What does custom business software development cost in the Netherlands?
A straightforward portal or module starts at around €15,000 to €30,000. A fully operational system, such as a TMS, WMS or ERP that drives your daily logistics or production, quickly lands between €80,000 and €250,000 for the first version. Projects that combine multiple integrations, complex business logic and user roles can exceed that range. Dutch development teams typically charge between €90 and €160 per hour. A project of 800 hours already runs to €80,000 to €130,000 in pure build time, before design, project management and testing. Nearshore teams in Eastern Europe or Portugal charge €30 to €50 less per hour, but they require more coordination and oversight on the Dutch side, which claws back a portion of that saving. Always budget an additional 15 to 20 percent per year on top of build costs for maintenance and ongoing development. Software that is finished on day one quickly becomes outdated; a €100,000 system therefore requires €15,000 to €20,000 per year to keep it functional and scalable.
When do you recoup the investment?
The payback period depends on what the system replaces. A concrete example: suppose you have two employees who together spend 30 hours a week manually entering orders, preparing packing lists or processing invoices. Two FTE in a back-office role costs, including employer contributions, roughly €65,000 to €75,000 per year. A system that takes over that work and costs €100,000 to build pays for itself in 16 to 18 months, before accounting for annual maintenance. If you are also saving on licences for a standard package, count those in as well: package software for ten users can easily cost €8,000 to €15,000 per year in licences alone. The payback period worsens when scope grows during the build, when integrations prove more complex than estimated, or when the team lacks sufficient development budget after delivery. Custom development is most worthwhile when your processes are genuinely unique, when standard packages are routinely bypassed with workarounds, or when you intend to scale on top of this system.
How do you recognise a reliable partner?
Reliability accounts for half of the buying decision, yet almost no one addresses it concretely. Look at three things. First: references in your sector. A party that claims to build custom software for logistics, construction or industry should be able to name clients and results. Call those references yourself and ask three questions: did the builder stay within budget, how did the delivery go, and who maintains the system now? Second: ownership of code and data. Serious partners hand over the complete source code and data exports after delivery. If a party is vague about this, or if the system only runs on their infrastructure with no exit path, there is lock-in built into the contract that will cost you later. Third: a working method with go/no-go milestones. Partners who fix everything in a single price for a large project often transfer risks onto paper that they later recover through change requests. Sound projects work in phases with interim evaluation points, giving you as the client a clear decision at each stage.
Three red flags in a quote
Watch for these three signals when comparing quotes. One: a fixed price without a detailed specification. If a party names a price before you have jointly documented the processes, integrations and user requirements, that figure is a guess that will return as a change request later. Two: no clarity on who maintains the system after delivery. Some agencies deliver and disappear; others build a dependency through proprietary frameworks or hosting arrangements. Always ask who holds the knowledge and what it costs to switch. Three: no portfolio of comparable projects. Building business software for a transport operator is fundamentally different from building a web application. If a party offers generic custom work without sector knowledge, you are paying for their learning curve.
When is Bonsai the right fit, and when is it not?
Bonsai Software is a Software Operating Partner based in Rotterdam. We build domain-specific core systems, ERP, TMS, WMS, for sectors including logistics, port operations, food, construction and industry, built entirely from scratch and with AI at the core. We work with milestones and go/no-go decision points; the client takes ownership of the code. That is the right fit when you need an operational core system that outperforms the standard package you are currently working around. It is not the right fit when you need a small module or a web portal that connects to an existing package, or when your budget for the first version is below €50,000. For situations where the core system is adequate but the surrounding processes create friction, we build AI Workers as a layer on top of existing systems. Giving honest advice when we are not the right fit is part of how we work.