---
type: Static
title: What will it cost to build?
description: Answer seven questions and see the range a project like yours usually costs. No email required, and the numbers come from work we have delivered.
resource: https://nationaldigital.com.au/estimate/
tags: []
timestamp: '2026-08-26T00:00:00.000Z'
language: en-AU
publisher: National Digital
author: Cameron Young
authorRole: CEO
datePublished: '2026-08-26'
dateModified: '2026-08-26'
pillar: static
canonical: https://nationaldigital.com.au/estimate/
---

_Home — What will it cost to build?_

# What will it cost to build?

Seven questions, an honest range, and no email address required to see it.

## Estimate your project

Nothing here is stored against your name, and no one will call you because you used it.

### What are you building?

_The closest match is fine — the estimate is a range, not a quote._

- A booking or scheduling system
- A customer portal
- A custom web application
- **An AI automation for a repetitive task** — One workflow taken off a team - triage, extraction, drafting, routing - wired into the systems it already lives in.
- **A website on a headless CMS** — A decoupled content platform: an editorial back end your team runs unaided, and a front end built against its API.
- **Work on the platform beneath an existing product** — APIs, integrations, scaling architecture or the cloud environment it runs on - rather than a new product.
- **I'm not sure yet** — Answer the rest and we will show the range this usually lands in.

### Is this new, or replacing something?

- New — nothing does this today
- **Replacing a system we already run** — Migrating the data and running both in parallel is real work.
- **Fixing or finishing a build that stalled** — Inheriting a codebase means understanding it before changing it.

### Who will use it?

- Our staff only
- Our customers
- Both

### Roughly how many people will use it?

_A rough order of magnitude is all this needs._

- Under 100
- Hundreds
- Thousands
- Tens of thousands or more

### What does it need to talk to?

_Select everything that applies. This is the biggest single driver of cost._

- Payments
- Accounting (Xero, MYOB)
- A CRM
- Calendars
- An existing login system
- **An in-house or legacy system** — Usually the hardest part of any integration.
- Nothing — it stands alone

### When does it need to be live?

- No fixed date — exploring
- Within six months
- Within three months
- **Sooner than that** — Compressed delivery costs more because it takes more people.

### What budget do you have in mind?

_Optional, and it does not change the estimate — we would rather show you what the work costs and let you decide._

- Under $25k
- $25k – $50k
- $50k – $100k
- Over $100k
- I don't know yet

This is a range, not a quote. What narrows it is a conversation about the parts that are specific to you — which is free, and which you can book below.

*Key Takeaways*

## What drives the cost of a custom build

Cost on a custom build is driven by what it integrates with, whether it replaces an existing system, how many people use it, and how fast it has to ship. The estimator below asks about each of those and returns the range a project like yours usually lands in.

- **What a build has to integrate with drives more of the estimate than the number of screens.** What a system has to talk to, and what those systems will actually allow, decides much of what a build costs. An in-house or legacy system is usually the hardest part of any build. _Critical_
- **Replacing something costs more than building it new, because of migration.** Moving existing data across and running both systems in parallel long enough to trust the new one is real work, and it is routinely left out of the number people first hear. _Important_
- **A compressed deadline raises the price because it takes more people, not fewer weeks.** Delivery can be shortened, but past a point the only lever is parallelism, and coordination cost rises with every person added to the same piece of work. _Important_
- **A range is honest at this stage; a precise figure before scope is written is not.** What narrows a range is a planning phase that settles requirements, the data model and the integration contracts. Anyone quoting to the dollar beforehand is guessing. _Critical_

Most agencies will not talk about money until you have had a meeting. That is a reasonable position for them and a frustrating one for you, because the first thing you need to know is whether this is a $30,000 problem or a $300,000 one — and you need to know it before you spend an hour on a call finding out.

So here is the estimator we would otherwise be running in our heads on that call. The ranges are the same figures we publish on the pages for each kind of work — [custom software](/digital-product-development/), [booking systems](/digital-product-development/booking-and-scheduling-systems/), [AI automation](/ai-automation/) — and they are what we quote from, and the questions are the ones that actually move a number: what you are building, whether it replaces something, who uses it, how big it is, what it has to talk to, and when it has to be live.

It will not be exact. Nothing is exact before the scope is written, and anyone who gives you a precise figure at this stage is guessing. What it will be is honest about the range and honest about what drives it.

## Related

**Related:**
- [National Digital - Custom Software, AI & Platforms](/okf/home.md)
- [Talk to an engineer.](/okf/contact.md)
- [Careers at National Digital](/okf/careers.md)
- [Graduate Full-Stack Web Developer](/okf/australia-remote-graduate-full-stack-developer.md)
- [Senior Software Engineer (Frontend)](/okf/australia-remote-senior-software-engineer-frontend.md)
- [Senior Software Engineer (Backend)](/okf/australia-remote-senior-software-engineer-backend.md)
- [Privacy Policy](/okf/privacy.md)
- [Website Terms of Service](/okf/terms.md)
- [Accessibility Statement](/okf/accessibility.md)
- [Small team. Serious platforms.](/okf/about.md)
- [Real platforms, in production.](/okf/case-studies.md)
- [Senior engineering, end to end.](/okf/services.md)
- [Knowledge library.](/okf/expertise.md)
- [QA & Test Automation Engineer](/okf/australia-remote-qa-automation-engineer.md)
- [Booking systems built around your operation.](/okf/booking-systems.md)
- [Custom software, built by senior engineers.](/okf/custom-software.md)
- [AI that survives contact with production.](/okf/ai-automation-services.md)
- [NewBook Integration & Custom Development](/okf/newbook-integration.md)
- [cruisePAL (Resco) Integration & Custom Development](/okf/cruisepal-integration.md)
- [Customer portal development, built around your access rules.](/okf/customer-portals.md)
- [An Australian software development company you can talk to directly.](/okf/software-development-company.md)
- [Custom appointment scheduling, built for how your service actually books.](/okf/appointment-scheduling-systems.md)
- [Venue booking systems built around your capacity, not a vendor's template.](/okf/venue-booking-systems.md)
- [Web application development for products that have to hold up.](/okf/web-application-development.md)
- [AI agent development that answers, escalates and knows its limits.](/okf/ai-agent-development.md)
- [Document and workflow automation, wired into the systems you already run.](/okf/document-workflow-automation.md)
- [AI consulting from the engineers who would have to build it.](/okf/ai-consulting.md)
- [Governance and Credentials](/okf/governance.md)
- [Information Security and Privacy Statement](/okf/governance/information-security-and-privacy.md)
- [Quality Policy](/okf/governance/quality-policy.md)
- [Work Health and Safety Policy](/okf/governance/work-health-and-safety-policy.md)
- [Modern Slavery and Ethical Sourcing Statement](/okf/governance/modern-slavery-and-ethical-sourcing.md)
- [Environmental Policy](/okf/governance/environmental-policy.md)
- [Product Development Plan](/okf/services/product-development-plan.md)
- [Replacing a legacy booking system — without losing a booking.](/okf/legacy-booking-system-replacement.md)
- [Product Support](/okf/services/product-support.md)
- [Civic software we build and run](/okf/projects.md)
- [Platform Health Check](/okf/services/platform-health-check.md)
- [AI Automation Assessment](/okf/services/ai-automation-assessment.md)
- [Technology Roadmap](/okf/services/technology-roadmap.md)
- [An AI automation assessment that ranks the work and trains your team](/okf/ai-automation-assessment.md)
- [Connect an AI assistant](/okf/agents.md)
- [AI Visibility Management](/okf/services/ai-visibility-management.md)
- [Standard rate card](/okf/services/rate-card.md)