I'm a part-time developer who built a web app for my father's company. Another Italian systems and electrical installation business liked it and gave me 19 requested changes before agreeing to use it. I completed 18 of them for free to win the deal, but now the app is ready to launch and I need to present a proper price.
The app supports about 15 users and handles daily work logs, hours, travel time, kilometres, multiple clients per day, jobs, materials, time off, and Excel/PDF reports. Building and adapting it took roughly 80 hours over two months. My hosting and database costs are about €40 per month, and I'll be responsible for development, support, and training.
A comparable generic product costs about €6 per user per month, or roughly €90 monthly for 15 users, while broader small-business software in Italy tends to cost €100–€500 per month. A software house might charge €15,000–€40,000 to build something similar, plus 15–20% annually for maintenance.
I was considering €349 per month, or €3,490 paid annually, plus a one-time €900 setup fee covering data import and a day of on-site training. I also thought about locking that price for three years. This is for an Italian small business, so I'm specifically looking for realistic local pricing rather than US-market assumptions.
I'm unsure whether to use a subscription/retainer or a one-time licence with annual maintenance. I also need to define how much support is included, how to charge for the next feature request after the 19 free changes, whether a three-year price lock is sensible, and what important terms I should include in the contract.
4 Answers
A subscription is probably easier to manage when you are providing hosting and support, even if the customer is used to buying software. A one-time licence can create awkward questions about updates, security, backups, and whether they still expect you to keep the service running. Your proposed €349 monthly price is not obviously unreasonable compared with the value and the alternatives, but do not promise unlimited support for it. Include a defined amount of support or a reasonable-use policy, state your response times, and charge separately for development work. You could offer annual prepayment at a modest discount, but make the annual term and cancellation rules explicit.
Separate the product from the ongoing service. The initial agreement should define exactly what is included in the current version, along with setup, data import, training, hosting, backups, and a limited warranty or bug-fix period. Anything outside that scope—new reports, workflow changes, integrations, or additional features—should require a written estimate and be billed separately. You can explain that the first 19 changes were part of the pilot and that future requests will follow the normal change process; that is a boundary, not a relationship-ending move.
The biggest unknown is post-launch support, so avoid committing to a three-year fixed price before you have any usage data. Consider an initial six- or twelve-month term, then review the price based on actual support load and operating costs. If you want to offer price stability, lock the price only for the first year or include an adjustment clause for inflation, hosting increases, taxes, or major changes in scope. Also protect yourself with limits around user counts, storage, backups, uptime, security responsibilities, data ownership and export, termination, late payment, and what happens if you stop operating the service.
Do not use the 80 hours as the only pricing model, but do not ignore them either. The software has reusable value, and a second customer could make the original investment worthwhile; however, the first customer should still fund the risk of being your support and reference client. A sensible structure would be a one-time onboarding fee plus recurring access and support, with custom development quoted separately at an agreed rate. Keep a record of every request and classify it as a bug, included configuration, or paid change so the old pattern of free work does not continue indefinitely.
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