Custom web applications for businesses
Dashboards, internal tools and your business logic turned into an interface your team uses without a manual. It opens in a browser: there's nothing to install on anybody's computer.
Previous price: €4,600Now: from €3,6804–8 weeks
When the spreadsheet stops coping
Almost every small business arrives here the same way. First there was a spreadsheet. Then there were five, with formulas only one person understands. Then it moved to the cloud and two people started overwriting each other. And now part of the business works because somebody remembers to do something every Tuesday.
The usual alternative is buying generic software and paying per user per month forever, using twenty per cent of what it does and fighting the rest. That works — until the process that makes you money is precisely the one the software doesn't cover.
A custom application isn't more luxurious: it's smaller. It does exactly your thing, has no screens nobody opens, and doesn't charge for every person who logs in. And because you pay for it once, past a certain number of users it costs less than the monthly licence — we work out that exact point with your numbers before starting.
This is for you if
- Part of your business runs on spreadsheets that clash, or that only one person dares touch.
- You pay per-user licences for software you use one corner of.
- Someone on your team copies the same data from one place to another by hand every week.
- You have a process of your own — how you quote, how you plan a route, how you assign shifts — that's part of why people choose you.
This is NOT what you're after if
- You want a phone app people download from the App Store: this lives in the browser, and if you genuinely need the other one, I'll say so.
- What you need is a standard CRM or accounting package: that already exists, costs less, and rebuilding it makes no sense.
- The process changes every week and nobody has written it down: then the first step isn't coding, it's tidying.
What's included
It starts at the process, not at the screen. What gets built is what you already do, minus the steps that only existed because the old tool demanded them.
The process, drawn before any code
We come out of discovery with the whole circuit on paper: who does what, in what order, and what can go wrong. That paper is what gets approved, and it's half the value of the project.
Two profiles, each with their own work
Whoever answers the phone doesn't need to see what whoever invoices sees: permissions hide what isn't theirs, without twenty extra options in the way. Two profiles is where nearly everyone starts; each additional role with screens of its own is €600.
Users, permissions and an audit trail
Each person with their own account and permissions, and a history of who changed what and when. The day something looks different, that question has an answer.
Today's data, in from day one
If today's system is a three-thousand-row Excel file, it gets migrated: you don't start from zero. Connecting it on top of that to your invoicing, your calendar, your messaging or any reasonable API is €400 per integration, decided during discovery with the list in front of us.
An admin panel
So you can add a person, change a price or fix a value without writing to me. A tool that depends on its developer for everything is a half-finished tool. Out of the box it's the database provider's own panel, which does that job perfectly well; one built into your application is quoted separately.
Your data, in Europe
The database lives on EU servers with automatic backups, and access is encrypted. The data is yours and leaves whenever you say, in an open format.
Works on the phone in the warehouse
If part of the work happens away from a desk, the interface is designed for that: big targets, little typing, and tolerant of a patchy connection.
Training and short documentation
One recorded session and a two-page document, not a manual nobody reads. If it needed a fifty-page manual, the application would be badly designed.
How it works
In parts, with something usable early: nobody should wait two months to find out whether this helps.
013–5 days
Discovery
I watch you work and ask a lot. Out of this comes the process map and, nearly always, three steps that can be removed before writing any code.
022–3 days
The screens, before the engine
I draw the screens and the whole journey and you show them to the people who'll use them. Changing something here costs an afternoon; changing it once built costs a week. If you want it as a prototype you can genuinely click through, that gets added and I tell you what it costs.
034–8 weeks
Build in slices
The most painful process first, working end to end. Every week you see real progress on a staging site, not a percentage in a report.
04ongoing
Going live
Migrating the data you already have, training, and a few weeks of close support — which is when the things nobody predicted show up.
What it costs
A starting price for one process, end to end and working, with two user profiles. It isn't your company's whole system: it's the part eating most of your time, built properly. The range here is wider than for a website, which is why discovery is delivered even if we don't continue afterwards: the process map is yours.
- From
Previous price: €4,600Now: from €3,680- Timeline
- 4–8 weeks
What moves the price
- Each additional role with screens of its own, €600.
- Each integration with software you already use, €400.
- A second complete process: quoted as what it is, another small project.
- Migrating old data, especially from hand-made spreadsheets.
- Whether it needs to work offline.
- Support level and committed response times.
Invoiced by milestones, not all at the end: 40% at kick-off, 30% at the first usable delivery and 30% at go-live. Hosting adds a small monthly cost, which I tell you before we start.
Questions I always get
What about everything in my spreadsheets?
It gets migrated. In fact that spreadsheet is the best documentation of your process that exists, and it's the first thing I look at. What doesn't get migrated is the accumulated mess: part of the job is deciding what gets cleaned up on the way.
Is the code mine?
Yes, delivered in a repository in your name. If tomorrow you want another team to take over, they take it and carry on. I don't work with trapped clients.
Who maintains it afterwards?
I can, on a monthly agreement, or your own team can if you have one. What I hand over is documented so that the second option is real and not a brochure promise.
What does running it cost per month?
Hosting and the database, which for a small business's internal tool is usually a small, predictable amount. You get the exact figure in the quote, not afterwards.
Can I start with just one part?
That's what I recommend. We pick the process that eats the most time, build it completely and put it to work. If that already gives you hours back, we continue; if not, you've spent a fraction of doing everything.
What about data protection?
It's designed with GDPR in view: data in the EU, permission-based access, encryption and deletion when due. If you'll handle sensitive data, we cover it in discovery and put it in writing.
What if the process changes in a year?
You change the application — that's the point of it being yours. Small changes fit inside maintenance; big ones get quoted as what they are, a new but small project.
Shall we talk about your tool?
Tell me which process is eating your time and how you handle it today. The first conversation usually makes it clear whether this is solved by building software or by tidying the process — and I'll tell you which.
I usually reply within 24 hours