Custom software for businesses that were told they couldn’t afford it.
We build the systems small businesses actually need — timesheets, job tracking, quoting, portals, the thing you’re currently doing in a spreadsheet — for a fraction of what an agency would quote. Every system is designed and signed off by a solutions architect with thirty years in the industry.
Sound familiar?
You probably recognise one of these
It’s all in a spreadsheet
It works, just about. One person understands it. It breaks when two people open it at once, and nobody wants to think about what happens when they leave.
You’ve got a system nobody maintains
Someone built it years ago and moved on. It still runs the business. Nobody dares touch it, and you have no idea whether it’s secure.
The quote was £30,000
You asked an agency, got a number you couldn’t justify for the size of the problem, and quietly carried on as you were.
How this is possible
The typing got cheap. The thinking didn’t.
Writing code used to be the expensive part of building software, so everything was priced around it. That has changed. AI now writes most of the code here — from a specification we write, with tests built in, reviewed line by line by someone who has been doing this for thirty years and knows when the answer is wrong.
What you’re paying for is the part that never got cheaper: working out what you actually need, designing something that will still make sense in five years, and being accountable for it. There’s no project manager to fund, no account manager, no office, and no team of three where one will do.
The result is that jobs which were never worth quoting for are now worth doing properly.
Roughly what things cost
Real numbers, on a public page
Most people who ask an agency for a price get a form, a phone call and a shock. Here are ours.
Multi-user systems with reporting and integrations
Several parts of the business in one place, connected to what you already use. An agency would typically quote £50,000 to £100,000 for the same specification.
A proper system for one part of your business
Scoped, built, tested and live in four to eight weeks. Yours to keep, running in your own AWS account.
One job, done properly
Replacing a spreadsheet, a timesheet system, a booking form. The kind of work that was never viable at agency prices.
Recent work
What that looks like in practice
“[One sentence from the client about what changed — the time it saves, or the thing they stopped worrying about.]”
[Name, role] — [Company, or “an electrical contractor”]
Timesheet system
An electrical contractor with over 100 staff recording hours on paper and re-keying them each month.
£[amount] · [n] weeks. [What changed, with a number.]
Rebuilding an ageing system
A medical-sector business running on a bespoke system built six years ago and unmaintained since.
£[amount] · [n] weeks. [What changed, with a number.]
What we don’t do
Worth saying plainly, so nobody wastes an afternoon.
- Round-the-clock support. Response within one working day, fixes within the working day.
- Day-rate hire. Fixed price only — we’re not for hire by the day.
- Anything outside AWS. It’s the cloud we know properly, and we’d rather be excellent in one than average across three.
- Projects much over £25,000, or more than two at a time.
- Anything where the only thing that matters is being cheapest.
What we build
The kinds of systems we make
Most people don’t ask us for something because they didn’t know it was affordable. If any of these describe a job in your business that’s currently done by hand, by memory, or by spreadsheet, it’s probably worth a conversation.
Timesheets and job recording
Who did what, on which job, for how long — recorded once, by the person doing it, on a phone. Feeds straight into payroll and invoicing.
Typically £3,000–£8,000
Quoting and estimating
Consistent quotes built from your own prices and rules, so they don’t depend on who happens to write them.
Typically £5,000–£12,000
Booking and scheduling
Jobs, engineers, rooms, vehicles or appointments — visible in one place, without a shared calendar nobody trusts.
Typically £5,000–£15,000
Customer and supplier portals
Let them see their own orders, documents or progress, and stop answering the same email forty times a week.
Typically £8,000–£20,000
Stock, assets and equipment
What you own, where it is, who has it, when it was last serviced and what it’s worth.
Typically £5,000–£15,000
Compliance and audit records
Evidence you can produce on demand, with a trail showing who recorded what and when.
Typically £5,000–£15,000
Replacing a spreadsheet that’s outgrown itself
The one everything depends on, that only one person really understands. Same logic, properly built, with more than one person able to use it at once.
Typically £3,000–£10,000
Rescuing a system nobody maintains
Built years ago by someone who has long since moved on. We’ll tell you honestly whether to patch it, rebuild it, or leave it alone.
Start with a review — £750–£1,500
Not sure whether yours fits?
It probably does. Send two lines about what you’re trying to do and we’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth building — including when the answer is that you’d be better off with something off the shelf.
What it costs
Our prices, in public
Every project is fixed price, agreed in writing before any work starts. If we find something we both missed, we talk about it — there is a change process, not a surprise invoice.
Building something
Multi-user, multi-part, connected to what you already use
Reporting, permissions, integrations with your accounts or CRM, and workflow across more than one team. Eight to twelve weeks. An agency would generally quote £50,000 to £100,000 for the same specification.
A proper system for one part of the business
Designed, built, tested and live in four to eight weeks, with your people trained on it. This is the size of job that most often pays for itself within the first year.
One job, done properly
A timesheet system, a booking form, replacing a spreadsheet. Two to four weeks. Work that simply was not viable when everything had to be typed by hand.
Starting with what you’ve already got
An honest assessment of the system you’re running on
We go through what you have and give you a short written report: what’s fragile, what would break first, what it would cost to put right, and what we’d do in what order.
- Yours to keep, whatever you decide to do next
- Useful even if you go to somebody else with it
- Credited in full against the first invoice if you go ahead
We charge for this rather than giving it away. Free advice tends to be worth what it costs, and paying for it means you get a straight answer rather than a sales pitch.
Looking after it afterwards
A care plan, so it doesn’t become the system nobody maintains
- Monitoring and alerting, so we know before you do
- Backups, checked
- Security patching and library updates
- An allowance of small changes each month
- Response within one working day; fixes within the working day
- Someone who actually knows how your system works
Larger systems cost more to look after — around £190/month for a £15,000 system. Annual, cancellable on ninety days’ notice. Most well-built systems need very little attention, and that is rather the point.
Included in every price
- Fixed price agreed before we start
- The source code, and it’s yours
- It runs in your own AWS account, not ours
- Handover documentation, written as we go
- Training for the people who’ll use it
- No lock-in of any kind
Why it’s less than you expected
Most of what you pay an agency for is co-ordinating the people doing the work. There is one person doing the work here.
There is no project manager, no account manager, no sales team and no office. AI does most of the typing, and the savings go to you rather than into a margin — which is the whole reason this company exists.
You are paying for thirty years of judgement about what to build and how. That part never got cheaper.
How we work
How it goes, and what you should ask us
Buying custom software is uncomfortable because you can’t see what you’re getting until it’s built. Here is exactly how we run a project, followed by honest answers to the questions people are too polite to ask.
The process
A conversation
Half an hour, no charge. You describe the problem; we tell you whether we can help, roughly what it would cost, and whether you’d be better off buying something off the shelf.
A fixed quote, or a paid review
If it’s clear enough, you get a fixed price and a scope. If you’ve already got a system that needs assessing, we start with a Legacy System Review.
We build it, and you see it weekly
Working software in front of you every week, not a status report. Changes are cheapest early, which is the point of showing you early.
You test it properly
Your people use it on real work before it goes live. We fix what comes back. This stage needs your time — it’s in the contract with dates against it, and we will chase you.
Live, documented, handed over
It goes into your AWS account, your team is trained, and you get the documentation. Then a care plan, if you want one.
What you own
All of it. The source code is transferred to you on final payment. The system runs in your own AWS account, which you control — we have access because you granted it, and you can revoke it.
This matters more than it sounds. A great many small businesses discover, years later, that they cannot leave their supplier because the supplier holds the hosting, the code and the keys. That cannot happen here, by design.
The honest bits
The questions people don’t like to ask
There’s only two of you?
Yes. That’s why you get the person who designed your system on the phone, rather than an account manager. We take two projects at a time — any more and you’d be getting somebody else’s attention.
AI writes the code? Isn’t that a risk?
Most of the typing, yes. It writes from a specification we’ve written, with tests built in, and every line is reviewed by someone with thirty years of experience who knows when the answer is wrong.
What you’re actually worried about is whether the thing works, and whether anyone can understand it in two years. Both of those come from the specification and the architecture — not from who did the typing. If anything, AI has made the specification stage better, and that is where projects normally go wrong.
What if you stop, retire, or get run over?
A fair question, and it’s why we build the way we do. Everything runs in your AWS account, not ours. You own the code. It’s built on ordinary, widely-used technology rather than anything exotic, and the handover documentation is written from day one — architecture, access, how to deploy it, who to call — and we’ll show it to you during the project rather than promising it at the end.
If we vanished tomorrow, any competent developer could pick your system up within a week. That is more than can be said for most bespoke systems, including quite possibly the one you have now.
You’ve got a full-time job.
Rob does, as a head of technology, and we’d rather tell you than have you find out. Two things follow. First, he is still doing this work at a senior level every day, so you are not getting someone who left the industry five years ago. Second, this business does not have to feed us — which means we don’t take on work we can’t do properly, and we have no reason to overpromise in order to win it.
Why is this so much cheaper than the other quotes?
Because there’s no project manager, no account manager, no sales team and no office to pay for, and because AI does the typing. You’re paying for the thinking, which was always the expensive part. We’ve just stopped charging you for the rest.
How do I know it’ll be finished on time?
Fixed price and fixed scope, so if it takes longer than expected that is our problem rather than yours. The one thing that genuinely moves a date is us waiting on you — sign-off, test data, getting your people to try it. Those are written into the contract with dates against them.
What we don’t do
- Round-the-clock support. Response within one working day, fixes within the working day. If you need someone at three in the morning, we’re not the right firm.
- Day-rate hire. Fixed price only. We’re not for hire by the day.
- Anything outside AWS. It’s the cloud we know properly, and it’s what every system we build runs on. If your business runs on Azure or GCP, we’re not the right firm.
- Projects much over £25,000. Bigger than that needs a bigger team, and we’ll say so.
- More than two projects at once. Right now that means new work starts in October. It also means your project gets finished.
- Competing purely on price. If the cheapest quote is the only thing that matters, someone else will win it.
About
Two people in the Vale of Belvoir
We’re small on purpose. It means you get senior attention on your project instead of a junior developer and somebody to manage them — and it means when you ring, you get the person who built the thing.
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Rob Langley
Solutions architect
Thirty years in software, the last ten as a solutions architect specialising in AWS. Rob ran a bespoke development company for a decade, building custom systems for businesses across a range of sectors, and now works as a head of technology alongside this.
He designs every system we build, writes the specifications, and signs off the work. If something goes wrong, he’s the one who answers.
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Carol Langley
Operations
Carol runs everything that isn’t the building — scheduling, accounts, and the requests that come in day to day. If you ring during the working day, you’ll most likely speak to her.
She logs what you’ve asked for, makes sure it doesn’t get lost, and tells you when it’s done.
Why the company exists
For most of our working lives, building a custom system meant a team of people and a bill to match. That ruled out an enormous number of small businesses with perfectly sensible problems — the ones who asked for a price, heard £30,000, and went back to the spreadsheet.
That maths has changed, and most of the industry has not passed the change on. We started this company to do exactly that: build the systems those businesses always needed, at prices that make them worth doing, and then stay around to look after them.
Where we are
We’re based in the Vale of Belvoir, on the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border, and we work across the East Midlands and into London. For anyone within reasonable driving distance, we’d far rather come and sit in your office for the first conversation than do it over a video call. You learn more in an hour on site than in a month of emails.
Get in touch
Tell us what you’re trying to do
Two lines is plenty to start. We’ll reply within a working day, and we’ll tell you honestly if we’re not the right firm for it — including if you’d be better off buying something off the shelf.
We’re booked until October
We only run two projects at a time, so there is usually a wait — at the moment new work starts in October. It’s worth talking now: scoping and quoting happen before the build slot, and getting in the diary early is how you keep the date you want.
hello@ on the domain before publishing. Keep the availability month current — a stale date does more harm than none.
What happens next
You email or book a slot
Two lines about the problem is enough. No form, no qualification call.
We talk for half an hour
No charge, no obligation, and a straight answer about whether this is worth doing.
You get a number
Either a fixed quote, or a proposal for a paid review if there’s an existing system to assess first.