When your business outgrows the spreadsheet
In Rajshahi, the most expensive software you run is the one in someone's head
Most Rajshahi businesses hit a moment without naming it. The work has outgrown what one person can hold, but everyone keeps holding it anyway. The coaching centre's office assistant knows which student paid, which batch they sit in and their last test score. But it lives in his head and three colour-coded spreadsheets. The day he is sick, the front desk goes blind. This is the problem custom software development in Rajshahi is meant to solve.
The diagnostic centre's appointment diary is a paper register and a phone that never stops ringing. The mango exporter tracks twenty buyers, their advances and their dispatch dates in a WhatsApp group and a notebook only he can read. None of it is broken, exactly. It just does not scale, cannot be searched and has no backup except one tired person. The goal is not 'going digital' as a slogan. It is moving your business from one person's memory to a system your whole team can open.
I am RH Fardin, a senior solo developer. I have spent about five years building production software and web apps for Bangladeshi businesses. I write every line myself, with no junior in between. I build for coaching and admission centres around Shaheb Bazar and the university belt, and diagnostic centres on Laxmipur. I also build for mango and agro exporters, silk houses off Sopura, and food-processing and rice mills out toward the BSCIC area.
Every Rajshahi owner asks: app banano lagbe, naki ready kichu kine nile cholbe? Sometimes a ready-made tool covers how you work, like a basic accounting app or a POS for a single-counter shop. Then buy it and keep your money. I will tell you that on the first call and not chase the job. Custom software earns its price only when no template has a field for your work. By then, side spreadsheets, manual matching and missing reports cost more than owning the right system.
A Rajshahi brief differs from a Dhaka one in two ways: the work and the wage maths. The work is local and hands-on. Education businesses need student, batch, fee and result management. Diagnostic centres and clinics serving patients from across the north need appointment and report flows. Mango, agro and Barind-belt produce squeezes a year into a few months, so it needs season-aware order and dispatch tracking. The rice and food-processing mills need party ledgers and stock.
The wage maths is the quieter half. Labour costs less here than in Dhaka. So it is tempting to fix every bottleneck by hiring one more person to update the register. That works until the registers disagree and two staff keep different versions of the truth. It fails when a buyer or a parent asks for something you cannot produce in under an hour. Software gets cheaper as you grow, while another pair of hands costs more every year. I make that case only when the numbers truly support it.
Here is how I am priced and where I fit. 'Custom' should mean a number you can plan a year around, not a guess over the phone. Pricing is in BDT and fixed after one scoping call. Real custom software starts at 3,00,000 BDT. That means a database, an admin panel, user roles, and a payment or SMS link. Smaller, tightly scoped tools and lighter web apps often fit my 90,000 or 1,50,000 BDT tiers.
Think of a coaching-centre fee and result tracker or a diagnostic appointment web app. A stock and ledger tool for one mill fits too, or an admin panel on data you already keep. The smallest job is 50,000 BDT. Payment is always 50% advance and 50% on launch, by bKash, Nagad or bank transfer. You approve the full design before I write a line of code. That is the design-approval guarantee. For a 300-screen ERP for a huge factory, I will tell you to hire a larger team.
See pricing in BDT