How much does custom software cost?
Three ways to buy the same platform, and none of them is per user. A self-serve lease is $300 a month plus tokens. A guided lease is $1,800 a month plus tokens. A custom build, where we do the work and you own the result, runs $100,000 to $400,000 one-time plus 10% a year for support. The price is how much of us you get.
What are the three tiers?
Lease · by invitation
Self-serve lease
$300
/mo + tokens
- Users
- Unlimited*
- Who builds
- Your accounting-side or quasi-IT person
- Own the code
- Buyout option
- Typical 3-year cost
- $10.8K + tokens
Lease · by invitation
Guided lease
$1,800
/mo + tokens
$300 platform + $1,500 guidance
- Users
- Unlimited*
- Who builds
- Your team, with us running the process on periodic calls
- Own the code
- Buyout option
- Typical 3-year cost
- $64.8K + tokens
Build · you own the code
Custom build
$100K–$400K
one-time
$100,000–$400,000 + 10%/yr support
- Users
- Unlimited
- Who builds
- We do
- Own the code
- Yes, code and copyright
- Typical 3-year cost
- $130K–$520K
The lease tiers are available by invitation while our closed beta runs; the prices are real.
* Unlimited means users. The software is unlimited; the resources aren't. The CPU and storage under a lease scale with your use, at a nominal cost increase.
Is pricing per user?
No. Every tier is flat: from $300/mo flat, unlimited users.*
Per-seat pricing grows with your headcount and again at every renewal; ours doesn't. The people who need to be in the system are in the system.
*Unlimited means users. On the lease tiers, the CPU and storage under the platform scale with your use, at a nominal cost increase; the software itself has no ceiling.
What does the self-serve lease include?
We always wanted to be able to give somebody software for ten thousand dollars, and this tier does it. You get the platform: the backend, the user interface, and the basics, which are ticketing, document management, notes, the reporting system, and the calendar. Your own accounting-side or quasi-IT person builds on that, adding fields, workflows, reports, and dashboards put together from existing components.
It's available by invitation while the closed beta runs. The price is real: $300 a month plus tokens, unlimited users.* The asterisk is CPU and storage, which scale with your use at a nominal cost increase; the software doesn't cap out.
What does the guided lease include?
You trade elbow grease for the money you'd have paid us. We run the same process on periodic calls; your team does the building. The same process means the discovery interviews and the weekly decision meeting from the custom build, on a call cadence instead of on site.
Same closed-beta line: by invitation for now, $1,800 a month ($300 platform plus $1,500 guidance) plus tokens, unlimited users.* Same asterisk: CPU and storage scale with use at a nominal cost increase.
How much does a custom ERP, CRM, or PSA cost?
For a 40-person company of ordinary complexity, a build usually lands between $150,000 and $200,000. What moves the number is how many processes the company runs and how much of the work is discovering them, not the headcount; a large group with one uniform process can be the cheapest build we do. The range runs from $100,000 for a single line of business to $400,000 when there are several, or a legacy system to dig data out of.
Weeks 4–6
A working system with your data in it
6–10 weeks
The build
After go-live
Tuning runs longer, by design
What each system replaces is on custom ERP, custom CRM, and custom PSA.
How much does a custom CRM cost?
The same range: $150,000 to $200,000 for a 40-person company of ordinary complexity, $100,000 to $400,000 across the range. For a pipeline on its own, buying is usually cheaper and we'll tell you so. The math changes when the CRM has to carry delivery, billing, or a member portal, or when the license tier your people actually need is two steps above the one you were quoted. More on custom CRM.
What are tokens and what do they cost?
Tokens are what the lease tiers spend when your team builds.
$1–$2
Per built item, say a dashboard widget with charts, filters, and export
Under 100
Items in a full system; it rarely exceeds that
~$2,000
Setup token spend in total, wrong turns included
Tokens aren't part of the custom build price; we absorb them.
What does the 10% support cover?
Bug fixes, questions, quarterly steering, and minor drift like added fields. A genuinely new subsystem is scoped separately, typically in $5,000–$10,000 increments.
How does this compare to a platform quote?
The honest comparison is the assembled price, license plus implementation plus what arrives after you sign, not the seat price. We ran the market's numbers and ours through one formula, at 20 seats over three and five years, in Customizable ERP vs Custom ERP: What You'll Actually Pay and, for services firms, What PSA Software Actually Costs for a 30–50 Person Firm.
Ready to talk numbers?
Tell us what isn't working. We'll tell you what's possible.
Email us at
info@purpleowl.ioQuestions from sales calls
How much does custom software cost?
A self-serve lease at $300 a month plus tokens, a guided lease at $1,800 a month plus tokens, or a custom build at $100,000 to $400,000 one-time plus 10% a year for support; all three are flat, unlimited users, as in the tiers above. One caveat on the lease tiers: unlimited is the software, not the hardware. CPU and storage scale with your use, at a nominal cost increase.
How much does a custom ERP cost?
$150,000 to $200,000 for a 40-person company of ordinary complexity; $100,000 to $400,000 across the range. What it replaces is on Custom ERP Systems.
How much does a custom CRM cost?
The same range as an ERP, and for a pipeline on its own, buying is usually cheaper and we'll say so. The longer answer is above and on Custom CRM Solutions.
Do we own the code?
Yes. You get your own code and copyright, plus a license to the platform code it's built on.
What does the asterisk on unlimited users mean?
That the users are unlimited and the hardware isn't. The $300 covers the platform for as many people as you put in it. The CPU and storage underneath scale with how much you actually use, and the cost moves with them by a nominal amount. It isn't a per-seat fee in disguise; it's the server bill.
Can we buy out the lease?
Yes. The lease tiers have a buyout option for running locally.
What happens if you get hit by a bus?
We'd rather you ask what happens when everyone here wins the lottery, but the worry is fair. You own your code and its copyright, it runs on infrastructure you can move, and the platform license goes with it.
Further Reading
Customizable ERP vs Custom ERP: What You'll Actually Pay
What customizable ERP and custom ERP really cost: assembled pricing, the costs no quote shows, and three tables you can check against your own quotes.
What PSA Software Actually Costs for a 30–50 Person Firm
Discover the true cost of PSA software for mid-sized firms. Compare PSA software pricing, implementation fees, and TCO in our detailed guide.
Your People Are the Integration Layer (And It's Costing You Everything)
Is your team acting as human middleware? Discover the 6 hidden patterns of integration failure costing your business time and money—and how to fix them.