Planning software development costs with a Philippine team

Prepare a brief that can be estimated

• Describe the business problem, intended users, and one example of a completed task.
• List essential workflows separately from optional features.
• Name existing systems and whether integration documentation, accounts, and sample data are available.
• State a target date, the reason for it, and any budget constraint.
• Identify who reviews design, accepts completed work, and operates the release.

Break the estimate into visible work

Ask proposals to separate discovery and design, application development, integrations, migration, testing, launch, and handover. A screen count alone misses the rules, roles, and exceptions behind the interface.

Ask which assumptions support each item. An integration with documented access and usable sample data is a different scoping situation from an undocumented system that needs investigation. Unknowns should lead to a discovery step or an explicit allowance, not an unexplained total.

Compare like-for-like proposals

• Deliverables: what working behavior is included, and what is excluded?
• Acceptance: how will completion be checked, and who signs it off?
• Dependencies: which access, content, or decisions must your team supply?
• Changes: how are new requirements estimated and approved?
• Commercial details: request the currency, quote validity, payment milestones, and treatment of taxes or third-party charges in the proposal.

Do not treat an hourly rate as a total project cost. Ask how much work is assumed and how uncertainty is handled. This checklist is preparation for a proposal, not a contractual offer.

Budget beyond the first release

Request a separate view of hosting, software subscriptions, third-party usage fees, monitoring, support, training, and future changes. Agree who owns and pays for each account. A low initial build price does not answer those operating questions.

For handover items, use the software handover checklist. For a new product, review what to cut from an MVP before removing work needed to operate it responsibly.

Use the brief to choose a first phase

A useful first phase can resolve a major unknown or deliver one complete workflow. Ask what it will teach you and what decision follows it. Share your brief for custom software development, MVP development, or workflow automation.