You have a product idea or a system to replace, and you need a number before anyone approves a budget. That number depends on three things: how many people you need, for how long, and what an engineering hour costs where your team sits. This guide gives you typical 2026 team sizes and timelines for common projects, shows what pushes the total up or down, and explains how to get a quote you can compare.

How do software development rates differ across Europe?

Rates depend on region, seniority, tech stack and contract length. Rates and budgets vary by engagement, so we don’t publish a price list. We scope each project and give you a direct quote. What you can compare upfront is the relative rate level of each region and how well it fits your working day.

The gap between Western Europe and nearshore regions comes mostly from cost of living, not skill. Teams in Central Europe and the Balkans share your working day, so daily stand-ups and same-day feedback still work.

How much effort do typical projects take?

Hours matter more than rates. The ranges below are typical for a nearshore team and a scope you’ve already written down. For a first estimate, multiply team size by duration by your partner’s rate, then add the costs teams forget, listed further down.

What drives the price?

• Scope clarity. Unclear requirements are the most common reason budgets grow. A week of discovery usually saves several weeks of rework.

• Connected systems. Hooking into ERPs, legacy databases, payment providers or identity systems often takes longer than building new features.

• Compliance and security. Healthcare, finance and public-sector work needs audit trails, access control and documentation. Plan for a typical 10 to 25 percent more effort.

• Team seniority mix. A strong lead architect costs more per hour and usually saves hours overall.

• Platforms and devices. A web app plus native iOS and Android apps can nearly double front-end effort compared with web only.

• Quality expectations. Automated tests, CI/CD and monitoring cost more upfront and make every later release cheaper.

How phasing the scope keeps an MVP budget honest

When we built a native Android app for a U.S. fintech, the feature list was long: core banking, transfers, P2P payments, ATM search, digital cards, spending analytics, gift cards, carbon footprint tracking and referrals. We split it into two releases. The first carried the money features people use every day. Gift cards, carbon tracking and referrals waited for the second.

Two other choices kept the plan predictable. UX and UI design ran about two months ahead of development, so design decisions were settled before each sprint started. And the team worked in two-week sprints, which gave the client a steady rhythm to reprioritize against. If your MVP list keeps growing, ask which features users need on day one and park the rest.

How does the engagement model change the total?

• Fixed price. Fits small, well-defined work such as a discovery phase or a tightly specified MVP. The partner carries the estimation risk and prices it in.

• Time and materials. Fits products where requirements will change. You pay for the hours used and reprioritize every sprint.

• Dedicated team. A stable group of engineers works only on your product, billed monthly. For long-running products it usually gives the best value.

Our comparison of dedicated teams, fixed price and time and materials goes deeper on risk and control.

Which costs do teams forget to budget for?

• Project management and QA. Ask whether they sit inside the rate or come on top. Either way, they’re real effort you can’t skip.

• Cloud infrastructure and third-party licences. These run every month from the first test environment onward, and they grow with users and data.

• Maintenance and support after launch. Security updates, library upgrades and small fixes continue as long as the product runs. Plan them per year, not as a one-off.

• Onboarding and migration. Time for your own team to learn the system, plus any content or data migration.

How do you get an accurate estimate?

Share the business goal, the main users, the systems you need to connect to and any hard deadline. A good partner proposes a short discovery phase, then returns a scoped backlog, an architecture outline, a team setup and a quote. To compare quotes, ask each partner for the same things: team size and roles, seniority mix, duration, rate per role, what’s included (project management, QA, DevOps, cloud) and what counts as a change request.

Be careful with detailed fixed quotes written without discovery. They hide assumptions, and those assumptions come back later as change requests. For team setup and talent in one nearshore location, see our guide to nearshore software development in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

How RUBICON helps with software budgets and team setup

We’re a software, data and AI engineering company of about 55 people, 40+ of them engineers, founded in 2013 in Sarajevo and working in CET. We’ve launched 60+ products for 51 clients across Europe and North America, and 70% of new clients come to us through referrals. Rates depend on scope, team setup, seniority and duration, so every engagement starts with a short discovery. You get a scoped estimate and a direct quote before you commit to a build.

Most clients then work with us as a dedicated team or through end-to-end product development. If you’re putting a budget together, send us a short brief and we’ll come back with a scoped estimate.

Frequently asked questions