What custom software costs from India, in US dollars (2026)

Every guide to hiring developers in India talks in hourly rates. Rates are the wrong unit for a business owner, because what you need to know is what the thing costs and when it lands. So here are the numbers as fixed bands with weeks attached, and an explanation of where they come from.

The bands, in dollars

These are the same numbers the scope builder shows when you switch it to dollars, and the same numbers on the pricing page. A band is a working range for typical scope, not a teaser rate. A fixed quote follows one call, and the number we sign is the number you pay.

Why they are not a currency conversion

The rupee bands on this site are for Indian clients, and they are lower. If you converted them at the exchange rate you would get numbers that look implausibly cheap to a buyer in Dallas or Dubai, and that suspicion is fair. Prices that low usually mean something has been left out: the handover, the documentation, the person you can actually reach.

The dollar bands were set the other way round. We looked at what local agencies in the US, Western Europe and the Gulf publish as rates and as typical project prices, and set each band at a level that is clearly below a local quote for the same scope, while still funding the thing that makes the price fair: one lead who runs the build from the first call to handover, a live link every week, and everything in your name at the end. In practice a typical build lands 40 to 80% below a local agency's quote.

What a local agency charges instead

Local agencies in the US and Western Europe commonly publish rates of $100 to $200 an hour. Gulf agencies commonly publish $60 to $150. Multiply any of those by the weeks in the table above and you see why so many small businesses never get the software they need: the number is out of reach before the first call.

The trap in hourly billing is not the rate. It is that the number is unknown until the end, and every change of mind costs more hours. We do not bill hours at all. The scope is written, the number is fixed against it, and changes within the scope simply happen.

What moves the number inside a band

• How much is on day one. A website with six pages and a form sits at the bottom of its band. Twenty product pages, a calculator and two languages sit at the top.
• What already exists. A back office that has to import three years of records from a spreadsheet costs more than one that starts fresh, because migration is real work.
• Integrations. Payment gateways, bank feeds and accounting exports each add a piece. Some services also charge for access on their side, and we tell you which before you commit.
• Roles. An app for customers only is simpler than one for customers, partners and field staff, each seeing only what is theirs.

How to buy it without risk

Every guide to hiring a studio abroad gives the same advice: run a small paid project before a large one. Ours is the website. In two weeks and $1,200 to $3,600 you get a finished site in your name, and you see the working rhythm: a written scope with a fixed number, a live link every week, one person you can reach. If it fits, the app and the back office follow on the same engine at about 15% less than built apart. If it does not, you keep a finished site and owe nothing further.

Payment is by milestones in your currency: an advance, one or two mid-build milestones you can see working, and the final payment at handover. Nothing is due before the scope and the number are agreed in writing. How a remote build runs, hour by hour →

Where this applies: clients outside India, every band, in one place, the two-week website.