Short answer: in Spain, in 2026, custom software for a small or medium business costs from around €3,000 for a simple automation or integration to more than €40,000 for a full management system, before VAT. Most small business projects fall between €5,000 and €30,000. Where you land isn’t decided by the technology, but by how many things the system has to do, how many other programs it has to talk to and how much data has to be brought over from what you use today.
This guide gives you the ranges Spanish software companies publish, explains what drives the price and warns you about the costs that rarely appear in the first figure. We don’t publish our own rates (we explain why at the end), so these ranges aren’t ours: they’re the market’s, so you can walk into any meeting knowing what’s reasonable.
Rough ranges by type of project
These are ranges taken from the pricing guides Spanish development companies publish in 2026. They vary a lot between sources, so treat them as an order of magnitude, not a quote. All before VAT.
| What it is | Example | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Simple company website | Five or six pages and a contact form | €500 – €3,000 |
| Custom website with bookings, payments or several languages | The booking site of a rental company | €3,000 – €15,000 |
| Automation or integration | WhatsApp orders that go straight into the system; connecting the online shop with invoicing | €3,000 – €12,000 |
| Simple internal tool | A dashboard to track a team’s orders, appointments or incidents | €5,000 – €15,000 |
| Customer portal or app with a management dashboard | A digital menu with ordering from the table and a dashboard for the bar | €8,000 – €30,000 |
| Full management system (custom ERP) | Office, warehouse, delivery and sales reps in one system | €15,000 – €100,000 or more |
By the hour, an experienced freelance developer in Spain charges between €35 and €90 an hour in 2026 depending on specialty and city, and an agency usually bills between €65 and €95 an hour for senior profiles in Madrid or Barcelona. A fixed price is just those hours, estimated up front, plus the risk that the estimate falls short.
What pushes the price up or down
How many different things it does
Every screen, every type of user and every business rule (“if the customer owes money, don’t serve them”) is work. A system with one kind of user that does one thing well costs a fraction of one with office staff, drivers, sales reps and customers, each with their own permissions.
How many programs it has to talk to
Connecting to your invoicing, till, payment gateway, WhatsApp, bank or accountant’s software adds work for each connection, and more if that program has no documented way to connect. It’s one of the biggest cost drivers and one of the most underestimated.
The data you already have
Bringing over customers, products, prices and history from Excel or your current program is almost never copy and paste: there are duplicates, different formats and figures that don’t add up. Always ask whether it’s included.
What the law requires
If the system issues invoices or receipts, it has to follow Spain’s invoicing rules and, when it arrives, VERI*FACTU. If it stores health data or data about minors, data protection demands more care. All of that is extra work, but it isn’t optional.
Installable app or web app
A web app, opened from the browser on a phone or computer, usually costs a lot less than an app for the Apple and Google stores, because it’s built once and doesn’t go through store reviews. For most internal and customer-facing tools a small business needs, the web is enough. Our digital menu, for example, opens when you scan the QR code on the table, with nothing to install.
Whether it integrates AI
Integrating AI into a tool (reading orders written any old way, answering customer questions) doesn’t cost as much to build as you might think, but it has a monthly usage cost that depends on how much it’s used. Ask what it would be at your volume and how you’ll see that spend.
What doesn’t show up in the first figure
- Maintenance. Software that’s in use needs updates, backups and small fixes. Industry guides put it at 15% to 25% of the development cost per year, often as a monthly fee.
- Server and domain. From a few euros a month for a simple website to tens or hundreds for a system with many users.
- Third-party services. The payment gateway charges per transaction, WhatsApp or SMS messages have a cost, and AI is paid by usage.
- The changes that come up. They always do once the team tries the first version. Ask how they’re charged before you start.
If you’re comparing with off-the-shelf software, do the maths over three to five years: a €100 monthly fee per user with ten users is €36,000 over three years.
How to pay less without ruining the project
- Start with what hurts most. Building in phases, starting with the part that wastes the most time, costs less up front and lets you decide the next phase with the system already running.
- Describe what you need clearly. The clearer your brief, the less risk whoever quotes has to build into the figure.
- Don’t rebuild what works. If your invoicing program does the job, connect to it instead of replacing it.
- Choose a web app if it does the job. It’s cheaper than a store app and works on every phone.
Signs a quote will turn out expensive
- A figure with no list of what’s included and what isn’t.
- A very low price with no maintenance or hosting included.
- Nothing to try until the end of the project.
- The code or the server accounts not being in your name.
And what do we charge?
We don’t publish rates because two projects with the same name can differ in cost tenfold, and a figure on a website either scares people off or misleads them. What we do is a no-obligation first call and then a written proposal with what we’d do, in what order and what each part costs. We charge in four ways that are combined depending on the project: fixed price, monthly fee, hourly and AI by usage. It’s all explained in how we charge.