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QUANT LAB USA Publishes 2026 Custom Software Development Cost Guide — Free, Public, No Email Gate

MACON, Ga. — May 12, 2026 — For immediate release

QUANT LAB USA INC today released a free 2026 cost guide for custom software development — covering MVP, mid-market, and Series-A grade builds — fully public, no email gate, and paired with four interactive cost calculators on quantlabusa.dev. The guide is built from real client engagement numbers and is intended as a procurement-ready reference for founders, CTOs, and operations leaders.

The 2026 cost guide is publicly accessible at quantlabusa.dev/blog/build-vs-buy-software-2026 and links into the related 2026 State of Custom Software Development report. The guide breaks down three tier ranges that cover the vast majority of buyer questions: MVP builds ($80K–$250K), mid-market platform builds ($250K–$800K), and Series-A grade production engineering ($600K+). Every range is sourced from QUANT LAB's own 2026 client engagements, paired with public market benchmarks from industry surveys.

The release also publishes four cost calculators — public, free, no signup — covering the most common buyer-side questions:

Each tier in the guide is accompanied by a feature scope, a team-composition outline, an example timeline, and a list of typical risks. The mid-market tier in particular — covering the $250K–$800K range — is the zone where founders most often encounter pricing opacity, because most consultancies bury that range behind sales-team intake. Publishing it in the open is a deliberate decision to compete on transparency rather than negotiation friction.

The guide also addresses the AI-augmented engineering reality of 2026: builds that would have cost $400K in 2024 can now be delivered in the $280K–$320K range when senior engineering throughput is correctly leveraged with AI tooling and the team is disciplined about code review. The guide is explicit that AI does not replace senior engineering judgment — it amplifies it — and that buyers should be skeptical of any quote built on the assumption that AI will reduce cost to a fraction of historical rates.

QUANT LAB USA serves founders across 14 US cities including Macon, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, and New York, with a remote-first delivery model. The cost guide is priced in US dollars and reflects 2026 mid-year engagement rates.

Founder statement

The reason custom software pricing is so opaque is not that the work is mysterious. It is that nobody publishes their numbers. Every founder I have ever talked to walks into their first procurement conversation with no idea whether they are getting quoted a reasonable price or a number pulled from thin air. So I decided to do the unpopular thing in this industry and publish my actual ranges. Not lead-magnet bait. Not a teaser PDF behind a form. The full range, in the open.

If a buyer reads the guide and decides we are not the right fit, that is fine — that is a faster decision than three sales calls that go nowhere. If a buyer reads the guide and decides we are the right fit, the first conversation we have is about architecture, not negotiation. Either outcome is better than the current state of the market. The guide is going to be updated quarterly. The next revision lands in August.

— Bill Beltz, Founder & Principal Engineer, QUANT LAB USA INC

About QUANT LAB USA INC

QUANT LAB USA INC is a Macon, Georgia-based custom software development and cybersecurity firm. The company designs and ships production-grade web and SaaS applications, CRMs, Stripe integrations, licensing systems, and algorithmic trading platforms, and hardens them through professional penetration testing aligned to MITRE ATT&CK. The firm serves clients nationwide from its Macon headquarters. More at quantlabusa.dev.

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