You described the same project to three developers. One said four hundred thousand. One said one point two million. One said four million. You concluded that somebody was trying to cheat you.
Probably not. They were pricing three different projects, because you gave them two paragraphs and each of them filled in the gaps differently.
Say you asked for "a website where customers can book appointments and pay".
The first person heard: a page with a form, and a WhatsApp link. Four hundred thousand is honest for that.
The second heard: customers create accounts, see their bookings, and pay with a card. You get an admin panel to manage availability. One point two million is honest for that.
The third heard everything the second heard, plus staff accounts with different permissions, automatic reminders, refunds and cancellations, reports, and a system that will not fall over during a rush. Four million is honest for that too.
Nobody lied. You asked three people to guess, and they guessed differently.
A price is an estimate of work. Work cannot be estimated until somebody has decided what is being built, and "what is being built" contains hundreds of small decisions that nobody has made yet.
What happens when someone books a slot that was taken two seconds ago. Whether a customer can cancel, and whether the money comes back. Whether you can see a customer's history. What a member of staff can and cannot see. Whether it needs to work when the network drops.
Every one of those is a fork in the road, and each fork changes the price. Until somebody sits down and takes them, the number is fiction, and the danger of a fictional number is that you are held to it. A developer who quoted too low will either lose money, cut corners quietly, or come back in month three asking for more. None of those is good for you.
It is the document that takes those decisions before money is committed. A real one contains:
The list of what it does not do is the most valuable part, and the part people skip. Software projects rarely fail from missing features. They fail from features that were assumed by one side and never priced by the other.
Free scoping is not free. It is paid for inside an inflated build quote, by clients who go ahead, to cover the ones who do not. You just cannot see the line item.
Charging for it separately has three effects. The person doing it can afford to take the time. You are not being sold anything during it, because the fee is already paid. And you own what comes out.
That last point matters more than it sounds. A specification you paid for is yours. Take it to another developer and get a competing quote against the same document, and for the first time the quotes will actually be comparable, because they are pricing the same project. If we are more expensive than someone else on identical requirements, you should probably use them.
We offer this at two sizes, because a person with an idea and a business with existing operations do not need the same document.
Twenty thousand naira buys one session and a short written answer: what to build first, what to leave out for now, and a cost band. For someone with an idea and nothing built yet. It does not include a fixed quote or screen flows, because at that stage there is not enough decided for either to be honest.
One hundred and fifty thousand naira buys two sessions and the full document above, including a fixed build quote valid for sixty days. For a business already running on staff, records or a system, that needs a number it can approve.
Either fee comes off the build if you go ahead.
If you are not sure which of those you need, or whether you need either, say so. Describe what you are trying to do in plain words and we will tell you where you actually are — including when the answer is that you are not ready to scope anything yet.
That conversation is free, needs no account, and does not commit you to anything.
Tell us what you are trying to do, in your own words. We look at it and tell you honestly whether software is the answer, what it would take, and sometimes that you do not need us at all. No charge, and you do not need an account.
The problem you describe at every meeting, that nobody has built software for yet. Sign the NDA, describe it in your own words, and get a written scope within two business days.
Already registered? Sign in
Not ready yet? Ask a question first
Tell me what you are trying to do, in your own words. I will point you at the part of the site that helps, or at a person.
Would you rather talk than type?
An assistant, not a person. For anything about keeping your idea confidential, talk to the team directly.