How to choose a software development company: criteria and red flags

Choosing who builds your application is a decision that lasts years: besides building it, that team will shape how you maintain and grow it. Price matters, but also compare how they work, what they hand over and what happens when something goes wrong.

What to look at when comparing

• Real projects you can see working, and frankness about which are for clients and which are their own.
• That they ask about your business before talking about technology.
• Who will do the work: an in-house team, subcontractors or a single person, and who is accountable if they leave.
• How they keep you informed: frequent deliveries you can test, not one big delivery at the end.
• What happens after launch: maintenance, response times and cost.

How to read a quote

• Fixed price or hourly: a fixed price sets the amount for a scope; hourly, the risk of overruns is yours.
• Detailed scope: which features are in and, just as important, which are not.
• What is included: design, testing, store publishing, data migration, training.
• Payments tied to deliveries you can verify, not to dates.
• The cost of the whole first year, including maintenance.

What the contract should say

• That the code, the design and the accounts (domain, stores, cloud) are yours.
• How changes of scope are handled and priced.
• A warranty for fixing bugs after delivery.
• What documentation you receive so another team could carry on.
• The maintenance terms and whether there is a minimum period.

Red flags

• A very low price with no defined scope.
• Pressure to sign before they understand your business.
• Not being able to see anything working until the end.
• Vague answers about who owns the code.
• No plan for after launch.

How we work

We give a fixed quote with a detailed scope in minutes and a clickable mockup before you commit; the code is yours, we bill by milestones (at the start, with the beta and when going live) and maintenance has no minimum term. Compare it with any other quote using this same list.

Work out the price of your app