Application integration connects systems that hold overlapping data, so nobody has to move it between them by hand. The cost depends almost entirely on one thing: the quality of the interface on the system you are integrating with. That is why quotes for seemingly similar projects can differ by ten times.
This explains a price difference most buyers find baffling. What you are integrating with decides the work:
| What you're integrating with | What it means |
|---|---|
| A modern, documented API with stable versioning | Routine work. Most current business software is here. |
| An API that exists but is partial or poorly documented | Workable, with time to find out what it actually does versus what the documentation claims. |
| Database access only, with no API | Possible but fragile. Reading is manageable; writing risks damaging a system whose rules you cannot see. |
| File drops, SFTP, or scheduled exports | Old-fashioned, often the most reliable option available, and batch rather than real time. |
| No interface at all | Screen automation. It works, it breaks whenever the vendor changes a screen, and it needs an ongoing maintenance budget. |
An honest integration quote starts with finding out which row you are in, which is why we look before pricing.
A custom integration is not always the right answer, and it should not be the first one considered.
Use the vendor's own connector when one exists and does what you need. It costs nothing to build and someone else maintains it.
Use an integration platform such as Zapier or Make when the logic is simple, the volume is modest, and a monthly fee is acceptable.
Build custom when the logic encodes your business rules, when per-task pricing becomes expensive at your volume, when the integration needs to live inside a system you already run, or when routing sensitive data through a third party creates a compliance problem.
We integrate with all the leading business platforms: CRMs, ERPs, accounting and finance systems, marketing automation, document management, identity providers, and the major cloud services. If a system has a usable interface, we can connect to it. If it does not, we will tell you which of the approaches above it allows before you commit to anything.
For a nationwide paving contractor, we built an AI bidding agent and integrated it directly into the Zoho environment the business already runs on, delivered in under one week. The team did not adopt a new system; the new capability arrived inside the one they already used.
That is the shape of most good integration work, and increasingly it involves AI. Our automation and AI agents work covers agents that act across the systems you connect.
A single integration against a modern, documented API is often part of a project that comes in under $10,000. Integrating with a legacy system that has no real API costs substantially more, and can cost more than the rest of the build combined, because the interface has to be constructed before the integration can begin.
Prices and timelines here are examples to help you plan, not a quote, an offer, or a contract. Every engagement is governed by its own written statement of work and agreement.
The pricing page covers integration count and quality alongside the other variables that change a quote.
What the workflow is, who uses it, what it connects to, whether data has to come along, and what compliance applies. We will tell you on that call if you should buy something instead, and if the scope you have in mind does not fit the date you have in mind.
Within a few business days of that call, with a delivery date on it. Fixed price rather than hourly, so the risk of the work taking longer is ours rather than yours. If we deliver late, monetary penalties apply, on terms set out in your statement of work.
You see the software working rather than described, typically twice a week. You should never have to ask where the project stands.
Deployed to your infrastructure, with a walkthrough, written handover, and the source code in a repository you control. Stephen sees every engagement through to this point personally. Nothing is handed off at eighty percent.
All the work is done by the True Cedar team and completed by US-based resources. We do not outsource any of the work. This describes how we typically work; each engagement's terms are set out in its own written statement of work and agreement.
A single integration against a modern, documented API can fall inside a project that comes in under $10,000. Integrating with a legacy system that has no real API costs substantially more, sometimes more than the rest of the build combined. These are examples; each project's price is set in its statement of work.
Use Zapier or a similar platform when the logic is simple, volume is modest, and a monthly subscription is acceptable. Build custom when the integration encodes your business rules, when per-task pricing gets expensive at volume, when it needs to live inside a system you already run, or when routing the data through a third party creates a compliance problem.
Usually, through database access, file exchange, or screen automation. Each has trade-offs in reliability and maintenance, and anything built on screen automation needs an ongoing maintenance budget because it breaks when the vendor changes a screen. We tell you which approach a system allows before quoting.
All the leading business platforms, including CRMs, ERPs, accounting and finance systems, marketing automation, document management, identity providers, and the major cloud services. If a system has a usable interface, we can connect to it.
Agents that act across the systems you connect.
When the system on the other end needs more than a connection.
Tools that sit on top of the data you have connected.
Name the systems and what moves between them by hand today. We will tell you what kind of integration it needs, and whether a connector would do.