What goes into the implementation estimate?
- Process analysis and application design.
- Configuration, custom screens and business rules.
- Integrations and migration, including cleaning data.
- Testing, user training and launch preparation.
Example: a CRM for one sales team
A quote limited to contacts, companies, deals and one CSV import can be compared only with a quote for the same scope. Automatic mailbox synchronization, historical attachments, a customer portal or an ERP connection introduce additional work. List them explicitly before comparing offers. The price depends on the agreed scope.
Budget for every month after launch
Include application hosting, database, file storage, backups and monitoring. Add support, updates, regression checks and maintenance of integrations. Count the time your own team spends on these tasks, even when it does not appear on a supplier invoice.
Compare costs over the same period
Use: implementation + monthly operation × number of months + planned changes and exit work. Keep uncertain items separate and explain the assumption behind each. An estimate becomes useful when you can change the scope and see which cost changes with it.
How to request comparable estimates
Give each supplier the same workflow, integration inventory, migration data types and acceptance criteria. Ask for each line to name the deliverable, assumption, exclusions, charging basis and maintenance cost. An amount without a scope does not explain what will be delivered.
- Contact import: fields and relationships, duplicate identity, rehearsal runs and responsibility for cleaning source data.
- ERP connection: transfer direction, authoritative system, identifiers, retries, reconciliation and access to a test environment.
- Operations: support scope and availability, dependency updates, regression checks, backups and incident ownership.
- Exit: delivery of code, configuration, access, documentation and data exports.
How to compare uncertainty without invented prices
For example, one quote may cover importing a clean CSV while another includes data cleanup and reconciliation. Align those deliverables before comparing totals. Keep an unknown integration cost unestimated and assign the investigation: API review, sandbox access or a sample transfer. Enter zero only when the absence of that cost is confirmed.
Compare scenarios in the same currency, over the same operating period and with the same tax treatment. Record internal effort separately from supplier invoices. Use your own quotes for a base scenario and an additional-work scenario. The TCO calculator linked below adds your estimates; it supplies no market prices.