How much does a software discovery phase cost? A person-weeks model

A software discovery phase usually costs somewhere between a few thousand dollars and several tens of thousands, and large regulated projects go well beyond that. The honest answer is a calculation, not a number: people on the team x weeks x blended weekly rate.

This post shows what agencies publish, why the figures disagree, and how to build a range you can defend, whether you are buying a discovery or pricing one.

What agencies publish (and why it disagrees)

These are vendors' own figures for their own scope and rates, not market surveys:

Source	Price	Duration	What it covers
Wavect	3,500 EUR, fixed	2-3 weeks	Architecture, milestone plan, fixed-price build offer; fee deducted from the first build invoice if you continue
Acquaint Softtech	$2,500-$5,000 (MVP)	1 to 6 weeks	Ranges by project type, tied to build budgets of $15K to $500K+
Leanware	$5,000-$15,000, fixed	2-4 weeks	Its own "Sprint 0" price; the page says it is not an industry average
LowCode Agency	$5,000-$30,000 (mobile apps)	2-6 weeks	Mobile app discovery
Globaldev	$10,000-$40,000 (MVP)	Not fixed	Directional ranges by project size

Read side by side, an MVP discovery costs anything from $2,500 to $40,000. Nobody is necessarily wrong. They price different things:

• Different work under the same name. Two weeks of workshops and a backlog is not the same as interviews, architecture, wireframes, a roadmap and a fixed-price build offer.
• Different rates. Ten person-weeks cost very different amounts depending on where the team sits and how senior it is.
• Different team sizes. One analyst for two weeks and a team of four for two weeks are both "a two-week discovery".
• Different commercial intent. A low fixed fee, or one deducted from the build, is partly a sales tool.

The "discovery is 5-10% of the budget" rule of thumb is a sanity check, not a price.

What drives the cost

When two proposals differ a lot, compare them against this list first:

1. Scope of the question. "Can we replace this spreadsheet process?" is smaller than "Should we build a platform for three markets?"
2. Number of user groups. Each group needs its own interviews, journeys and requirements. Often the biggest single driver.
3. Integrations. Each system the product must talk to has to be checked. Legacy or poorly documented ones take far longer.
4. Compliance and data. Health, finance, personal data and data residency add reviews and sometimes a specialist.
5. Team composition. An analyst alone is cheaper than an analyst, designer and architect, but cannot check integrations or sketch screens.
6. Decision speed. Calendar time is usually lost waiting for interviews and answers.
7. Depth of design. Low-fidelity wireframes are enough; polish answers none of the risky questions.

A worked cost model

cost = people on the team x weeks x blended weekly rate

The rates below are illustrative assumptions chosen to show the spread, not survey data. Replace them with your own or your vendor's.

Size	Typical team	Person-weeks	$1,500/wk	$2,500/wk	$4,000/wk
2 weeks	2 people (BA/PM, architect part-time)	3-4	$4,500-$6,000	$7,500-$10,000	$12,000-$16,000
4 weeks	3 people (BA, designer, architect)	8-12	$12,000-$18,000	$20,000-$30,000	$32,000-$48,000
6 weeks	3-4 people plus security/data specialists	15-24	$22,500-$36,000	$37,500-$60,000	$60,000-$96,000

You can also run it backwards to read a quote. Divide the price by a plausible blended rate and you get the effort the vendor priced in. If a four-week discovery works out to two or three person-weeks, then the team is one person part-time, the scope is narrow, or the fee is partly recovered in the build. Know which one you are buying.

Two adjustments worth adding: client time (your sponsor and users spend hours in interviews; it is not on the invoice, but it is the most common cause of delay) and a 10-20% contingency if the scope is unclear going in.

Pricing models

Model	Good for	Watch out for
Fixed fee	Budget certainty, well-framed questions	Vendor prices in risk; anything outside the list is a change request
Time and materials with a cap	Exploratory work	Without a cap and an end date, it grows
Credited against the build	Buyers fairly sure they will build with this team	Check you still own the deliverables if you do not continue
"Free" discovery	Very early conversations	Cost is recovered in the build estimate

Whatever the model, the contract should say what you receive, when the phase ends, and that the documents are yours to take to another team.

Questions to ask before you sign

• Which named documents will we receive, and what does "done" mean for each?
• Who is on the team, for how many days each, and at what rate?
• How many user interviews are included, and with which groups?
• Which integrations will be checked, and by whom?
• Is the final estimate a range with written assumptions, or a single number?
• What happens if the phase runs over: change request, cap, or extra invoice?
• Is the fee credited against the build, and do we own the deliverables if we go elsewhere?

Keeping the cost down without skipping the work

Savings come from removing waiting and rework, not from cutting stages:

• Send everything you have before kickoff: decks, old specs, support tickets, interview notes.
• Book user interviews before the phase starts.
• Name one decision maker who can answer within a day or two.
• Discover the first release in depth and leave later phases rough.
• Keep design low-fidelity.

Where the person-weeks go (if you run discovery)

For the agency or in-house team, the work splits in two. Talking and deciding (kickoff, interviews, workshops, readout) can only be shortened by better preparation and faster client answers. Writing and assembling (reading the client's material, turning notes into a problem statement, journeys and requirements, keeping goals, requirements, estimates and risks consistent, formatting the final document) is mostly synthesis of text that already exists, and it is where rework piles up: one late change to a goal has to be carried through the architecture, screens, estimate and risk log by hand.

Check your own timesheets for how large that second share is. It is the part you can shorten without cutting the discovery itself.

Disclosure and a sample

I build Discovery Phase AI, a tool aimed at that second kind of work: it drafts the early stages from the decks, documents and call transcripts you already have, and exports one report. Your team still runs the interviews, reviews every draft and makes the decisions.

If you just want to see what a finished discovery looks like, here is a complete sample report for an invented field-service app. No signup needed.

The longer version of this post, with the full FAQ, is on our blog. Questions or corrections to the numbers are welcome in the comments.