Software Development Cost is a Headache! Learn 11 Tips to reduce it.

Some companies (including yours) might be experiencing challenges like potential loss of control and budget overruns in a project. Or you might be the one that run away from a high initial cost to custom development. Don’t worry; you’re not the first one.

Having worked in 100+ projects, these tips are what we used and recommended to our client, to optimize and reduce their software development cost.

Why Your Software Project Overrun The Budget

• Undefined scope: happens when the scope is not clear, agreed upon or discussed in detail. Many software vendors might rush through it to quickly close the deal, get the client’s requirements and go on with their assumption.

• The lack of proper planning: This step identifies resource allocation and management. Without it, you won’t know where the milestones are and the progress of your project. This loss of control will lead to cost overrun.

• Foggy communication: Over-communicating, under-communicating, and micro-management between the outsourcer and the outsourced are the problems.

• No thorough testing: Many projects have cost overruns because of a lack of testing during development, and they have to fix it after launch or deployment.   

Learn about the hidden cost of software development that raise your budget!

How To Reduce Your Software Development Costs

The average cost overrun of software project is 27%. How can we write off software development costs? 

Tip 1: Plan with clarity

Create a SMART goal (Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant & time-based) for your project by researching the market, your competition offers, your ideal customer’s needs, whether there are any niche problems you can solve, financial limitations, and many more.   

Another tactic for effective planning is impact mapping. This method focuses on deliverables and how they impact the result by asking Why the solution is needed, Who needs it, What it solves, & How it works. This will prevent developers from getting lost due to wrong assumptions or over-engineering. 

2. Outsourcing a Low-cost Region (ODC), e.g Vietnam

If having an in-house team outweighs your budget, consider hiring an outsourced team. You can create a high-quality program without overspending and hire talents from regions with lower cost.  Vietnamese developers can deliver with high-quality, starting at $20 per hour, saving up to 90% of labor cost for US and EU regions.

3. Trim the Fat on Design 

There’s nothing wrong with making your website stand out and aesthetics. But is it worth it with your budget?  

All these advanced designs will cost more money. Hence, one of the most feasible ways to reduce software development cost is to keep your design simple and straightforward.   

4. Use Agile Methodology

Adopting an agile methodology will help avoid a massive financial disaster. Agile breaks down the projects into manageable chunks, hence mitigating risks and providing more focus. Aside from that, agile methodology improves collaboration, software quality, and customer satisfaction.

5. Switching to Composable Architecture 

Using this design approach, developers will create components that can be reused to quickly assemble applications. Some compare it to the microservices approach to creating a tech stack.  

How can this reduce software development cost? 

• Encourage the reuse of code.

• Simplify maintaining and updating software.

• Increased efficiency since developers can now split the project and work on smaller chunks.  

6. Use Modern Tech That Can Fasten The Work 

Automation can result in higher output and increased productivity. Production is done in a smaller timeframe, fewer working hours are spent, and costs are effectively reduced. For example, you can automate quality testing from early on. This has been proven to save 50% of total resources, 30% of total effort, and 50% of the total cost.

Besides, generative AI can be a helpful as a developer assistant to perform repetitive and time-consuming tasks, making the software development process more efficient.

Open-source software (OSS) is also recommended. The open-source technology is free to use with no payment for licensing fee and is on the leading edge of technology.

7. Constant Test Along With Development Phase

Using a test-driven approach well and constantly from an early stage helps start software development early, learning quickly from mistakes before it’s too late. It also detects problems that might cause delays or cost overruns. The program is then subsequently refined only to pass the newly created tests.   

8. Launch with Essential-only Features than Upgrade It Later

This approach can also be called the lean methodology. The job is to create a minimum viable product (MVP) with only key functions. MVP is an excellent way to test your idea in a real environment, collecting feedback and using it as insight for future improvement.   

9. Build Your Maintenance Loops with DevOps

DevOps helps developers work more efficiently during the development lifecycle. By implementing DevOps, developers can communicate more swiftly and know what to prioritize. DevOps usually includes Continuous Integration/Testing/Delivery (CI/CT/CD), microservices, automating processes, and constant monitoring, which optimize the development cost, cut short the delivery time, and ensure stability and performance.   

10. Build with Scalability and Future-proof in Mind

Building apps with scalability means building future-proof apps, and more profits can be made in the long term. Business leaders can adjust systems to predictable and unpredictable workloads, meet the constantly evolving needs of their users, and adjust to new markets. However, being future-proof comes with a cost. It requires in-depth analysis, various research, and tests to get the technical basics.

11. Choose the Right Software Development Partner 

Of course, the wrong one will cost you a dime to fix unusable software. Plus, you can’t take back all the wasted time and effort.   

However, evaluating a partner is a challenging process. In many cases, you don’t really know the extent of their expertise until the project actually takes place. Our advice is not to rush through this. Many businesses have lost millions of dollars or ended up in court by working with the wrong partner.   

How Synodus Balance Quality and Cost For Our Clients

Having worked with businesses of many sizes, we noticed they all have the same questions regarding cost and end-result: Will this X amount of money be worth what I receive?  

This is where Synodus focuses on: 

• Offer a cost-effective technological solution, while ensuring it will reach the highest performance within the given budget.  

• Adopt diverse outsourcing models, from dedicated team and project-based to staffing, so you can choose whatever best fits and levitate your financial constraints.   

• Deploying a seamless development process with no fog of tech to clear out any potential risk.  

Known as the fastest-growing development company in APAC, our team of 250+ mavericks are ready to deliver, with a recurring satisfaction rate of 88%. While you focus on growing your business, let us become your sidekick, taking care of product development and digital transformation.   

Here’s what we can do together:   

Supercharge your project and reduce software development cost with a friend like Synodus, as we have helped this client save his budget by 30%!