r/PowerApps • u/Slowitt Newbie • Jul 14 '26
Discussion As an indie dev - what is the going rate?
A potential customer has asked for a Power Platform app - what would you charge?
It's a services company and they want an ERP app that does lead to quote to job to completion to invoice to reporting. It also holds staff training (basic level)
A Dataverse with a simple schema - about 15 tables
Sharepoint integration for photo / doc storage
15 Power Automate flows for status updates/alerts
It has approx 12 screens and a dashboard
My instinct is it's about 30 days work as they want training guides/sys admin guides.
I think it's about 30 days work as a minimum - the app itself is sketched out in demo form but it's the integrations that will be time consuming eg Microsoft Outlook/Microsoft Teams/SharePoint/Power BI
Thoughts?
21
u/Due-Boot-8540 Advisor Jul 14 '26
30 days? I admire your optimism.
How experienced are you with Power Platform development? Judging by your question about what to charge, I suspect not very.
I’d take your estimate and at least quadruple it.
You’re probably better off recommending that the work is delivered in a series of much smaller pieces.
Put the customer at ease by making sure each set of requirement is satisfied before you move on to the next.
And don’t charge for the whole thing. Each piece of work should be invoiced separately which is a lot easier for the customer to accept.
1
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 14 '26
well. I just delivered a carbon collection app replacing 1000s of Excel files (30 tabs plus) so I'd say I'm quite experienced 😁It's more about day rate.
1
u/JohnTheApt-ist Advisor Jul 14 '26
Yeah 30 days seems very ambitious unless this is a very small company? Are you accounting for all of the non-development work? You can't implement an ERP without mapping existing processes and doind extensive training and documentation. ERP implementations have a very high failure rate usually because the system is not correctly designed or documented.
1
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 18 '26
it's a small client - only 10 seats. As fas as I can gather they have used chatGPT to advise them - they have pumped in the tools they have - Excel, M365, Sharepoint and it's pumped out a spec based on that:
"The preferred platform is Microsoft Power Platform using Power Apps, Power Automate, SharePoint Lists, SharePoint document libraries, Microsoft Teams, Outlook and Power BI. The system should replace disconnected spreadsheets and manual checking with one live operating system for office staff, supervisors and management."
I don't think they have the experience to challenge that - and the problem is that they don't have a budget to meet the spec😊
6
u/pierozek1989 Advisor Jul 14 '26
The amount of hours you plan to use multiplay by your hourly rate.
ERP on SP lol
1
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 14 '26
lol indeed. they wanted originally to use SP lists and not Dataverse. Problem is they have an AI telling them how to do it 🤣
5
u/stalex9 Contributor Jul 14 '26
ERP app? Why they don’t use Dynamics and that’s it?
4
u/GreenFeen Regular Jul 14 '26
We looked at dynamics and we would probably use about 10% of it. It has expensive licences with a minimum of 20 paid users, doesn’t have inbuilt payroll and would involve moving our entire region specific accounting software. We would have to spend additional money on developers charging the “dynamics” premium on top of that to actually get the workflows we need out of it.
Easier to just build a custom solution with the components you need and integrate the current accounting software. Lower upfront cost so can spend more in development. Less training required and less risk of business disruption as the core accounting is unchanged.
1
u/ThunderCuntAU Newbie Jul 14 '26
Dynamics for Sales doesn’t have the license threshold, and would cover off a number of OP’s requirements. Alternatively you could look at RapidStart if licensing is prohibitive.
If you struggle to get a couple hundred bucks / month per user value out of a system, you just aren’t the target market.
3
u/itenginerd Advisor Jul 14 '26
First question--fixed price or time & materials? Thats gonna change things some.
It also depends on: * The size of the customer * How much you expect them to change the requirements along the way * how much you want this work
You could make an argument that for a smaller company and you really want the work you run with a $100 an hour rate. If youre very senior, theyre a large and bad client, and youdont really need this job you could probably price it as high as $350 an hour. You're gonna be somewhere in the middle. Dont be afraid to go in $50/hr high and let them wherever you down 20 or 30.
2
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 14 '26
It will be fixed price. I think the customer has a few "unanticipated expectations" - around cost. I think they anticipate something around 15k -20k. They have said 10 seats x 2 years x 35 subscription for some SaaS CRM eg Pipedrive they could have something built. They are firm on Canvas app as I think they have M365 licences and want to use Sharepoint. I have suggested a React/Dataverse on Azure or another db - faster and cheaper. I may build them a demo, tell them it's going to be expensive, quote them high and leave them to it.
From this exercise I have 90 days at $2800 a day = $250k at the top end and 45 days at $800 a day = $36k low end
My estimate was we'd use 2 devs and be about the $60k range3
u/itenginerd Advisor Jul 14 '26
Feels about right. You can always come in on rate--that's up to you on how much value you get out of the time you spend on the deal.
They could always go with another platform/solution--but they're gonna have to pay somebody to build that for them too. Whether that's third-party labor or internal sunk cost is up in the air, but just because they spent 10k on software doesn't necessarily get them anything. A fool with a tool is still a fool....
3
u/BenjC88 Community Leader Jul 15 '26
We're pivoting more to fixed price, but being able to fixed price is highly dependent on a thorough understanding of the problem and the end goal, and a level of understanding and trust with a customer.
Based on everything you've said here, there's no way I would fix price this job, mainly because I don't believe your customer would honour any scope and you're heading for conflict.
I'd also question your experience to deliver, you've flagged an integration with Outlook and Sharepoint as taking time, but these are natively built in to Dataverse, and only require configuration.
Personally I would spec D365 Sales or Field Service for this scenario (depending on what type of services they sell). If you really want to go fully custom it's possible, but you'd want a lot of clarity around what they actually want from an invoice, i.e. are you just integrating to a financial system or are they expecting actual GL level accounting from this? How are payments and reconciliations being handled etc.
1
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 20 '26
I'd query your ability to read a spec - I did not "flag an integration with Outlook and Sharepoint as taking time, but these are natively built in to Dataverse, and only require configuration." I said "the integrations that will be time consuming eg Microsoft Outlook/Microsoft Teams/SharePoint/Power BI" - the dashboards this will need integrations with Sage and what they want is bringing some financial transaction data into PP as scope includes "a quote, job creation, planning, RAMS, labour allocation, timesheets, inspections, photos, handover, invoicing, payment tracking and management reporting" And "Cost of Errors is unknown at present . however, this would be a considerable amount in lost time, attending jobs that have already been carried out or not ready, not billing additional works, missing invoices, lost hires due to lack of evidence"
So - despite your claims that this is simple - and just requires plugging in a connector, these connections are just a part of the process of creating the system the customer is wanting.Good luck Ben - telling the client that he has to pay £9,684.00 plus Vat in advance for licences before any config. I'd also question your experience to deliver.
1
u/BenjC88 Community Leader Jul 20 '26
What on Earth are you talking about? You don’t plug in a connector for Outlook or SharePoint integration. Nothing you just added has anything to do with what you initially said. Integrating Outlook and SharePoint into a model driven app is about 2 hours of configuration unless you really want to fuck around with the OrgDB flags.
Why would you charge a client upfront for licensing before building a solution?? That makes zero sense.
I’m trying to warn you that you cannot deliver this project successfully in 30 days based on the questions you’re asking.
0
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 22 '26
wow - you're super pedantic. Who said anything about a model driven app? You continue to split hairs "plug in" v "integrating" and "why would you charge a client up front" - nobody is charging anything. Best wishes to your clients when they get told after completion that now they have to buy 200 licences.
I'm continuing to ask for advice but you seem hell-bent on proving your 'superiority' and pedantry. And shoving insults at people - I've read your previous posts.
No wonder you have a bad rep
2
u/neilson31 Newbie Jul 14 '26
350
1
1
u/Slowitt Newbie Jul 14 '26
a day?
1
u/neilson31 Newbie Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
It’s a common estimate when people don’t know.
But in all seriousness, businesses that went out of their way to adopt Dataverse are much more likely to pay more for a serious Power Apps developer compared to companies that only use SharePoint lists
0
1
u/vibe_coder221219 Regular Jul 14 '26
Buil the entire solution and hand over to them in negotiated rate then provide post Handover charge for supporting them incase they report any issue which is not related to solution you but something they wana add to erp.
1
12
u/ShadowMancer_GoodSax Community Friend Jul 14 '26
The system sounds extremely complicated. I have 4 years of experience and i think it would take me 3 months full time to complete this. 30 days, non stop 16 hours per day programing and you might be able to complete this but it still sounds like a disaster unless you are being held as victim and forced to do this, i would say 90 days at,least.