Software development in Antwerpen

Software development in Antwerpen usually starts with a spreadsheet that has grown too big. The port of Antwerp-Bruges handled 266.5 million tonnes of cargo in 2025, and around it work thousands of hauliers, forwarders, warehouses and contractors. At the end of 2025, 2,815 transport and storage companies had their seat in the city of Antwerpen alone, and 5,313 construction firms. Many of them are run by international teams that work in English, with drivers and crews who often speak another language at home.

At twenty drivers, three depots and a customs office that wants to see the figures, a spreadsheet no longer holds. You then have two roads: buy a package and fit your work to it, or have custom software built that follows your work. This page explains when each is cheaper, what a first version costs in the Belgian market and how long it takes, and what we built for two transport companies.

Google shows the demand: 'software development antwerp' completes to 'software development antwerpen', with the Dutch name of the city, and 'software companies antwerp' comes back too.

If three or more answers fall in the right-hand column, it pays to have custom software priced. The full trade-off is in build vs buy software, and for teams comparing with Odoo in Odoo or custom software.

For DA Logistics, a transport company, we built a platform for fuel, fleet and planning. Professional diesel in Belgium falls under the Kader B scheme: every litre has to be traceable from delivery to tank. The platform keeps the stock first in, first out, with a correction log and a discrepancy report for customs. The planning board shows routes per week, day and night, and points out conflicts itself.

Drivers use it on their phones in Dutch, English or Turkish, for leave, receipts and truck problems. About thirty drivers and 34 vehicles are on the system, and new versions go live in two to six seconds, with a backup beforehand and a way back.

When Zuco Logistics needed the same, we turned the platform into a product for several clients: a core without client names, a profile per client with its own branding, modules and language, and its own server per client. Zuco got its own fuel variant, a depot with purchases on invoice, stock first in, first out and an excise screen with an export for customs. From the domain registration to the first login took 57 minutes, on one afternoon.

For an Antwerp firm that means you do not start from zero: the core exists, and what your way of working needs is added. The cases are on DA Logistics and Zuco Logistics. What a transport platform can do in general is on our pages on transport software, transport management software and fleet management software.

For construction, read construction scheduling software and the work order app; for storage, inventory management software and our page on client portals; for following up clients, custom CRM development.

For a haulier with its own diesel tank, Kader B is not a detail. Professional diesel carries a lower excise duty, and customs can ask at any moment where each litre went. If deliveries, tank readings and refuels sit in three different places, that question costs days. A platform that keeps them together answers it with one report. That is why, at DA Logistics, fuel came first and the planning board second.

A platform that drivers do not use is a platform without data. Ask early how drivers will log in, in which language, and on which phones.

In the Belgian market custom software is priced by the hour, usually 50 to 150 euros. A first version of a planning board with drivers, vehicles and conflicts is easily 250 to 300 hours, including design, security and testing. At those market rates that is roughly 12,500 to 45,000 euros, for a first version that can be live in three to four months.

Our quotes are not hourly. We spend one or two conversations on what version one must do, and price that scope as a whole. How such a quote is built is in our guide to custom software development cost; if you still run on spreadsheets, start with replacing Excel with software.

From our office on the Sint-Baafsplein it is 60 kilometres to Antwerp, 49 minutes by car. We build remotely and come to your office or depot for the mapping workshops, held in English or Dutch. We do not have a client in Antwerp, and DA Logistics and Zuco are hauliers, not port companies. But anyone who plans, drives and delivers around the port will recognise their problems. How we build is on our page on custom software; for a site in English and Dutch, read web design in Antwerpen.