Leobit
Software Development Cost Calculator
Proprietary software development of a tool that helps quickly calculate the complexity and budget of custom software development projects
ABOUT the project
- Client:
- Leobit's Internal Project
- Location:
-
USA
|Austin, TX
- Company Size:
- 100+ Employees
- Industry:
-
Software development
- Solution:
- Custom software development
Leobit developed a proprietary cost estimation tool that helps our prospects quickly calculate the complexity and budget of custom software development projects. It combines a guided questionnaire with AI-powered assistance, serving as a basis to assess a prospect’s project scope, development efforts, and budget ranges in minutes, and provides a ballpark estimate of what it takes to bring a product to life.
We systematized our organization’s engineering and solution design experience into a structured scoring framework integrated directly into the platform. By combining weighted complexity factors with Azure OpenAI analysis, our proprietary tool delivers consistent, data-driven estimates without requiring manual expert involvement at every stage.
Customer
The software development cost calculator was developed as an internal Leobit initiative. As a growing software development company working with diverse clients across various industries, Leobit needed a scalable, intelligent solution to streamline project estimation and enhance collaboration between sales, architecture, and engineering teams.
Business Challenge
For many prospects, speed of estimation plays a decisive role in how they move forward with a potential project. In fact, 71% of Leobit’s prospects expect to receive an estimate as quickly as possible in order to decide whether to begin with a prototype, build an MVP, or commit to full-scope development. However, producing accurate estimates traditionally required coordinating time with technical experts, a process that often took several days. This delay created friction at a critical stage of the sales cycle, risking lost opportunities and slowing down the client’s decision-making process.
To overcome this challenge, Leobit set out to create a proprietary solution that could provide ballpark estimates based on our company’s real-life software development expertise.
Why Leobit
With expertise in custom software development, AI/LLM integration, and architecture design, Leobit was well-positioned to solve its own challenge. The company’s engineering team combined domain knowledge with cutting-edge Azure OpenAI Services to build a tool that reflects both technical depth and business practicality.
Project
in detail
Leobit developed a proprietary algorithm that calculates ballpark project cost based on the technical and business peculiarities of prospects’ ideas.
Software development cost calculator enhances the estimation process by allowing users to upload requirement documents in various formats, including PDF, DOCX, and TXT. Uploaded files are processed using Azure Document Intelligence services, which extract structured text for further analysis. The AI analyzes this content and automatically fills in relevant questionnaire fields. The system is designed to handle long-form inputs and supports multilingual documents.
To further reduce manual effort, Leobit is extending the software development cost calculator with voice recognition capabilities. Using Azure Speech-to-Text APIs, users will be able to dictate project requirements, which will then be transcribed and analyzed by the same AI-driven estimation pipeline. This upcoming feature will streamline the process for clients and sales teams alike by allowing faster, hands-free data entry.
The panel serves as the central repository for all project data, including user inputs, AI-generated answers, supporting documents, and the AI’s reasoning. Sales representatives can review both the raw input and the AI’s suggested responses, along with detailed explanations of why certain complexity factors were added. Each estimate is timestamped and versioned, which makes it possible to track changes across iterations and maintain full transparency.
From the admin panel, users can generate structured reports in PDF or HTML format for client presentations. Additionally, the system aggregates estimation data across projects, enabling Leobit to analyze patterns, such as recurring complexity factors, and refine its estimation model over time.
AI-powered estimation
The tool uses Azure OpenAI Services to support both manual and AI-driven project estimation. The process begins with a guided questionnaire built in Angular on the front end and powered by .NET APIs on the back end. When a user selects a domain (e.g., healthcare, fintech, real estate, etc), the system dynamically loads additional, domain-specific questions that capture both general software complexity and industry-specific nuances.
Users can complete the questionnaire themselves or paste a project summary for the AI to analyze. Using natural language understanding, the AI interprets the summary and generates draft answers to the questionnaire. These AI-generated answers are structured in JSON and displayed in the interface, allowing for easy editing. Beyond filling in responses, the AI also enriches the estimate by detecting hidden complexity factors, such as real-time processing or multi-language support, which are then added to the complexity calculation on the back end.*
*The calculator is just a starting point. For a more comprehensive assessment, the prospect needs to contact our team.
Custom calculation logic
At the core of the software development cost calculator lies Leobit’s proprietary scoring algorithm, implemented on the back end. Each questionnaire answer is assigned a weight coefficient that reflects its impact on project complexity. These weights are stored in a database and can be continuously refined by experts through the admin interface.
When a questionnaire is completed, either manually or through AI assistance, the back end sums all the weighted values into a single complexity score. This score is then mapped to a defined complexity range, such as low, medium, above average, or high. Each range corresponds to a specific budget estimate and development timeline, derived from Leobit’s historical delivery metrics.
For example, a score of 35 places the project in the “above average” complexity range, which is tied to a predefined budget and timeline. This approach ensures that estimates are both consistent and grounded in Leobit’s real-world project experience.
Explore
The solution calculator
Leobit’s software cost estimation tool that transforms your project idea into a clear, structured budget breakdown. Powered by an AI assistant, it delivers complexity level, development effort in hours, recommended team composition, and an estimated budget range in just a few minutes.
Technology Solutions
- The use of Azure OpenAI Services to power intelligent features such as automated questionnaire completion, requirement analysis, and complexity factor detection.
- Proprietary estimation logic embedded into the system translates domain expertise and historical delivery metrics into a weighted scoring model that links complexity ranges to reliable budget and timeline projections.
Value Delivered
- Sales teams spend less time on repetitive estimation tasks and more time engaging with clients.
- Prospects get almost instant estimations to better understand the development efforts and budget ranges.
- All presales data and estimations are now stored in one centralized place, providing valuable insights for analytics, model improvement, and strategic planning.
