What custom software and automation actually cost
Nobody can quote a build from a web page, and a page that pretends otherwise is selling something. What a page can do is tell you what the number depends on, what work of each shape typically takes, and which prices here are published and fixed. All three are below.
What is fixed, and what is not
Everything up to the point where a build is specified carries a published price. The build itself does not, and the reason is the rest of this page.
A 5–10 minute call
A first read on whether the idea, or the part of the operation still run manually, is worth pursuing at all — and what the next step would be if it is.
Technical Diagnostic
Thirty minutes where the direction is decided, and the Diagnostic Report afterwards: the recommendation and the reasoning behind it, in writing, yours to keep.
Viability Assessment
The idea or the process mapped end to end and written up as a build-ready specification: architecture, integrations, data flows, timeline and budget. Build it with OctoMonic or hand it to anyone else.
Workspace Setup
One day on site, scoped to one person: AI configured on your own machine and in your own accounts, with a few of your recurring jobs built and running before the day ends.
Professional Training
Three sessions of roughly two hours that leave people operating AI on real infrastructure. The price depends on group size and on how much of the material runs on your own workflows, so it is quoted after a short call.
Consultation and advising
Technical judgement with no build attached: a review of something already built, a second opinion on a quote or a vendor, someone technical in the room when the decision is made.
A build
Quoted from the finished specification, never from a page. That is the honest answer to “what does it cost”, and everything below explains what the number is made of.
Prices are in shekels and exclude VAT. These are the only figures published, and they are the same figures regardless of who is asking. As a rough guide, ₪1,000 is about $300.
Seven things decide what a build costs
Two projects described in the same sentence can differ by an order of magnitude, and it is almost never the sentence that is wrong. It is one of these.
- 01
How many systems it has to touch
One system is a build. Four is an integration project. Every system added brings its own credentials, its own shape of data, its own idea of what a customer record is, and its own habit of changing without telling anyone.
- 02
Whether the data can actually be reached
A documented interface is cheap to read. A number that only exists on a screen someone copies from, in a monthly export, or inside a system whose vendor will not open it — that is where estimates double, and it is the single most common reason a quote turns out to have been optimistic.
- 03
How many decisions it has to make
Moving data is cheap. Judging it is not. Which price to hold, which order to flag, which exception a human has to see — that is where the work lives, and it is where two people discover they meant different things by “done”.
- 04
How many kinds of person use it
Roles multiply everything. Each one is another set of screens, another set of rules about what it may see and change, and another path that has to be tested before anyone trusts the system with a customer in front of them.
- 05
Whether it has to run unattended
Something a person clicks is a different build from something that runs at three in the morning and has to notice its own failure. Monitoring, alerting, retries and a record of what happened are not extras on that kind of system; they are most of what makes it one.
- 06
Whether the thing it replaces can be switched off
Building next to a live system is the expensive case. The data has to move while people are still working in it, both versions have to agree for as long as they overlap, and nothing may be lost in the handover — a business does not pause for a rewrite.
- 07
Whether it has to work in Hebrew
Written in Hebrew and laid out right-to-left from the first screen is a build decision. Translated over an English layout afterwards is a rebuild, usually paid for twice. Bilingual work costs more up front and considerably less than doing it in the wrong order.
What work of each shape typically takes
These are effort bands, not prices. They describe how long work of that shape usually runs when the scope is understood — which is the honest half of the answer that most cost pages skip in order to print a number they cannot stand behind.
One process moved between two systems that already talk
A form, an order or a record that somebody re-types today, carried across automatically with the failures handled.
Typical effortDays, not weeks
What moves itHow well documented both ends are, and whether anyone actually holds the credentials.
Scheduled collection and a daily report
Something read on a schedule, stored where it can be queried, and put in front of the right person before the working day starts.
Typical effortOne to three weeks
What moves itHow many sources, how often they change shape without warning, and what has to happen when one of them fails overnight.
An operational dashboard over data you already hold
A live view by the dimensions the business actually argues about — branch, team, category, period.
Typical effortTwo to four weeks
What moves itWhether the numbers already agree with each other, and how many ways people want to slice them.
An internal tool with roles, screens and a real workflow
Several kinds of user, permissions between them, and a process that has states rather than just records.
Typical effortSeveral weeks to a couple of months
What moves itThe number of roles, the number of approval steps, and how much of the workflow only exists in someone’s head today.
A customer-facing platform
Accounts, payment, content, and an administrative console behind it that somebody has to run every day.
Typical effortMonths — and the first version should be smaller than the one you asked for
What moves itMoney movement, more than one kind of tenant, and whether it ships bilingual from the start.
AI configured around one person’s real work
Tools installed on the machine you actually use, connected to your own accounts and files, with recurring jobs running.
Typical effortOne day on site
What moves itThis one has a published price — from ₪2,500 + VAT for one person. Two or more is different work and is scoped separately.
A workshop that leaves people operating AI
Infrastructure, method, then everyone builds and ships something that runs and has a URL.
Typical effortThree sessions of about two hours
What moves itGroup size, and how much of the material runs on your own tools rather than on neutral ones.
Stabilising something already built and already live
A system that is corrupting data, losing work or failing quietly while people depend on it today.
Typical effortNot estimable before it is read
What moves itAnyone who quotes this one from a description is guessing. The read comes first, the effort is quoted after it, and that sequence is not negotiable.
A band is a shape, not a quote. It becomes a number only against a specific system, a specific data source and a specific definition of done — which is exactly what the specification produces, and why it is priced separately from the build it leads to.
The same brief, priced five times, comes back five different numbers
That spread is not dishonesty. It is four specific things, and knowing which one you are looking at is most of what reading a quote well consists of.
They are not quoting the same thing
One number stops at “it works”. Another includes handover, monitoring, alerting on failure and someone answering the phone about it in March. Those are different products with the same name, and the gap between them is not padding.
Nobody has read the problem yet
A quote written from a conversation is a guess about scope. A quote written from a specification is arithmetic. Most of the distance between two numbers is the absence of the second document — which is why mapping is sold on its own here, before anything is committed.
Who does the work is part of the price
The same brief costs differently depending on whether the person estimating it is the person who will build it. When those are two people, the estimate carries the cost of the gap between them.
The cheap version is real — it is just a different product
A version that one careful person operates is genuinely cheaper than one that survives being used wrongly by twenty. Both are legitimate builds. The mistake is comparing their prices as though a choice had already been made about which one you need.
Cheaper and more expensive are both decisions
Most of the cost of a build is decided before anyone writes anything. These are the decisions that move it, in both directions.
Makes it cheaper
- A written specification, finished before anyone is asked to quote.
- Systems that already have a documented way in and out.
- One person who can decide what “done” means, without a committee.
- Accepting the smaller first version and adding to it once it is in real use.
- Rebuilding something that already exists — a system built once already can be rebuilt on your brand and your data for a fraction of the first build.
- One language, one role, one place to look.
Makes it more expensive
- No specification, so scope is discovered during the build instead of before it.
- Data that only exists on a screen, in a monthly export or inside a system nobody will open.
- Migrating off something that has to keep running while you migrate off it.
- Several roles, each with its own permissions, its own screens and its own way to be wrong.
- Anything that moves money or allocates a limited thing — those actions have to be indivisible, or they corrupt under load.
- Hebrew and English with real right-to-left, retrofitted rather than built in from the first screen.
The cost that starts after launch
A system does not stop costing money the day it works. Monitoring, alerting on failure, hosting, fixes and small changes run month to month, and somebody owns them — that is what a support retainer is, and it is agreed before handover rather than discovered after it. New scope is quoted separately, and you are told when a request has crossed that line rather than having it quietly absorbed. There is no published figure for it because it tracks what is actually being run.
Asked directly, answered directly
How much does it cost to build an app?
There is no honest answer to that from a web page, because the same sentence covers a week of work and a year of it. What decides it is how many systems it touches, whether its data can be reached, how many decisions it makes on its own, how many kinds of person use it, and whether it has to run unattended. The published prices here cover everything up to and including the specification; the build is quoted from that specification.
How much does automation for a business cost?
Automation is not one thing. Moving one process between two systems that already talk is days of work. A system that collects on a schedule, decides something, reports it and notices its own failures is weeks. The Technical Diagnostic at ₪250 + VAT exists to tell you which of the two you are actually asking about, and it comes back in writing.
Why is there no price list for builds on this page?
Because a price list for builds is a guess dressed as a commitment, and it is always wrong in one of two expensive directions. Everything that CAN be priced in advance is priced in advance and published above. The build is priced from a finished specification, which is sold separately at ₪1,500–2,500 + VAT precisely so that the number can be real.
What does the ₪250 + VAT Technical Diagnostic actually buy?
Thirty minutes where the problem goes on the table and the options are laid out, and then the Diagnostic Report: a concrete recommendation on which route fits — including when the answer is none of them — with the reasoning behind it. The document is yours. It is the diagnosis that normally only happens once a ₪5,000+ build is already under way.
Is the cheapest quote the wrong one?
Not automatically. Read what each number includes before comparing them: whether handover, monitoring and support after launch are inside it, whether it was written from a specification or from a conversation, and whether the person who estimated it is the person who will build it. A cheap number for a smaller product is a fair price for a smaller product.
What does it cost to keep running after launch?
It is a monthly support retainer covering monitoring, alerting on failure, hosting, fixes and small changes, and it is agreed before handover rather than after. There is no published figure because it depends on what is actually being run — how much of it, how critical it is, and how fast something broken has to be back.
The fastest way to a real number.
Five to ten minutes on the phone narrows “how much would this cost” down to a shape — and tells you whether it is worth pricing properly at all.
Free · 5–10 minutes · no obligation