Software Product Development Services, from Discovery to the Second Release
Our software product development services take a new product from a two-week discovery sprint to its first release, then on to the next one: web apps, mobile apps, APIs and the admin tools behind them. Once building starts you see working software every week, and the code sits in repositories your company owns.
Software product development is the work of turning an idea into software that people use and keep using, then improving it with each release. Digital Heroes covers the whole path: a two-week discovery sprint, product and system design, engineering, testing, launch and the releases after it. One senior engineer answers for the result, a recorded demo of working code arrives every week once building starts, and the repositories are registered to your company.
§ 01 · what is included
What a product build includes, stage by stage
You hire one team for the whole product rather than a separate supplier for each stage. That matters most at the joins: the decisions made in discovery are the ones the engineers build against, and the engineers who built the product are the ones who write the handover. Nothing has to be explained twice to a new set of people.
The stages of the work
Discovery and product consulting. Requirements workshops, a map of every system the product touches, a risk register and architecture decision records, ending in a fixed bid or a recommendation to buy something that already exists.
Product design. Screens, user flows and a design system the next designer can extend, from the team behind our UI and UX design work.
Engineering. Front end, back end, database and APIs, built in sprints of one to two weeks.
Testing and release. Our QA team checks each build, and a CI/CD pipeline with automated tests and a way to roll back is in place before the first production release.
Launch and handover. Architecture documentation, operating runbooks and a session that passes the system to whoever runs it next.
The releases after launch. A retainer for fixes, upgrades and the features real usage asks for.
Taking over a product someone else built. It starts with a written read of the code, before anything is changed.
Kinds of product we build
Web applications with accounts, roles, billing and an admin panel. For multi-tenant subscription products, see our custom SaaS development services.
Mobile apps for iOS and Android from one React Native codebase, our default when an app has to run on both.
Two-sided marketplaces and booking products, where each side has its own app and its own view of the same data.
Operations platforms with rosters, approval chains, role limits and an audit history of every change.
APIs and integrations with payments, email and the systems you already run, as covered on our API development and integrations page.
AI features such as a chat assistant that knows when to hand a conversation to a person; see AI software development.
If the job is only a first version to test demand, our MVP builds page covers that build on its own.
Who we build products for
The three client products in the next section came from three different kinds of buyer: a staffing platform for clinics and hospitals, a print business that wanted its own online design editor, and a training marketplace with athletes on one side and coaches on the other. Most of the people we work with fit one of these descriptions:
Founders taking a first version to paying users.
Companies whose product is live but whose original developer has moved on.
Operators turning an internal process into a product their staff use every day.
Businesses adding a mobile app or an AI assistant to a product they already run.
Clinics and wellness businesses, on the patient and staff side of healthcare.
§ 02 · recent products
Products we have built, for clients and for ourselves
Each client product below is described with that client's permission. None of the three has a published results figure, so this page gives none. Each card says what the product had to do, what we delivered and, where we may say it, what it runs on.
clinics and hospitals · 2026
Planivo, staff planning
the job
Plan shifts and approve leave across several facilities without letting two people of the same speciality be away at the same time.
what we built
The signed-in platform and its website: monthly rosters, leave requests through three levels of approval with a speciality clash check, tasks, training sessions with attendance, reminders before certifications expire, and an on-duty view.
access
Six roles, each limited to its own part of the organisation, with an audit history of every change.
web to print, South Africa · 2026
SpeedyPrint, a print store
the job
Let customers design labels, race numbers, stamps and trophies in the browser, including runs where each item carries its own name or number.
what we built
A design editor, print jobs fed from a CSV file, proofs and production files with an order history, and an admin panel for orders, products, templates and users across customer, admin and production roles.
runs on
Next.js 15, React, TypeScript and Supabase, with PayFast checkout, its payment webhooks and transactional email.
sports training, USA and Canada
AirTrainr, a training marketplace
the job
Help athletes find verified trainers and book sessions, and give trainers one place for their calendar, offers and earnings.
what we built
The two mobile apps, one for athletes and one for trainers: search, booking, offers, schedules, earnings and reviews, with chat and notifications shared by both sides.
runs on
React Native with Expo, on a Supabase backend.
Products we run ourselves
We also build software we have to live with after launch. This site carries 338 free tools, from cost calculators to SEO checkers, and every one of them has a written guide beside it. Our live chat assistant answers visitors here, a copilot works inside our own CRM, and our CTO leads engineering on ShopScore, HeroCheckout and Section Vault, a suite of Shopify products we are building.
The lesson from our own assistant carries straight over to client products: budget for the rules about what an assistant may say, when it hands a conversation to a person and how its answers are checked, not only for connecting a model.
§ 03 · the difference
A product is not a project: what changes once software has users
Custom software product development differs from a one-off build in one way that changes every decision: the work does not stop at launch. A project is judged on whether it shipped to the agreed scope. A product is judged on whether people keep using it, and it will be changed many times, often by people who did not write the first version.
So a product team spends more on the parts that make change cheap: tests around the paths that earn money, a release pipeline with a way back, records that explain why the architecture looks the way it does, and a data model that already allows for the next feature. Those costs show up early and pay back on every release after the first.
Five questions answered for a one-off software project and for a software product
Question
A one-off project
A software product
When is it finished?
When the agreed scope ships
Each release sets up the next one
What decides the next piece of work?
The original specification
What users did, what support heard and who owns the roadmap
What the budget has to cover
The build
The build, then 10 to 20 percent of it each year in upkeep
What the code has to allow
The features in the brief
Changes nobody has asked for yet
What the vendor hands over
The software
The software, its tests, the runbooks and the reasons behind each design choice
Getting this wrong is common. The Standish Group's 2015 CHAOS data, as reported by InfoQ, counted 29 percent of software projects as successful, 52 percent as challenged and 19 percent as failed, and named user involvement among the skills most tied to success. A product team builds user involvement into every release rather than saving it for the end.
§ 04 · process
How a product moves from idea to its second release
Every build follows the same order, so you always know what you are approving before money is spent on it. After discovery, an MVP usually takes 8 to 12 weeks to build and a production platform 16 to 28 weeks. Your scope sets the real dates, and discovery is where they get fixed.
figure 1 · The usual durations from our engagement terms. Build bars start when discovery ends; the dots are the weekly recorded demos.
A free 30-minute scoping call. No slides and no script. If the work does not suit us, you hear that on the call, with a pointer to someone better placed.
A two-week discovery sprint, priced on its own. Workshops on the requirements, a map of each system the product has to talk to, a risk register and architecture decision records. It closes with a fixed bid for the build, or with advice to buy a product that already exists.
Design before code. Screens and user flows are agreed alongside the system design, so what users touch and what engineers build match before the first sprint starts.
Build in sprints of one to two weeks. Each week you get a recorded demo of working code with a note of what shipped and what slipped. A week without that demo is a week you are not invoiced for.
Test and release. Our QA team checks each build, and automated tests run in the release pipeline before anything reaches production, with a rollback ready.
Launch and handover. Architecture documentation, runbooks and a knowledge transfer session, so your own team, or any other, can run what we built.
The second release. A monthly retainer for fixes, upgrades and the features that usage asks for, planned from what people actually did with the first release.
Anything outside the agreed document goes through a written change request that states its cost and its effect on the date before work on it begins. To turn your own estimate of hours into a calendar, try the software project timeline calculator.
§ 05 · cost
What a software product costs to build and then to own
We publish no rate card. Your price is a fixed bid set after discovery, against the scope it produced. What we can give you here is the market, so that any quote, ours included, can be checked. GoodFirms' 2026 survey of more than 100 software firms, run in September and October 2025, found 65.7 percent placing their typical project between $30,000 and $100,000, and 6.3 percent above $200,000.
Rates follow geography. In the same survey, 56.3 percent of firms charged $20 to $50 an hour, while typical rates in North America and Western Europe ran $100 to $250 an hour. Owning the product is a second bill: GoodFirms puts upkeep at 10 to 20 percent of the build each year, and 65.6 percent of its respondents saw scope grow by 10 to 25 percent once work began.
Seven cost benchmarks for building and owning a software product, each with its published source
Cost line
Benchmark
Source
Typical project
$30,000 to $100,000, the band 65.7 percent of firms report
GoodFirms 2026 survey
Large project
Above $200,000, reported by 6.3 percent of firms
GoodFirms 2026 survey
Firm rate, North America and Western Europe
$100 to $250 an hour
GoodFirms 2026 survey
Upkeep after launch
10 to 20 percent of the build cost a year
GoodFirms 2026 survey
Scope growth during the build
10 to 25 percent, seen by 65.6 percent of firms
GoodFirms 2026 survey
One US software developer
$135,980 median annual wage, May 2025
US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Benefits on top of pay
30.0 percent of what private employers pay, June 2026
Building the same capacity in-house is a different sum. Four software developers at the BLS median cost about $544,000 a year in pay. If benefits follow the private-industry average of 30 percent of employer cost, the total comes to about $777,000 a year, before recruiting fees, equipment and the time it takes to hire them. Our in-house vs agency calculator runs that comparison on your own figures.
Choose the model by who will make product decisions week to week, not by the monthly figure. A company with a product owner but no engineers is usually best served by a fixed-bid build or a dedicated team. A company with its own engineering lead may need only engineers inside its team.
Four ways to engage Digital Heroes on a software product, compared on contents, decisions, billing and start
Model
What it includes
Who steers
Billing
Starts
Fixed-bid product build
The discovery sprint, then one price against the document it produced
You approve the scope; our tech lead runs delivery
Discovery priced on its own, then a fixed bid
With discovery
Dedicated product team
A lead, engineers and QA who own a part of your roadmap
Your product owner sets priorities; our lead reviews the code
Monthly, normally for a quarter or more
Usually one to three weeks to assemble
Engineers inside your team
People who pass your interview and work in your repository and standups
Your engineering lead
Monthly
Typically inside two weeks
Retainer after launch
A named team for fixes, upgrades and small features
Our lead, against your priorities
Monthly, from one senior engineer and one designer
Engineering runs from Delhi and Lucknow on hours that overlap the New York working day, and our New York office replies on weekdays between 9 AM and 6 PM Eastern. Our CTO, Divyansh Singh, owns the architecture and the engineering standard behind our custom software and SaaS builds.
§ 07 · technology
The stack behind these products, and the tools around it
Two of the three client products in section 02 share a Supabase backend, and that is typical of how we work: a small set of tools we know well, changed only when the product needs something they cannot do. If your product already runs on another stack, such as Laravel, we work inside it rather than propose a rewrite; see our Laravel developers.
Web front end: Next.js and React with TypeScript, as on SpeedyPrint.
Mobile: React Native with Expo, one codebase for iOS and Android, as on AirTrainr.
Back end and data: Supabase on PostgreSQL, with Node.js where a service needs a server of its own.
Edge and hosting: Cloudflare Workers, which also serve this website.
Commerce: Shopify, for stores and for the Shopify apps we build.
Design: Figma, where our design team keeps each product's design system.
A note on product development software
Search for product development software and most results are roadmap and issue tracking tools. They are worth having, and they organise work a team already knows how to do. They do not decide what to build, and they do not write the code. The one tool that matters most for ownership is the Git repository, and yours is registered to your company from the first commit, so the history of every change stays with you.
Still choosing a stack for a new product? The free tech stack selector asks about your product and suggests a starting point you can then question us on.
§ 08 · ownership and security
Ownership, contracts and security you can check
The MSA assigns you the code, designs, copy and custom assets made for your product once it is paid for in full. Reusable libraries and tools that existed before your project stay ours. A one-page mutual NDA is in place from the moment the scoping call is booked, and you can keep the finished product out of our portfolio by asking in writing.
Contracts are signed with Digital Heroesco LLC in the US or with Digital Heroes Technologies Pvt Ltd in India, and the MSA names which one. Dun & Bradstreet lists the company under DUNS 650878346, and the UN Global Marketplace carries it as a Tier 1 supplier. Our credentials page explains how to look up each one without asking us.
Controls we build in and write into the statement of work
Encryption in transit and at rest for the product's data.
Role-based access, enforced in the database with row level security where the product runs on Supabase.
An audit history of changes where the product needs one, as Planivo does for every edit.
Repositories and cloud accounts in your name, with our engineers added as collaborators you can remove.
A signed Business Associate Agreement whenever our team handles protected health information.
To question how any team builds, not only what it promises, ask it to map its practices to NIST's Secure Software Development Framework and to say how it tests against the OWASP Top 10. Put the same request to us.
§ 09 · vetting
How to choose a software product development company
Vendor pages, this one included, tend to say similar things. The six questions below separate them, because each one asks for a document or a habit rather than a promise. Put the same six to every company on your list and compare the answers side by side.
"Who answers for the result, and will they join our calls?" Listen for a named senior engineer, not an account manager who relays messages.
"What will we see each week?" The right answer is working software, recorded, with a note of what slipped.
"Whose name is on the repository and the cloud accounts?" Yours, from the first commit, with the vendor as a collaborator you can remove.
"What happens to the price when the scope changes?" A written change request with its cost and its effect on the date, agreed before the work.
"What do you hand over at launch?" Documentation, runbooks and a session for whoever runs the product next.
"When would you tell us not to build this?" A company that has never advised a client to buy instead of build is selling hours.
We would rather say so on the first call than take on a build that another option handles better or for less.
The budget is below one senior engineer and one designer. A freelancer or a tool you can configure will serve you better, and we will say which.
Nobody has yet confirmed that people want the product. A short discovery or a prototype is the better first spend than a full build.
An existing product already fits your process. Buy it. The build vs buy calculator puts the two side by side on your numbers.
Every engineer must sit in the United States. Our engineers work from Delhi and Lucknow, so a policy that requires US-based staff rules us out.
The product is a clinical EHR, a core banking system, insurance claims software or medical device firmware. We do not build these. The healthcare products we do build, such as booking, patient portals and staff scheduling, are set out on our healthcare software development page.
§ 11 · questions
Questions buyers ask before a product build
What is software product development?
It is the work of designing, building, releasing and then improving software that a defined group of people use, usually software a company sells or runs its business on. Unlike a one-off project it carries on after launch, and each release is planned from what users did with the last one. Discovery, design, engineering, testing and support all sit inside it.
What are software development services?
They are the paid work of planning, designing, building, testing and maintaining software for a client, bought as a fixed-scope build, a dedicated team or individual engineers. Product development is the part of that work aimed at software with users and a roadmap, rather than a single delivery that ends when it ships.
How much does software product development cost?
No honest single number exists before discovery. Across the market, GoodFirms' 2026 survey found 65.7 percent of firms placing their typical project between $30,000 and $100,000, with typical North American rates of $100 to $250 an hour. Add 10 to 20 percent of the build each year for upkeep. Our own price is a fixed bid, set after a two-week discovery sprint.
How long does it take to build a software product?
After a two-week discovery sprint, an MVP usually takes 8 to 12 weeks to build and a production platform 16 to 28 weeks. Integrations, the number of user roles and how quickly your side can make decisions and grant access move the date more than the feature count does.
What tools are used in SDLC?
Each stage of the software development life cycle has its own kind: an issue tracker for planning, a design tool such as Figma, Git for version control, a CI/CD pipeline that runs automated tests on every change, and error tracking once the product is live. The tools matter less than whether every change actually passes through them.
Who owns the code and the intellectual property?
You do, once the work is paid for in full. The MSA assigns the code, designs and custom assets made for your product to your company, and the repositories and cloud accounts are in your name from the start, with our engineers as collaborators you can remove. Libraries we built before your project stay ours.
Why use a product development partner instead of an in-house team?
Because a partner arrives as a complete team, bought as a fixed bid or month by month. Four US developers at the BLS median wage cost about $777,000 a year once average benefits are added, before recruiting, and still need a designer and QA. If the product will be your core business for years, plan to bring the team in-house later; the handover pack is written for that day.
How do you handle changes in scope once the build has started?
Through a written change request that states the cost of the change and its effect on the delivery date, agreed before the work starts. Nothing said on a call binds either side until it is in the MSA or the statement of work. Since 65.6 percent of firms in GoodFirms' survey saw scope grow by 10 to 25 percent, hold a reserve of that size.
Can a new product connect to the systems we already run?
Usually, if those systems offer an API. Discovery maps every system the product has to talk to, and who owns it, before the price is fixed, and each integration is scoped on its own. SpeedyPrint, for example, takes payment through PayFast and confirms it with PayFast's webhooks. A system with no API at all is a question for discovery, not a surprise in week nine.
What happens after the product launches?
You choose. Some clients take the handover pack, with architecture documentation, runbooks and a knowledge transfer session, and run the product themselves. Others keep a monthly retainer for fixes, upgrades and new features; the smallest we staff is one senior engineer and one designer. Either way, budget 10 to 20 percent of the build cost a year for upkeep.
Do you build healthcare software products?
Yes, as a healthcare product development company for the patient and staff side: booking, patient portals and staff scheduling, such as the Planivo platform for clinics and hospitals in section 02. We sign a Business Associate Agreement whenever our team handles protected health information. We do not build clinical EHR systems or medical device firmware.
Tell us who the product is for, what it has to do first and what it must connect to. A free 30-minute call with Digital Heroes comes first; if the work suits us, discovery follows and ends in a fixed bid or advice to buy. Every form on this site gets an email reply within 24 hours. Book a call with a tech lead.
Published reviews from our Fiverr profile, reproduced word for word.
397 public reviews across
4 gigs, from clients in
36 countries.
Read them all on Fiverr.
The part I appreciated most was how every decision was explained from a business perspective rather than just a design perspective. The site feels polished, easy to navigate, and genuinely reflects the premium image we wanted for our laptop brand. Highly recommended for full stack website!!
oziaslux
United States · $100-$200 · 5 days
Very good result we are happy with the look of the new website and its functionality, definitely gonaa work again with them on our future projects. The team is very good at communicating and created a chat where we could all stay in touch along the project.
tuxedogroup
Canada · $1,000-$1,500 · 9 weeks
I liked that the project never felt uncertain because I always knew what stage it was at. The ideas we discussed were implemented really well, and the final website has a polished look with smooth performance. It turned out even better than I originally expected.
finley_jett12
United States · $100-$200 · 5 days
Whole team was excellent the project delivered phase one excellent thank you guys looking for forward to work on our next project in future thank you very much. It was a pleasure to work with you guys.
nick70787
Australia · $4,000 and above · 4 weeks
Overall happy with the service, quick response always, the website is very nice we are now testing all the tools given to us and very excited to start posting listings with it.
tuxedogroup
Canada · $1,500-$2,000 · 6 weeks
Excellent experience from start to finish. The custom eBook website is fast, modern, and exactly what I envisioned. Would definitely work together again!
nora_luna4
United Kingdom · $100-$200 · 8 days
Reviews are reproduced as published on Fiverr, captured 2026-08-03.
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Why work with Digital Heroes
115 people in New York, Delhi, Lucknow, London and Sydney, shipping
ecommerce, web, software and mobile work for founder-led brands. Senior engineers only,
no account-manager relay, and the same team from kickoff to launch.
Shopify Select Partner, as listed in the Shopify Partner Directory
Tier 1 registered supplier on the United Nations Global Marketplace, which requires audited company documentation
Top Rated Plus on Upwork, the bracket for the top 3% of talent by client outcomes
397 public five-star-weighted reviews across four Fiverr gigs, from clients in 36 countries
DUNS verified business, No. 650878346, so procurement can check us before signing
Listed by Clutch in Top 1000 Global B2B Companies and Top Web Designers 2024
Verified profiles on GoodFirms, DesignRush, Digital.com, AppFutura and TopDevelopers
2,000+ brands built across 40+ countries, with $50M+ in client revenue scaled
