What does it cost to have a client portal built? Prices, choices and a checklist

Ask what it costs to have a client portal built and you usually get a question back. Understandable, because a portal where clients only download an invoice is a different thing from a portal where they submit requests, upload documents and follow the status of their file. But you want a number, or at least a range. So you get that first, and then where it comes from.

One caveat up front: the amounts below are Voortware's. We don't quote general market prices, because they vary so widely they tell you very little. What you can take away is the reasoning, because that applies to every supplier.

The short version

• Discovery: free. One working session in which we walk through your process, your systems and your clients and make the scope concrete.
• Build: from € 9,500, with a fixed price you get up front. A portal with login, documents and statuses sits at the lower end; a portal with multiple roles and integrations higher.
• Lead time: a first working version is live in four to eight weeks on average.
• Ongoing: if you want to keep extending the portal and have it managed, that's possible in a partnership from € 3,500 per month. That's a choice, not an obligation.

All amounts exclude VAT. Hosting comes on top, usually between € 20 and € 80 per month depending on scale. All rates are on the pricing page.

Standard package or custom build?

First the question of whether you should build at all. Off-the-shelf portal packages exist, and for some businesses they're the better choice.

How a standard package charges

You usually pay for a standard package as a subscription, often per user or per tier of users, per month. You're live quickly, maintenance and security are taken care of, and nothing needs designing. The flip side is that you work within what the package can do, and the bill grows with your client base.

That last point weighs more heavily for a client portal than for other software. With an internal tool, the users are your employees, and there are ten or twenty of them. With a client portal, every client is a user. If the package charges per account, two hundred clients cost something very different from twenty.

When a standard package is enough

• Your clients only need to view or download documents.
• Your process resembles that of many other businesses, and there's a package for exactly your sector.
• You don't need an integration with your own systems, or the package already has it.
• The number of clients logging in is limited and not growing fast.

If that sounds like you, start with a package. It's cheaper and faster, and you learn what your clients actually use. That list is worth its weight in gold if you later move to a custom build after all.

When custom pays off

Custom becomes interesting when the portal has to follow your way of working rather than the other way round. For example because clients submit requests that go through your own process, because the status in the portal has to come straight from your planning or ERP, or because you have several kinds of users who each may see something different. With a package you then pay for features you don't use and miss the ones you need.

A fuller comparison is in custom software or a standard package.

What drives the price of a client portal

Not the technology. A login screen, a document list and a status overview are comparable work at every supplier. Five things move the number.

User roles

A portal where only clients log in is the simplest. Every role you add means its own screens, its own permissions and its own test cases. Think of a client with several employees who may each do different things, an account manager who only sees their own clients, or a supplier who delivers documents. Roles are often the biggest price factor in a client portal.

Integrations with your CRM and accounting

A standalone portal is quick to build, but then someone has to enter the data by hand. You don't want that. Usually the portal pulls client details from your CRM, invoices from your accounting software and statuses from your planning. How well those packages can be connected determines a good part of the price. A package with a well-documented API is a few days' work, a system without an API several times that. How we approach this is covered under integrations.

Document flows

Showing documents is simple. Letting clients upload, review, approve or digitally sign documents is another matter. Every step in such a flow needs notifications, statuses and agreements about what happens when something is missing. The more of those steps the portal takes over, the more it delivers, and the more it costs.

Branding and design

A portal in your own house style, with your logo, colours and your own wording, is standard with a custom build. The difference is in depth: a clean design based on your existing brand is different from a fully bespoke design process with several rounds. For most SME portals the first is enough.

Management after delivery

A portal your clients work with has to keep working. Think of security updates, small changes and the question of who gets called when a client can't log in. After delivery, we help your team get started. After that you choose: manage it yourself with the documentation you receive, individual changes on request, or an ongoing partnership.

In a client portal, the roles and the integrations set the price. The number of screens usually isn't the issue.

How long it takes

A first working version is live with us in four to eight weeks on average. Working means: your clients can log in and do what the portal is primarily for. Not everything you'll ever want, but the part that removes the most work.

Deliberately keeping that first version small isn't cost-cutting, it's the fastest route to a good portal. Only once clients use it do you see which features they use and which they don't. What comes next you build on actual use instead of assumptions.

What usually stretches the lead time isn't the build. It's waiting for access to a system that needs to be connected, or decisions that stall because nobody on your side is deciding.

When does a client portal pay for itself?

A portal pays for itself in the questions you no longer get. Other people's percentages say little about that, so work it out for your own business.

1. For one week, count the emails and calls from clients about status, documents or invoices. Has my order shipped yet? Could you send that quote again? What's still outstanding?
2. Estimate how long each question takes to look up and answer. Don't forget the interruption: someone in the middle of other work loses more than the two minutes of the answer itself.
3. Multiply that by the number of working weeks per year and the hourly cost of whoever answers the questions.
4. Set the build price and hosting against it.

If that gives a payback period of a year or less, the conversation is worth having. If it comes out at five years, the portal probably isn't your first priority, or a standard package is enough.

There are also gains that are harder to count: clients uploading their documents themselves in the evening instead of emailing them, fewer lost files, and a more professional impression than a shared folder. Count those as a bonus, not the main reason.

Checklist: what belongs in a good quote

If you ask several parties for a quote, don't just compare them on price. A good quote for a client portal answers these questions.

• Which roles are included, and what may each role see and do?
• Which systems will it connect to, and has it been checked up front that those systems support it?
• Which document flows does the portal take over: just showing, or also uploading, approving and signing?
• Is the price fixed, or an estimate based on hours?
• What's in the first version, and what's deliberately left out?
• What does hosting cost per month, and what happens after delivery?
• Who owns the code, and can another developer take it over?
• Does the supplier charge licence fees per user? That doesn't belong in custom software.
• How is your clients' data handled, and will a data processing agreement be signed?

A quote with a clear answer to all of these is usually worth more than one that comes in a few thousand euros lower. What makes a project more expensive than budgeted and how to compare quotes is covered in what custom software costs.

How to keep the price down yourself

• Write down which questions clients ask now. That's the best specification there is.
• Pick one audience for the first version. Clients first, suppliers later.
• Find out which integration options your CRM and accounting package have. Their helpdesk can tell you.
• Appoint one person who decides and has time for it.

How we build client portals, with examples of what's possible, is on the page about having a client portal built.