Custom dashboards/analytics apps: $80,000–$250,000 depending on real-time/data-source complexity (Kavara)
Created 2026-06-21
Summary
Claim: Custom dashboards / analytics apps run $80,000–$250,000 depending on real-time / data-source complexity (Kavara).
Source: Kavara.
Confidence: Single-source.
Caveat: Vendor incentive (Kavara sells dashboard work). See R6 — Flag the vendor incentive on every cost claim — AWS price-cut count, SaaS build-vs-buy ranges, agency portal estimates.
Why this matters for Candid: Dashboards are the use case most often confused with "easy" by clients — Chart.js is free, but the bespoke integration / data-pipeline / auth work around it is not.
Related entries
Referenced by (6)
- reference Research brief: the falling cost floor of "real" web functionality for SMBs (June 2026) relates-to
- reference Enterprise-tier example: live-data dashboard — NWS API / open data + D3/Chart.js on managed DB; pre-2010 demanded a custom build relates-to
- reference Caveats: AWS vendor framing quarantined; build-vs-buy vendor cost pages flagged; DrPeering single-source; sysadmin wages needs-verification relates-to
- rule R4 — The floor fell, the ceiling did not: bespoke client portals still cost $20k–$50k + $10k–$25k/yr — say so honestly depends-on
- rule R6 — Flag the vendor incentive on every cost claim — AWS price-cut count, SaaS build-vs-buy ranges, agency portal estimates depends-on
- reference Pendo 2019 Feature Adoption Report: 80% of software-product features rarely or never used (615 subscriptions analyzed) relates-to