What to expect when you ask a software house for a quote

If you've never hired a software house before, the process feels opaque. You describe what you want, they say "let me get back to you," and somehow a price comes back days later that may or may not have any relationship to what you described.

This post is the guide we wish every prospective client had read before we got on the first call. It tells you what a serious agency does between your first call and their quote, what the warning signs are, and how to make the whole thing faster.

The instant-quote red flag

If someone gives you a price in the first thirty minutes of the first call, treat it the way you'd treat a contractor who tells you what it'll cost to renovate your house while walking through the front door. The number isn't an estimate. It's a guess.

We've watched this play out for years. The instant quote is almost always lower than the eventual price by 40-60%. Three to four weeks into the build, scope changes start arriving, each one with its own price tag. By month two, the project costs more than the careful quotes the client originally turned down.

A serious agency takes two to four days to quote a project that takes weeks to build. They use that time to ask questions, look at your existing systems, and challenge parts of the scope you might not have realized are optional.

What real discovery looks like

After your first call, expect an agency to come back with questions. Lots of them. Here's what they should be asking:

About the people using it:

• Who exactly uses this? One audience or several?
• How technical are they?
• What do they use today to do this work?

About the "done" state:

• Walk us through the moment a user completes the most important action.
• What does success look like six months after launch?
• What's the one thing this needs to do that nothing else does?

About the systems:

• What other software does this need to talk to?
• Where does the data live today?
• Who handles the data after launch?

About the constraints:

• When does it need to be live, and why that date?
• What can't change? (Brand, hosting choice, existing user accounts)
• Are there compliance, data residency, or accessibility requirements?

About the budget:

• Is the budget firm, a target, or being figured out?
• What does "expensive" feel like to you? What does "cheap" feel like?

If an agency doesn't ask these or something close to them before quoting, they're guessing. Their number is going to change.

How long it should take

Two to four days is normal for a project worth $10,000-$50,000. Up to a week is fair for larger ones. Beyond two weeks for an estimate is too long unless the agency is doing paid discovery as a separate engagement.

If they take a month to come back with a quote, they're either disorganized or doing something else and not prioritizing you. Either is a signal.

What you should bring to the first call

You'll get a better, faster, more accurate quote if you walk in with five things:

1. A one-paragraph description of the most important user action. "A patient books an appointment, gets a confirmation, gets a reminder 24h before, and can reschedule from the reminder."
2. The systems this has to integrate with, with names and versions. "QuickBooks Online, Mailchimp, our existing WordPress site on Bluehost."
3. A target launch date and why. "Before Ramadan, because that's when our seasonal business picks up."
4. Two or three products you admire that have a similar feel or function.
5. A budget range even if it's wide. "$10k-$30k" tells us more than "we don't know yet."

The clients who arrive with these answers consistently get more accurate quotes, faster, and from better agencies. The agencies worth working with are the ones who respect the prep work you did.

After the quote

A real quote includes a written scope, a phased timeline, a list of assumptions, and an explicit list of what's NOT included. If those four things are missing, you don't have a quote. You have a number.

When you compare quotes from different agencies, compare what's in scope, not just the totals. The cheap one almost always has less in it. Sometimes that's the right call. Often it isn't.

What we do

We typically respond to a project inquiry within 24 hours with our first round of questions. We aim to send a written quote within three business days of getting the answers back. If we can't do that, we tell you why and when to expect it.

That's not the industry standard. We think it should be.