Pricing
Four price bands. And the arithmetic behind the lowest one.
You came here to find out what this costs, so here is the number first and the story second. The entry package is VND 25,000,000; the largest sits under a billion. Below the table is the calculation that produces the entry package, step by step, from a published market salary.
The figures below are what I publish so you can filter by budget. They are not a binding quote. The binding quote is agreed in writing after one conversation, once I understand the real scope. I do not put a hard price on work I have not understood — and I will say plainly if it is not a fit.
Read this before you compare
One thing worth knowing before you compare prices: the published numbers in this market — mine included — are asking prices, not transaction prices. Vietnam has no reliable public index of what software work actually sells for. A seller publishing a number is letting you filter; the low end is usually a threshold to start a conversation, not the number you will pay. I am putting that here rather than in a footnote at the bottom.
How the work is delivered
This work is done online, and online is the normal way: scoping, the build and the handover all happen over a screen. Being in the same timezone means no working day lost to travel, you do not pay to get me there, and the work is something you watch rather than something described to you. An in-person meeting can still be arranged if it is genuinely needed, but it is a separate arrangement outside the package, it carries an extra cost, and it is quoted before I travel — it is not one of the figures above.
FX used for every USD figure on this page: 25,980 VND/USD. Contracts and invoices are in VND.
Four price bands for web apps and internal business systems
Priced as complete packages, not by the hour. The hours in each band are an effort estimate so you can size the work — they are not a billing unit, and this site publishes no hourly rate.
The bands above apply to web apps and internal business systems. AI and data work has its own table — see the services page, or ask directly if that is the part you actually need.
AI and data work — its own table, from VND 50,000,000
Measured Trial
2 weeks · measured on your own data
50.000.000 – 80.000.000 ₫
~$1,920 – 3,080
Document Extraction & Vision
8 – 12 weeks · ~350 hours of effort
280.000.000 – 450.000.000 ₫
~$10,800 – 17,300
Data Pipeline & Scale-up
16 – 20 weeks · ~700 hours of effort
650.000.000 – 950.000.000 ₫
~$25,000 – 36,600
Package price
Start Here
3 – 5 working days · one narrow job
25.000.000 – 40.000.000 ₫
~$960 – 1,540
MVP
8 – 12 weeks · ~300 hours of effort
200.000.000 – 320.000.000 ₫
~$7,700 – 12,300
Internal System
16 – 24 weeks · ~800 hours of effort
600.000.000 – 850.000.000 ₫
~$23,100 – 32,700
Past this point every package includes a written scope before work starts — you read the scope before any money moves.
How the smallest package is calculated
The “Start Here” package is not a round number chosen to look tidy. Below is every step from a reference salary to a published price. If a step looks wrong to you, say so — my quote rests on this exact calculation, so I need to know where it is wrong.
01Reference salary
VND 44.8m/month for a full-stack engineer with 8+ years (ITviec). I work from VND 50m — the level of a person selling services, not an employee.
02÷ 22 days ÷ 8 hours
≈ VND 284,000/hour gross.
03× 1.22 employer load
Insurance, leave, tools.
04÷ 0.75 solo overhead
Accounting, e-invoicing, marketing, travel between Can Tho and Vinh Long.
05÷ 0.65 billable utilisation
Part of the year is sales, quoting, learning and sick days — and nobody pays for those hours.
06= VND 711,000/hour — minimum cost
Below this, every hour I sell costs me money.
07× 29–45 hours for the “Start Here” package
1h conversation + 2h scope and quote + 24–40h build + 2h handover.
08= floor price VND 20.6–32.0m
The true cost of the smallest package, if you cost it properly.
09Published price VND 25–40m
About 1.2–1.25× cost. A deliberately thin margin: this is the level at which a small Mekong Delta business can say yes without a board meeting.
10Against an agency
The smallest MVP Saigon Technology publishes is VND 260m. My “Start Here” package is about a tenth of that — and I have no project manager, no handover pack beyond the source, and I am the only person answering your messages.
What actually moves the number
Three decisions below move the final figure more than the advertised band does. To be straight with you: if I only asked “how many features do you need” and then quoted a number, that number would be wrong. These three questions make it less wrong.
01
Real user count and screen count
A stock-tracking sheet for ten people and a system for three hundred with permissions, an action log and multi-level approvals are two different pieces of work, even if the screens look alike. Tell me who uses this daily and what they need to be able to see.
02
How many systems it has to connect to
API and webhook work between systems with public documentation is work I can do. Connecting to a platform with no public documentation is not — and I will say so up front instead of accepting the project and pricing it as a change order later. I have not delivered a Zalo OA, KiotViet or TikTok Shop project for a client.
03
How much old data has to move
I write the migration script and test it against your real data before handover. Manual entry and cleansing beyond that script is not inside the package, and it gets quoted separately rather than absorbed silently.
Against prices already published by others
I am not the only seller publishing a price, and I should not be. Other people are showing you numbers before you talk to them, which is good for you. Below are the bands currently published in public, so you have a real comparison instead of one you were given privately.
My published range
VND 25m – 850m
HomeNest Software
MVP VND 130–650m · Medium VND 650m–1.95bn · Enterprise from VND 1.95bn
Vina Software
MVP VND 50–100m · Mobile app VND 80–150m
Saigon Technology
A full 2026 reference table, in VND and USD
Golden Bee
Entry package from VND 15,000,000
All of these are their asking prices, read from their own public pricing pages, not transaction prices. Checked on 5 October 2026 — open the link and you can see it yourself. Do not read this as a definitive like-for-like comparison: the two sides are selling different things and the scopes may not be the same thing under the same name.
The difference is not who has a number. It is this: up there are gaps, down here is a calculation. You can check my figure against a published salary and some division. You cannot check their gap by any means at all. If after reading the arithmetic you still think my smallest package is too expensive, then it is — I will say so plainly and point you elsewhere.
About the things the number above does not cover
Minimum project size
Below VND 25,000,000 I do not take the work. At that level the time needed to understand the scope, write a quote and sign a contract exceeds the actual build — and underquoting is the only way to win work I cannot hand over properly. If your budget is smaller I will say so plainly and point you elsewhere.
Work outside the agreed scope
Anything outside the written scope is quoted separately and waits for your agreement before I start. It is never folded silently into the original package, and I do not give a hard price for work whose scope is still undefined.
The real capacity limit
I take at most two new build projects at a time. That is the genuine capacity of one person: two projects in parallel is the most I can still write, test and hand over myself. Take on more and one of them gets worse work, and you are the person living with that.
Questions about price
- Is the price on this page final?
- No. It is a band, published so you can filter by budget before contacting anyone. The binding quote is agreed in writing after one conversation, once I understand the real scope. I do not put a hard price on a project I have not understood — and I will say plainly if it is not a fit.
- Why does the smallest package cost VND 25m for a few days of work?
- Because that is the floor at which the job can be handed over properly: one hour of conversation, two hours writing scope and quote, 24–40 hours of build, two hours of handover. Below that, the scope-and-quote work outweighs the build itself, and underquoting is the only way to win a job I cannot hand over. The full arithmetic is in the section above.
- Can I pay by the hour?
- No. This site publishes no hourly rate, deliberately. Hourly billing moves the risk from you to me, which is how a project ends up in a change-order loop. Work outside the agreed scope is quoted separately and waits for your agreement before I start — but it is still a number, not a clock.
- Does the package include travel or an in-person meeting?
- No. The work is online, so travel is not in the package and you do not pay to get me to you. If you want an in-person meeting, that is a separate arrangement outside the package: I quote the cost before I travel and I only travel once you have agreed it in writing. I am not putting a fixed figure here because the cost depends on where you are, and I have no single number to publish.
- How is maintenance after handover charged?
- There is a post-handover support window, stated in the contract. I do not have a monthly retainer package — if you need ongoing managed service, that is a thing which does not exist here yet, and I would rather tell you that than sell you an empty one.
- Do third-party costs sit inside the price?
- No. Servers, domains, library licences, SMS providers, e-invoice vendors — you contract with each of them directly. I do not take money on their behalf and I do not quote them as included.
- My budget is below the smallest package. What now?
- I will say so plainly and point you elsewhere. Below VND 25,000,000 I do not take new work — not because I am pricing high, but because at that level there is no honest way to write a scope, quote it and contract it.
The next step
Send me a few lines describing what runs on a spreadsheet today and the outcome you need. I read it and reply within one business day, usually with specific questions about the project rather than a generic quote. If your budget does not reach any band above, I will tell you as soon as I read it — better to say nothing than to send something and wait.