Cost and timeline
How much does custom software cost in India?
Direct answer
There is no single price for custom software in India, and Sunbeam does not publish one. As a general observation about how the market talks — not a Sunbeam fee, and not a figure taken from a study — a tightly scoped internal tool is often discussed around a few lakh rupees, while a web application with several roles, a data migration and more than one integration is commonly discussed from the high single-digit lakhs into a few tens of lakhs. A number without a written scope is not a budget.
The same sentence describes very different work
“A CRM”, “a portal” and “a booking system” are labels, not scopes. A list that three people update, with no history and no other system attached, is a different project from a client-facing application where each client sees only their own files, old records have to be moved, and two products the firm already pays for must stay in step.
The wide band above is useful only as a way to see that spread. It is how these projects are commonly discussed in the Indian market. It is not an average, not a quotation, and not something Sunbeam will honour as a price. Anyone who cites a precise market average without showing the scopes underneath it is smoothing over the only fact that matters.
What moves the cost
Roles and permissions cost money because each role is a set of screens and a set of mistakes you are refusing to allow. Integrations cost money when the other system has a poor or paid interface, or when it has none and a person must still bridge the gap. Migration costs money in proportion to how dirty the current files are, not in proportion to how many rows a spreadsheet claims to have.
Uncertainty costs more than any of those. If the firm has not decided what “done” looks like for the first workflow, the build includes the arguments. A clear exclusion list — what this version will not do — usually reduces the fee more reliably than negotiating the day rate.
What a serious quote itemises
Ask for the first workflow, the people who use it, the systems it must touch, who cleans the data, and what is explicitly later. Ask what happens after launch: hosting, monitoring, and who makes the next change. Two quotes that cannot be compared on those points cannot be compared on the number at the bottom.
A fixed figure offered before anyone has looked at the current process is a guess wearing a commercial format. Sunbeam writes a proposal after that look. The proposal is the price. Nothing on this page is.
How to use a range without being misled by it
Use a general band to decide which conversation you are in: a small internal tool, a first web application, or a multi-team replacement. Then throw the band away and price the workflow in front of you. A clinic that needs a shared day list is not in the same conversation as a group that wants to retire three products at once.
If a proposal sits far outside the band you expected, the useful question is which assumption differs, not which vendor is “expensive”. The cheap quote may have left the migration, the permissions, or the second year on the floor.