If you have asked three UK agencies to quote the same system, you have probably seen numbers so far apart they could be for different projects. Sometimes they are. More often the product is the same and what differs is who builds it, where they sit and what is quietly left out of the quote.
This guide gives our own project price ranges in pounds, and the UK-specific details (VAT, R&D relief and UK GDPR) that change what a project really costs. For the general pricing logic in dollars, see our main cost guide. This page is the UK version.
UK price ranges by project type
These are DataVolve’s typical ranges for a competent build by a small senior team, the model most growing UK businesses buy, converted from the dollar ranges in our main cost guide and rounded. They are indicative, not a survey of UK agency prices. They assume clear scope, a working product in production and a proper handover.
| Project | Typical cost (GBP) | Time to live |
|---|---|---|
| Validation MVP: one workflow, prove the idea | £800–£2,500 | 1–2 weeks |
| Internal tool that replaces a spreadsheet | £1,500–£5,000 | 2–3 weeks |
| Single business module: inventory, purchasing, pipeline, payroll | £4,000–£12,000 | 2–4 weeks |
| Custom CRM with automation and reporting | £8,000–£24,000 | 3–6 weeks |
| Multi-module ERP platform | £12,000–£48,000+ | 6–16 weeks, phased |
| Mobile app (iOS + Android, shared codebase) | £5,000–£20,000 | 4–10 weeks |
| E-commerce with custom logic | £4,000–£16,000 | 3–8 weeks |
| AI agent: chat or voice | £2,500–£10,000 | 2–4 weeks |
| Automation between two systems | £650–£2,500 | 3–10 days |
A London agency with a fully onshore team will often quote two to four times these figures for identical scope. That is not always overpricing. It reflects London salaries, office costs and account management layers. The question is whether those layers are worth paying for on your project.
What UK agencies and contractors charge
Almost every software quote is a day rate multiplied by days. Once you know the rate, you can read any quote.
| Who builds it | Typical day rate (2026) | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| London agency or consultancy | £800–£1,500+ | Onshore team, account managers, workshops, strong process. Premium for proximity. |
| Regional UK agency | £500–£900 | Onshore team, lighter overhead than London |
| UK freelance contractor | £400–£700 | One person, great for a defined piece, but a single point of failure |
| Hybrid team (UK-facing lead, offshore engineers) | £200–£450 | Senior engineers with UK-hours overlap, at a fraction of the onshore cost |
| Offshore marketplace freelancer | £80–£250 | Cheapest per day and the widest quality spread; you manage it yourself |
These are indicative ranges from what we see in quotes and published rates, not a formal survey or a price list, and they move with seniority and specialism. The useful comparison is not the rate alone but rate × days × the chance you have to redo it. A cheap day that produces code nobody can maintain is the most expensive day on the project.
Why UK quotes vary so much
When one agency says £9,000 and another says £60,000, it is usually one of these:
- Team shape. A project manager, designer, two developers and a tester on every call costs more than two senior engineers who design and test as they go. Both can be right; ask which you are paying for.
- Discovery billed separately. Many UK agencies charge £3,000–£15,000 for a discovery phase before quoting the build. Useful on a large project, excessive on a small one.
- What is excluded. Data migration, integrations, hosting set-up, app store submission and post-launch support are the usual missing lines.
- Contingency. Fixed-price quotes carry a risk buffer, often 20–40%. A vague brief makes that buffer bigger.
- Location. The same senior engineer costs very different amounts in London, in Manchester and on a DataVolve team. The code does not know the difference; the invoice does.
Ask every bidder for the same explicit list of what is in and what is out. Compare the lists, not the totals.
Want a UK quote you can actually compare?
Send us two lines about the problem. You get a scoped plan in pounds, with every inclusion and exclusion listed, within 24 hours.
VAT: the 20% people forget
It sounds obvious, but it catches buyers out constantly: many UK quotes are ex VAT. A £20,000 build from a VAT-registered UK supplier is a £24,000 invoice. If you are VAT-registered you will normally reclaim it, but the cash still leaves your account first. If you are not registered, that 20% is a real cost.
Buying from a supplier outside the UK works differently. For a VAT-registered UK business buying services from abroad, the reverse charge generally applies: the supplier does not charge UK VAT, you account for it on your own return and usually recover it in the same return. The net effect is often neutral, but it needs to be done correctly. Ask your accountant how it applies to you.
R&D tax relief on software
Software can qualify for UK R&D tax relief, and it is worth understanding before you budget, because it is frequently overstated in sales pitches.
- What qualifies: work that seeks an advance in science or technology and resolves genuine technical uncertainty. A novel matching algorithm might; a standard CRM built with established tools usually does not.
- What changed: the merged R&D scheme, which applies to accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2024, generally excludes R&D subcontracted to providers overseas, with narrow exceptions.
- What that means: if relief is a big part of your business case, check the rules with an R&D specialist before choosing where the work is done, and never treat a relief claim as guaranteed income.
For most business systems (ERP, CRM, automation, portals) R&D relief is not the deciding factor. Total cost of ownership is.
UK GDPR and where your data lives
If your system holds customer or employee data, UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply whoever writes the code. The questions to settle at the start, not the end:
- Where is production data hosted? A UK or EU cloud region is the simplest answer and is available on every major provider.
- Who can see personal data? Most developers never need production data. Use anonymised copies for development and testing.
- How is access outside the UK covered? If anyone outside the UK can access personal data, you need a lawful transfer mechanism, usually the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, backed by a transfer risk assessment.
- What happens on a breach? Logging, alerting, and a named person on the supplier side.
None of this is expensive if it is designed in. It is very expensive if it is discovered by a customer’s security questionnaire six months after launch.
Running costs after launch
| Item | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting (UK region) | £15–£250 / month | Most business systems sit at the low end |
| Maintenance and changes | 15–25% of build / year | Security patches, dependency updates, small changes, support |
| Third-party services | Varies | SMS, e-mail delivery, maps, AI usage, payment fees |
| App store accounts | ~£20 one-off + ~£80 / year | Google Play and Apple Developer |
Compare that with a SaaS product at £40–£120 per user per month. For a 25-person team that is £12,000–£36,000 a year, every year. Custom is not always cheaper, but over five years it often is. Do the maths for your own headcount.
How UK businesses spend less without cutting corners
- Ship the slice that pays first. One workflow, one team, live in two weeks. The saving funds the next slice.
- Keep your accounting package. Integrate with Xero, QuickBooks or Sage rather than rebuilding finance.
- Use a hybrid team. A UK-hours lead with senior offshore engineers keeps communication easy and cuts the day rate substantially. We explain the trade-offs in our outsourcing guide.
- Own the code from day one. Your repository, your cloud account, your domain. It costs nothing and removes lock-in.
- Pay for discovery only when the project is big enough to need it. A two-module build does not need a six-week workshop programme.
DataVolve provides custom software development for UK SMEs, CRM development and AI automation, with a UK contact number and a senior engineering team. If you would like a quote in pounds with every line explained, tell us what you are trying to fix and we will reply within 24 hours.