How to read an agency quote (and the four things to look for)

Most quotes for custom software are two pages of scope and one number at the bottom. The number gets all the attention. The two pages are where the information is.

1. What did they understand?

Read the scope section as a test of comprehension. Does it describe your problem in your words, or in theirs? A quote that says "cross-platform mobile application with user authentication module and content management dashboard" understood nothing. A quote that says "technicians fill out inspections on a phone with no signal and the office sees them when the phone reconnects" understood the job.

If the scope is generic, the estimate is generic, and the build will be too.

2. Where does the money go?

Ask for the breakdown by phase if it isn't there. Typical agency splits look like this:

Now ask which of those you actually receive. Discovery produces a deck. Design produces mockups of screens that will be rebuilt in code anyway. Engineering produces the app. If more than half the money buys things that aren't the app, you're paying for the agency's process.

3. What do you own at the end?

Look for these words: repository, account, credentials, documentation. A good quote says you own the GitHub repository, the App Store Connect listing is under your team, the hosting is under your accounts, and there's a handoff document.

A quote that's silent on ownership usually means the agency hosts it, holds the keys, and bills you monthly to keep the lights on.

4. What's the timeline made of?

Twelve weeks sounds like a lot of work. Ask what happens in each week. Often the first four are discovery and design with no code written, and the last two are "QA and buffer." The app takes six weeks in the middle.

Then ask when you'll first hold working software. If the answer is "after the design phase," you'll be eight weeks in before you can tell whether it's right.

What a good answer looks like

Here's how our quotes read. The scope restates your problem in your words. The number is fixed. The breakdown is one line, because there's one phase: building. You see the first build on your device within days. You own everything, under your own accounts, from the first commit.

If you have a quote from another firm, send it to us. We'll tell you where we'd land and why, and where they've quoted something we think you don't need.