Software Scoping

Most software quotes are wide because nobody has done the work of finding out what is actually being built. Scoping is that work. We interview your people, agree what is in and out, design enough of it that you can see it, and give you a firm price against the result.

It is also called a discovery phase. The name matters less than what you are left holding.

What you get

• A written specification. What the software does, who uses it, and what is deliberately out of scope.
• Interactive wireframes. Clickable screens, because most people cannot react usefully to a description but can react immediately to a picture.
• A fixed-price quote, valid for six months. A firm number for building what the specification describes, that does not expire while you arrange budget or board approval.

You own it, and you can take it anywhere

The specification, the wireframes and the quote are yours. You can bring the build to us, take the pack to three other suppliers and compare their prices against ours, or put it out to tender. We will not object, and the quote stands either way.

What it costs

A useful benchmark, and one the wider UK market broadly agrees on, is to expect 5% to 15% of your build budget to go on scoping. For most of the projects we work on that lands between £2,500 and £7,500.

As a worked example, a recent two-week exercise came to £5,000. That covered two of us, two days on site interviewing staff about how the work actually gets done, a review of the systems already in use, and the written output at the end.

What moves the number is not the size of the eventual build. It is how much there is to find out: how many people we need to talk to, how many different ways the same job is currently being done, and how much existing software has to be understood before anything can be recommended. For where the build price itself lands, see our guide to what bespoke software costs in the UK.

What happens

1. A conversation first, at no cost. We work out whether you need this at all. Sometimes the answer is no and we will say so.
2. Interviews with your key people. On site or online, depending on where you are and how easily we can get hold of everyone. Who we talk to matters more than where: the people who do the work, not only the people commissioning the project. This is where the real process turns out to differ from the official one.
3. A look at what you are running now. Existing systems, spreadsheets and workarounds. That is where most of the requirements are hiding.
4. Wireframes and a specification. Drafted, then reviewed with you, so what gets priced is what you actually meant.
5. A fixed-price quote. Against that specification, valid for six months.

What happens afterwards

Three things can happen, and all of them are fine.

You build it with us, at the price we quoted. You take the specification to other suppliers and get it built elsewhere. Or you look at the number, decide the timing is wrong, and do nothing for now. The last one is not a failure. You have turned a vague idea into a costed decision, which is worth having whichever way you jump.

When scoping is not the right first step

Paid scoping starts to earn its place once the build is likely to run past about two months. Below that, the exercise costs a large share of the project and mostly tells you things a conversation would have. For smaller jobs we will often put together a proposal with some wireframes as part of quoting for the work, rather than charging you to scope it. That is not a full scoping exercise and we will not pretend otherwise, but for a small, well-understood build it is usually enough to agree what is being made and put a price on it.

If you have already been through this with someone else and own a specification, you do not need another one. Send us what you have and we will price it.

If what you are really deciding is whether to modernise an ageing system rather than build something new, the first step is closer to an assessment than a specification. Tell us that is the situation and we will scope it differently.