What does DO-178C certification cost a small company?

DO-178C compliance has no fixed price. The cost of certifying airborne software is driven by its Design Assurance Level, the number of objectives that level requires, the verification and tool-qualification effort behind them, and how early you coordinate with the FAA. For a small company, planning discipline — not headcount — is usually the biggest cost lever.

By AeroCert Institute — a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by FAA-certified aviation safety professionals. Reviewed July 2026.

What “DO-178C certification” actually means

A common misconception first: the FAA does not certify software on its own. Software is approved as part of the certification of a product — an aircraft, engine, or propeller — or under a Technical Standard Order (TSO) authorization for equipment. DO-178C, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification, is the industry standard the FAA recognizes (through Advisory Circular 20-115D) as an acceptable means of showing that your software was developed with the rigor its safety role demands.

So when people say “DO-178C certification,” they really mean: developing and verifying your software against the DO-178C objectives so it can be approved as part of an aircraft or equipment approval. The cost question is really “what does it cost to satisfy those objectives, with evidence?”

Why FAA software certification has no sticker price

Two projects with the same code size can have wildly different certification costs. The drivers:

• Design Assurance Level (DAL). The single biggest factor — it sets how many objectives you must satisfy and how much independence and rigor each one requires (details below).
• Verification effort. Requirements-based testing, reviews, and structural coverage analysis (up to MC/DC coverage at Level A) typically dominate the budget — often more than writing the software itself.
• Tool qualification. If a tool’s output is used without independent verification, the tool itself must be qualified (DO-330). Qualification kits and the work to apply them are a real line item.
• Planning and audits. DO-178C expects a set of plans and standards — starting with the Plan for Software Aspects of Certification (PSAC) — and the FAA typically reviews your project at Stage of Involvement (SOI) audits per FAA Order 8110.49A. Rework discovered at an audit is the expensive kind.
• Experience. First-time applicants pay a learning tax. Experienced staff, designees, or consultants cost money up front but prevent the rework that costs more later.
• The standard itself. DO-178C and its supplements are copyrighted documents purchased from RTCA — budget for the documents your project actually invokes.

The biggest cost driver: your Design Assurance Level

The DAL is assigned from the system safety assessment, based on how severe the failure of your software’s function would be for the aircraft. Each level maps to a set of objectives in DO-178C Annex A — and the objective count is a fair first proxy for effort:

Level	Failure condition	DO-178C objectives
DAL A	Catastrophic	71
DAL B	Hazardous	69
DAL C	Major	62
DAL D	Minor	26
DAL E	No safety effect	DO-178C objectives do not apply

The raw counts understate the difference. Levels A and B also require independence for many objectives — meaning the person or process verifying an item cannot be the one who built it — and Level A adds the most demanding structural coverage criterion (MC/DC). In practice, each step up in level is a step change in cost, which is why getting the DAL right (not conservatively wrong) matters so much.

Where small businesses overspend on FAA certification

• Writing plans after the code. Retrofitting a process onto finished software means re-doing reviews, traces, and tests to generate the evidence the plans promise.
• Assuming a higher DAL than the safety assessment requires. “We’ll just do Level A to be safe” can double the verification bill for no certification benefit.
• Buying tools before defining the process. A tool only saves money when it fits the lifecycle you actually run — and some purchases quietly add a DO-330 qualification obligation.
• Discovering coverage and traceability gaps late. Gaps found at SOI 3 or 4 mean re-testing under schedule pressure.
• Treating certification as end-of-project paperwork. DO-178C is a development-lifecycle standard; the evidence must be produced as you go, not reconstructed at the end.

How a small company keeps DO-178C costs down

1. Let the system safety assessment set the DAL — and challenge inherited assumptions before accepting a higher level.
2. Write the PSAC early and get agreement with your FAA office or designee before heavy development starts.
3. Make requirements testable from day one — verification cost is mostly determined by requirement quality.
4. Qualify only the tools that need it; independent verification of a tool’s output is often cheaper than qualification.
5. Run a gap checklist against the objectives before each SOI review, so auditors find a clean story instead of surprises.

Free FAA certification resources for small businesses

AeroCert Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit built for exactly this problem: free, plain-language education on FAA software certification for small businesses, students, and the public. We maintain a library of 35+ DO-178B/C review checklists, and our small business support program starts with a free public-tier checklist library you can run against your own project today. More plain-language explainers are on our Articles page.

Primary sources

• FAA AC 20-115D — Airborne Software Development Assurance Using EUROCAE ED-12( ) and RTCA DO-178( ): the FAA’s recognition of DO-178C as an acceptable means of compliance.
• FAA Order 8110.49A — Software Approval Guidelines: how the FAA oversees software projects, including Stage of Involvement reviews.
• 14 CFR Part 21 — Certification Procedures for Products and Articles: the regulatory framework software approval lives inside.
• RTCA DO-178C — Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification: the standard itself, available for purchase from RTCA.