The cost of your data science initiative will depend on the service option you need and the overall project complexity.

For instance, the major cost factor of data science development is whether you need a data science component of a bigger solution or the entire data science-based software.

The average costs of developing a certain data science component:

• Forecasting: $30,000–$150,000.
• Prediction: $30,000–$150,000.
• Optimization and planning: $50,000–$200,000.
• Classification (e.g., of customers, vendors, outlets, orders, payments, transactions): $20,000–$70,000
• Anomaly detection: $30,000–$200,000.
• Fraud detection: $70,000–$200,000.

The average costs of developing an end-to-end data science-based solution:

• Inventory optimization: $200,000–$350,000 for an average complexity solution, $600,000 for comprehensive inventory optimization software for a large enterprise.
• Retail price optimization: $150,000–$300,000 for average complexity, $400,000 for comprehensive pricing optimization software.
• Route planning, scheduling, and optimization: $150,000–$300,000.
• Custom financial modeling software of average complexity: $200,000–$400,000.
• Predictive maintenance: $250,000.
• Predictive insurance: $200,000–$400,000.

With support services, the cost may be estimated as 15–25% of the initial development costs per year, while during the entire solution lifespan it may amount up to 70% of the TCO.