How Much Does It Cost To Create A Stand Alone Custom App With The Force.com Platform?

I've worked for a lot of big companies who have had a lot money to spend on SFDC licenses. Including the ones I used.  But recently I had a small client who needed a web app, and I knew SFDC would be a great solution, but I didn't know how much it would cost them.  They had never used SFDC before and therefore had no licenses.  How much would it cost them?  Mind you, they had a limited budget.  I had a devil of a time trying to figure it out.  I now share my experience with you, in the hopes that you won't have to waste as much time as I did...

If you can build the app for your client with 10 custom objects or less and don't use built-in objects (Cases, Leads, etc.) , here is your cheapest solution:

1 Salescloud Enterprise license - $1500/year
Chatter Only (aka Chatter Plus) licenses - $180/year/user

So if your client needs to have 4 people logging in to use the custom system you build, it will cost them $2,200/year (1 Salescloud Enterprise license + 4 Chatter Only licenses) in licensing. If it's just one person, it will cost them $1,680 (1 Salescloud Enterprise license + 1 Chatter Only licenses).

You will be using the Salescloud Enterprise license yourself as the developer to build them the system.  But even when you are done building the system, they will still need to pay for that license every year to keep the system going.

Q&A

Q: Can't I just buy the Force.com Enterprise App license instead of the Salescloud Enterprise License?
A: Nope.  Even though it doesn't say it explicitly, implicit in all the other license types is that you already have at least one Sales Cloud or Service Cloud license.  Even if you are not using any of the built-in objects, you still need this license to do development.

Q: I signed up for the Force.com/Sales Cloud/Service Cloud Trial and I don't see "Apex Classes" or "Sites" or [fill in the blank] under "Develop", are you sure I get those with a Sales Cloud Enterprise license?  (I really need them!)
A: Yep, you do get all of that.  I was told it's a glitch in the Trial version software why some of those options are missing.  When I did buy my Sales Cloud License, this is what I saw (6/29/2015):

Everything I needed!!!

Q: Do I really need the Salescloud Enterprise?  Group and Professional are so much cheaper!!
A: Sorry, you just CANNOT do custom development without an Enterprise license.

Q: What if my app needs more than 10 objects?
A: Then, I believe, you'll have to buy the Force.com App Bundle license at $960/user/year instead of the $180/user/year Chatter Plus licenses (yikes, I know, quite a jump.).  Keep in mind, you'll still need that 1 Sales Cloud Enterprise License at $1500/year too.    But remember, with your 10 object app, you'll have Record Types, and you might be able to squish a few "logical objects" into one "realized object" with many Record Types.

Q: Still $1,680/year for as long as the app it used seems like a lot, shouldn't it be cheaper?
A: Let me put it in perspective.  I've done a lot of .NET development in my life.  I have an EC2 server with Amazon webservices that runs a few web applications.  It uses IIS Server and SQL Server.  It costs me around $1,300/year for just the infrastructure.  And even though I'm a great .NET programmer, .NET development still takes me twice, maybe three times as long to get from concept to production than in SFDC.  Under the right circumstances, SFDC just makes lot more sense.