The real reason quotes differ by 10×
Send the same requirements to three vendors and you get three very different numbers. There are three reasons.
- The pricing method differs. Traditional system integrators price by "how many engineers of which grade for how many months" (staff-months). Multiply a rate card by a duration, and the same deliverable can cost several times more depending on how the staffing plan is drawn up.
- The scope isn't fixed when the quote is issued. Vague requirements make vendors price in their risk. Others quote low, then bill the rest as "additional development" later.
- More layers cost more. If a quote passes through a sales organization and subcontractors, only a fraction of what you pay reaches the people actually building.
So comparing totals is meaningless. Compare how each number was produced.
Cost breakdown — where your money actually goes
Outsourced development cost has four parts: planning and design (turning requirements into screens and features), UI design, development and QA, and the part that rarely shows up clearly in a contract — operations. Most problems come from the last one.
- Maintenance contracts — the industry norm is a monthly retainer or per-ticket billing on top of the build. That's where "hundreds of dollars to fix one button" comes from.
- Servers and infrastructure — a recurring cost after launch that is often missing from the quote.
- Changes and new features — your business changes; if the system can't keep up, a new quote arrives every time.
So the number to compare is not the first quote but the two-year total cost. MAEUM's SaaS (managed) plan folds servers, AI costs, improvements and new features into the monthly fee, which removes that back-end cost entirely.
Four tests for a normal range
Run any vendor through these four.
- ① Do they show the basis of the quote per screen and per feature? If they can't immediately answer "how much less if we drop this feature?", the number was a guess.
- ② Are change and maintenance prices stated before you sign? Cheap build, expensive changes is the most common trap.
- ③ Do they show something working before the contract? Not documents or a portfolio — a demo built on your actual workflow. A vendor who does that can't hide their skill level.
- ④ Do they publish prices up front? A vendor that hides prices is a vendor whose price depends on who's asking.
On MAEUM's price list: a ₩0 free diagnosis (5 sessions, up to 90 min each) fixes the scope; a single-workflow system such as membership or booking starts at the ₩1M/mo subscription; connecting several workflows is usually ₩2.5M/mo; and if you want to own it, the owned stack on the Private tier. Start the build after the first scoping session and ₩0 comes off.
Start with a free demo & diagnosis (₩0). Every plan includes server operations, data management, ongoing updates, the marketing video pipeline and SEO/GEO visibility work — no per-seat pricing. KRW is authoritative. Try the demo, and sign only if you like it.