Skip to content

Pricing

What custom software actually costs

Most development companies will not publish a number. We think that wastes everybody’s time, so here are the real bands we quote within — plus an honest explanation of what pushes a project to the top of one.

All prices exclude VAT.

Build costs

One-off project pricing

Where each type of project typically lands. Yours gets a single fixed number after discovery.

Brochure website

Five to fifteen pages, built to be found and to convert.

£1,800 – £4,000

Typically 3–5 weeks

  • Custom design — not a bought template
  • Mobile-first, fast, accessible build
  • On-page SEO, schema markup and sitemap
  • Content management so you can edit it yourself
  • Contact forms and enquiry routing
  • Analytics and Search Console set up
Service detail

Large site or ecommerce

Bigger content sites, or a shop that takes money properly.

£4,000 – £9,000

Typically 5–9 weeks

  • Everything in a brochure site
  • Product catalogue, variants and stock
  • Checkout with Stripe, PayPal or GoCardless
  • Order management and customer accounts
  • Category, filter and search architecture
  • Structured data for product-rich results
Service detail

Internal business tool

One process, fixed properly. Usually replaces a spreadsheet.

£6,000 – £15,000

Typically 6–10 weeks

  • Discovery and process mapping
  • Clickable design before build
  • Role-based logins and permissions
  • Reporting and CSV/Excel export
  • Data migration from what you use now
  • Training and written documentation
Service detail

Departmental system

Multiple roles, multiple workflows, integrated with what you already run.

£20,000 – £60,000

Typically 3–6 months, phased

  • Everything in an internal tool
  • Multiple connected modules and workflows
  • Integrations with accounting, CRM or EPOS
  • Automated jobs, alerts and scheduled reports
  • Audit trails and access control
  • Phased delivery — usable from phase one
Service detail

SaaS platform (MVP)

A product you sell to other businesses, built multi-tenant from day one.

from £18,000

Typically 3–5 months to first paying customer

  • Multi-tenant architecture and tenant isolation
  • Subscription billing and plan gating
  • Self-service signup and onboarding
  • Operator back office and support tooling
  • Per-customer domains where needed
  • Deployment pipeline and staging
Service detail

Desktop application

Native software for Windows, macOS or Linux — including hardware control.

from £9,000

Typically 2–4 months

  • Native C++/Qt or cross-platform build
  • Hardware, serial or network device control
  • Real-time processing where required
  • Signed installer and auto-update channel
  • Offline-first data with optional cloud sync
  • Licensing and activation if you are selling it
Service detail

Ongoing

Hosting, support and retainers

Software is not finished at launch. These cover keeping it online, patched, backed up and steadily improving.

Website care

For brochure and content sites.

£75/month

  • Managed hosting, SSL and daily backups
  • Platform and dependency updates
  • Uptime monitoring with alerts to us
  • 1 hour of content or design changes each month
  • Email support, next working day

Application support

For live business systems and ecommerce.

£250/month

  • Everything in Website care
  • Application hosting with staging environment
  • Priority bug fixes
  • 3 hours of development each month, rolling over 3 months
  • Quarterly performance and security review

Product partner

For platforms under continuous development.

from £1,200/month

  • Everything in Application support
  • A booked block of development each month
  • Roadmap planning and prioritisation with you
  • Same-day response during working hours
  • Release management and version control

Hosting can also be bought on its own, without a retainer — see hosting plans.

The honest bit

Six things that move the number

If you want a cheaper quote, this is the list to work through with us. Cutting any one of them cuts the price.

How many user types it has

One kind of user is straightforward. Admin, staff, contractor and customer views — each with different permissions and different screens — is closer to building four applications that share a database.

What it has to talk to

A self-contained system is predictable. One that syncs with Xero, a courier API, an EPOS till and a legacy database costs more, mostly because other people’s systems misbehave in creative ways.

Whether data has to move

Migrating fifteen years of records out of an old system — deduplicating, validating and reconciling it — is often a project in its own right, and it is the thing most quotes quietly leave out.

How much design it needs

An internal tool can be clean and functional. A public product that has to sell itself in eight seconds needs more design time, and it is usually worth it.

Compliance and audit requirements

If you need audit trails, data-retention rules, role separation or anything an external auditor will read, that is real engineering work rather than a checkbox.

How fast you need it

A normal timeline is cheaper than a compressed one. If a date is fixed, we will tell you honestly what fits inside it rather than promising everything and delivering half.

Questions

About money

The parts of a quote most companies would rather you did not ask about.

Are these prices fixed or estimates?

The bands on this page are honest ranges based on what we actually charge. The number you get is fixed: after discovery we send a written scope with one price against it, and that price does not move unless you ask for something that was not in the scope.

Do you charge for the initial conversation or quote?

No. The first call, our view on whether the thing is worth building, and the written quote are all free. We only start billing once you have signed off a scope.

Why are you cheaper than a big agency?

Because you are paying for developers rather than for account managers, a sales team and an office in a city centre. The person who writes your code is on the call. There is no layer of people whose job is to relay information between you and them.

Can we spread the cost?

Yes. Larger builds are phased with staged payments at agreed milestones, so you are never paying for work that has not been delivered. For smaller projects it is usually a deposit and a balance on launch.

Is hosting included in the build price?

The first three months of managed hosting are included on every project we build. After that it is £15 to £35 a month for a website and £45 to £150 a month for an application, depending on resources. You are free to host it elsewhere instead.

What happens if I need extra work later?

Small pieces are billed by the day at our standard rate, or you can put a retainer in place which is cheaper per hour and gets you a guaranteed slot rather than joining a queue.

Do you charge VAT?

All prices on this page exclude VAT. VAT is added where applicable and shown separately on every quote and invoice.

Want a real number for your project?

Describe what you need in a few lines. We will come back with a band you can budget against, usually the same day, and a fixed quote once we have scoped it properly.