A field-services client was paying $90k a year for a generic field-service SaaS that didn’t fit their workflow. We built them a custom Laravel app for $54k over 11 weeks. Year-1 net savings: $72k. They own the code.
Here are the actual numbers, line-item:
Discovery (2 weeks): $8,400. Design + architecture (2 weeks): $11,200. Build sprints (6 × 2 weeks): $33,600. Warranty + handoff (1 week): $4,200. Total build: $57,400. Year-1 hosting & support on our Operator tier: $10,740. Subtract the $90k saved on the SaaS licence and a year of cumulative dispatcher productivity gains (~$18k by their estimate). Year-1 net: −$72k.
What we’d do differently: budget two more weeks for the reports module. It came in 11 days late and ate the warranty buffer. Everything else landed on plan.