and lower maintenance over time.
Budgeting wisely comes down to five disciplines. Get a detailed estimate from a reputable company rather than just an hourly rate, so you understand scope, not just effort. Include maintenance costs — 15 to 20 percent of development — in your first-year budget from the start. Plan for infrastructure costs from day one rather than treating them as a surprise. Budget for iteration, because version one is never the final product. And insist on documentation throughout the project — it dramatically reduces future maintenance costs and protects you if you ever need to bring in a different team. At PROGREX, we help clients plan for the complete picture, not just the first check.
