Custom Software
For SMEs.
You've outgrown the SaaS that almost fits, the workarounds that nearly hold, and the spreadsheet that secretly does the rest. We build the software your business actually runs on. Yours, properly.
Bespoke
FOR ONE BUSINESS, YOURS
Days
TO FIRST USABLE VERSION
Yours
CODE, DATA, IP, NO LOCK-IN
Custom software used to be too expensive. It isn't anymore.
For years the default answer was to buy SaaS, accept the gaps, and run the awkward bits on Excel and goodwill.
That worked when bespoke meant a long project, a big upfront budget and a deck about next quarter. Most SMEs couldn't justify the risk.
AI-assisted development changed which bits still need hand-coding. We keep the scope tight, build the useful part first, and price each phase before it starts.
THE OLD ECONOMICS
- Large budget before anything's live
- Months before anyone touches it
- Spec frozen early, hard to change later
- Discovery phases that bill but don't deliver
- Code you can't open without the agency
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE NOW
- First phase priced before it starts
- Usable software in your team's hands in weeks
- Scope changes weekly, on purpose
- Fixed-price phases, no open meters
- Your repo, your data, your call
You've outgrown the toolbox.
Most SMEs we meet aren't underspending on software. They're paying for six tools that each solve a third of the problem, and stitching the rest together in someone's head.
BetterCloud's 2025 State of SaaS puts the average organisation at 106 SaaS apps. That's still 106 logins, invoices and contracts that may not talk to each other.
Source: BetterCloud, 2025 State of SaaS.
The SaaS doesn't fit your workflow.
You bend the business around the tool, not the other way round. Half the features bill you and none of them do the thing you actually need.
The integrations are duct tape.
Zapier, Make, a VA on Upwork pasting CSVs at 6am. Works until it doesn't. Breaks silently when it does.
One person holds it all together.
They built the spreadsheet, they know the macros, they trained the VA. If they leave, you lose the operating manual with them.
Growth is gated by admin, not demand.
Another customer means another hour of someone retyping numbers. You can see the ceiling, and it's not coming from the market.
The data is everywhere and nowhere.
Customers in HubSpot, jobs in Trello, invoices in Xero, files in Google Drive. You can't answer "how are we doing this month" without three people and a meeting.
Five ways the work usually shows up.
Most SME projects look like one of these. Yours probably does too. Pick the one that hurts most and we start there.
Internal tools
The platform your staff actually run the business in. Jobs, customers, stock, scheduling, invoicing. Replaces the sheet, the whiteboard, the three SaaS subscriptions.
Customer portals
Where your clients log in to see their account, book the job, upload the file, sign the thing. Cuts repeat inbox traffic when customers use it.
Integrations
Stripe, Xero, HubSpot, Companies House, your supplier's REST API and the one warehouse system that still wants SFTP. We make them talk, properly, with retries and an audit trail.
AI-native features
Document extraction, triage agents, drafting, classification, search that understands what you meant. Built into the workflow, not bolted on as a separate chatbot.
MVPs and v1 products
A new product you want to put in front of customers fast. We deliver a real v1, not a Figma prototype, in weeks. You learn from real users, not a focus group.
Where we come in.
Four phases, each fixed-price and time-boxed before it starts. No discovery decks, no monthly retainer that drifts for a year, no "we'll know more in Q3".
Big fixed-scope software projects make the expensive mistakes late. We work in small shippable phases so the awkward bits show up while they're still cheap to change.
BOOK A SCOPING CALLScope and price
A working call, a written scope, a fixed price for phase one. You see exactly what we'd build, what's in, what's out, and what the next phase looks like. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you in the call.
Model the work
We map the entities, the workflows, the user roles, the rules. You see the data model and the screens before we write production code. Cheap to argue about now, expensive once it's built.
Launch phase one
A working version your team uses in production. We migrate the data, train the people who'll use it, and run it alongside what you've got until the new thing's earned its place.
Iterate
New fields, new views, new integrations as you find them. Small releases, no big-bang rewrites. When the software's settled, we either hand it to your in-house team or stay on a light retainer. Your choice.
Boring tech that lasts.
We pick the stack so you don't have to. Mature, well-documented, hireable. The kind of thing another developer can pick up in a week if you ever need them to.
Laravel, PHP, PostgreSQL
A framework that's been around since 2011, still a fast way to build a real web app. Boring is a feature.
Livewire, Blade, Tailwind
Interactive UIs without a separate React app to maintain. Faster to build, faster to change.
OpenRouter, Claude, Gemini
Model-agnostic. We pick the right one per task, swap when something better lands, never lock you in.
In your account
AWS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, your existing infra. We deploy into your accounts, not ours. UK or EU data residency where the work needs it.
Built for SMEs already running on it.
Recruiters, financial advisers, engineering firms, manufacturers, agencies, healthcare practices. Same patterns of work, the detail's never the same twice.
SEE OUR WORKReplacing the placement spreadsheet.
Candidates, vacancies, interviews, invoices, commission splits. The founder's placement sheet, rebuilt as a proper platform the whole team can use.
A client portal that ate the inbox.
Onboarding forms, document requests, e-signatures, status updates. The "any update?" emails have somewhere better to go than a partner's inbox.
Document processing, automated.
PDFs into a queue, AI extracts the fields, a human reviews the edge cases, the data lands in the system of record. Less copy-paste, fewer missed fields.
The ones we get asked first.
How much does it actually cost?
Priced per phase, fixed before we start. Scoping is its own short phase so you see the build number before anything's committed. Anything bigger we keep on the same per-phase footing.
How long until we see something?
A clickable version of the data model and key screens in days. A working version in your team's hands not long after. From there, steady releases, not one big launch a quarter.
Why is bespoke suddenly cheaper than it was?
AI-assisted development. The boilerplate, the test scaffolding, the migrations, the CRUD screens, half the documentation. A senior developer with the right tooling spends less time on scaffolding and more time on the business rules.
Who owns the code?
You do. Source, data, IP, deployment credentials, the lot. The repository lives in your Git account from day one. We can host and maintain it for you, or hand the keys to your in-house team. Either way there's no lock-in.
Can't we just use Lovable, Bolt or Replit ourselves?
For a prototype or a marketing page, yes, go for it. For anything that handles real money, customer data or compliance, no. The common failure mode is a back end with row-level security off, keys in the bundle, or no rate limits. We have a separate service for fixing those after the fact.
What about GDPR, security, compliance?
Default. UK or EU hosting where the data needs it, role-based access from day one, audit logs on the things that matter, encryption in transit and at rest, sensible password and session policies. If you've got a regulator or assessment to satisfy, such as FCA rules, ICO guidance, NHS DTAC or SRA requirements, tell us early and we'll build to it.
What if we already have something half-built?
Send it. We'll look at it honestly. Sometimes the right answer is keep it and extend, sometimes it's start again from the data model. We'll tell you which, on the call, before you've spent anything.
Do we need a tech co-founder or a CTO to work with you?
No. Most of our clients are non-technical founders or operations leaders. We translate. You tell us how the business works, we tell you what the software should do, and we agree the trade-offs in plain English.
Ready to stop bending the business around the software?
Tell us what your team's doing by hand, where the SaaS doesn't fit, and what the spreadsheet's secretly running. We come back inside a week with a written scope, a fixed price for phase one, and an honest answer on whether we're the right people to build it.