Software Development Cost?

Question

I'm thinking about developing my Inventory software.
It will track inventory and customers, download and upload products/orders to eBay and Amazon. Keep track of customers and Sales orders/ sales invoices. Bulk import-export, reports.

I KNOW, price may VARY. But I'd like to know if you had estimated software cost before? If yes, what do you think?

Do you have examples, how much particular piece of software would run?

What about hiring offshore freelance company? how safe would that be? Are there any companies which can be 100% trusted (estimated software cost vs NO CODE/IDEAS slipping out)?

I'm not interested in ready solution and not interested in free/open source solutions.

If you able to provide an answer, that would be great.

Answer 1

The program your describing sounds like something that might be available off the shelf. I think the official name for that type of software is Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP).



If this software isn't available off the shelf, then you should contact a software consulting firm in your area. The big boys are the Accentures, IBMs, but there are thousands of mom and pop computer consulting firms (firms < 1000 employees). To ball park prices I'd guess the following rates for a team of programmers (all rates are hourly USD):

Project Manager: $250

Tech Lead: $250

Programmers: $100-150

DB admins: $150+



It would be hard to guess the workload involved without details, but I'd say most development projects with about 7-10 people lasts anywhere about 3 months to 18 months. (The project I'm currently working on has a 6 developers and a budget of 4 million dollars for a fiscal year).



A few issues you may have overlooked:

Who will maintain your system?

Who will perform the back ups?

Who will fix your problem when a bug is discovered?

Who will install this system if you ever upgrade to new hardware?



I can't be assistance with offshoring, but usually only the Accentures and IBMs do that. You might find a middle man, someone that knows some Indians(Ghandis not Sitting Bulls) and can speak the language.



As for keeping your ideas secret, most companies that hire outside consultants to develop an application for them make them sign a non-disclosure agreement. Seriously, order/customer/sales/inventory tracking aren't novel ideas. Every company uses some kind of software for that. I'm skeptical that what your thinking of has been done before. Just my 0.02.



If your still interested I would contact a local computer consulting company or talk to a free lance project manager. They could give you some definite answers.

Answer 2

$95/hour is a bit high, but not much. You should be able to hire a good developer for $75/hour. Whether it's smartphone apps, a business program or anything else, the price per hour will be about the same. (You can hire "developers" for $100/week on sites like freelancer or elance, but the quality of the work - assuming you actually get some work - is going to be childish at best.) The question now is how long it's going to take, and the programmer you contact can give you a reasonable estimate once he knows the particulars of the job.

Answer 3

Hi, software development is actually very expensive to have company create software that you would like to link to eBay and Amazon.

However, wondering if you know how to develop your own would be best.



This type of software has to be compatible for both stores. I would suggest for you to look into eBay, Amazon to see what is their policy for downloading and uploading. In which these companies already have software working for you.



You must ask them what you want to do and see if they would grant you privilege to do so. You just can't create one on your own.