Cost & timeline of building software with AI tokens for enterprises
Enterprises need to know what building a system with AI costs, how long it takes and what the ROI is versus buying SaaS. Choose the system type, scale and level of AI usage, and the tool estimates all three. The figures are budgeting estimates, not an actual invoice.
Cost & timeline of building software with AI tokens for enterprises
When applying AI to large-scale software development, enterprises care about the business case: total investment (people plus AI), the time saved through AI, and the benefit compared with renting SaaS over several years. This tool estimates all three — excluding security, compliance and legacy integration, which need a separate assessment.
Rebuild cost by software category
Checklist before you start
Drawn from what we hit in practice — the traps that cost real money or force a rewrite.
- Check the tools are still alive Sora, DALL·E and Luma Genie were all discontinued in the first half of 2026, and Windsurf became Devin Desktop on 2 June 2026 — all within a few months. Verify the status of every tool in the build chain before locking a 12-month roadmap around it; old blog posts won't tell you.
- Count seats on both sides Cursor Pro at 16 USD/month and Devin Desktop Pro at 20 USD/month are billed per person, every month. Multiply by developer headcount before putting the build option next to Salesforce seat pricing — building is not a one-time cost.
- Don't plan around free tiers GitHub Copilot Free gives 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests a month — fine for kicking the tyres, nowhere near enough for a team building an enterprise system. Credits also don't convert between vendors, so one company's "100 credits" says nothing about another's.
- Verify integrations on the docs page Vendor intro pages go stale: nhanh.vn still advertises Sendo sync even though the marketplace shut on 15 April 2025, and Sendo Farm ended on 10 July 2026. Check every connector against the pricing or technical documentation page before it enters project scope.
- Price the compliance you inherit Building in-house means carrying what the SaaS vendor carried: POS-generated e-invoices under Decree 70/2025/ND-CP (mandatory from 1 June 2025) alongside Decree 123/2020/ND-CP, PCI DSS plus the State Bank's payment-intermediary rules if card or dynamic QR payments are involved, and the legal obligations attached to payroll, social insurance and personal income tax data. That workload belongs in the timeline and the budget before any ROI figure is final.
- Fact-check every figure AI states product names, prices and quotas with complete confidence and still gets them wrong. Reconcile each cost line in the board-facing ROI case against the official pricing page instead of pasting model output straight in.
Frequently asked questions
What does building a CRM like Salesforce cost, and how long?
It depends on feature count, complexity and team size. With AI assistance, effort and timeline typically fall 35–50% versus a traditional approach.
Build or buy SaaS?
With many users over several years, building plus maintaining can cost less than renting SaaS. The tool compares multi-year totals, payback and ROI.
Is security and compliance included?
No. This is a high-level cost, timeline and ROI estimate; security, compliance and integration need separate assessment.
What kind of team does this require?
AI assists with code, but you still need architects, project management, QA and operations. The estimate assumes a capable in-house team or partner is in place.
How are post-launch costs handled?
A multi-year model must add infrastructure, maintenance, upgrades and user support — these often decide whether building really beats renting SaaS.
Can I take this to the board?
It works as a starting point for a build-vs-buy discussion. Before approving investment, commission a detailed business case grounded in your own requirements.
All figures are reference estimates. Built by the TOT team.
