Workflow automation
The processes currently held together by spreadsheets, shared inboxes and someone who knows the exceptions. Encoded properly, with the exceptions handled rather than ignored.
Custom software development
Software shaped to your business, not the average of everyone else’s.
Off-the-shelf software encodes how a thousand other companies work. When that mismatch is costing you a team of people to paper over, we build the system your business actually needs: workflow platforms, portals, marketplaces and integrations, designed by senior engineers and owned outright by you.
100%Code ownership
$0Per-seat licence fees
800+Projects delivered
7+Years delivering
Before you commit
When you should not build custom software.
We will tell you when buying is the better answer, even when it means we do not get the work. A firm that will not tell you that is a firm that will happily bill you for the wrong thing.
Buy off-the-shelf
- Your process is genuinely standard: payroll, accounting, email, CRM for a straightforward sales motion.
- A mature product already does 90% of it and the remaining 10% is preference rather than cost.
- You need it running next month and the licence fee is smaller than the disruption of waiting.
- The process is likely to change beyond recognition within a year.
Build your own
- You are paying people to bridge the gap between two systems that will not talk to each other.
- Per-seat licensing is scaling with headcount while the value you get from it is not.
- The workflow is genuinely yours, and it is the reason you win, so encoding someone else’s is a competitive downgrade.
- Your data is trapped in a vendor’s schema and you cannot get at it to answer your own questions.
- Compliance requires an audit trail the product does not produce and never will.
What we build
Six kinds of system, and why each earns its cost.
Legacy modernisation
Systems that still work but nobody dares touch. We map what it does, cover it with tests, then replace it in slices rather than betting the business on a rewrite.
Integration and APIs
Making the systems you already pay for talk to each other, so the manual re-keying between them stops being a job.
Internal platforms
The tools your own team uses all day. Usually the highest-return software a company builds, and usually the last thing it invests in.
Customer and partner portals
Where your customers, suppliers or partners log in to order, track, approve and pay, with the permissions and audit trail each of them needs, connected to the systems behind it.
Marketplaces and multi-sided platforms
Platforms where two groups transact through you, with the payments, escrow, trust and dispute rules that make it work. We built and run one of our own, Open Lance.
How we ship it faster
Five times faster, at a fifth of the cost.
That is not a discount. It is a different way of working. A large share of any custom build is unglamorous and well understood: data models, forms and records, integration adapters, test fixtures, migrations. We generate the first pass of that work with AI tooling and put senior engineers on review and on the parts that need a real decision. The first working release arrives in weeks rather than months, and you pay for judgement rather than typing. AI accelerates the work. Our engineers stay accountable for the decisions and the software that ships.
- Schema and migrationsData models and migration scripts drafted from your existing structures, then reviewed against the real constraints.
- Integration adaptersThe connectors between your systems, generated against real API specifications and covered by contract tests.
- Test coverageFixtures and regression suites written alongside the feature, not retrofitted in a hardening sprint that never comes.
- Migration from legacyReading a system nobody documented and producing a specification a human can check. The slowest part of modernisation, compressed.
An indicative comparison, not a quote or a guarantee. The gain depends on your integrations, your data and your approval process. We estimate every project individually and put scope, timeline and price in writing, with a like-for-like comparison against conventional delivery, before you commit.
How we work
The same six stages as every engagement, applied to your system.
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01
Understand
We map the process as it actually runs, including the workarounds. That is usually where the real cost of the current system shows up.
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02
Shape
Architecture, integration points and a delivery plan, written down and priced as a fixed proposal before anyone commits.
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03
Build
Working software in short iterations, in your environment, against your data. You review the system itself, never slides about it.
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04
Validate
Threat modelling, dependency scanning, load testing, and a red-team week before anything faces a user.
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05
Launch
Deployment with a rehearsed rollback, handover documentation written for an engineer who has never met us, and training for the people who will use it daily.
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06
Evolve
The same engineers stay on it, improving the system they built. No transition to a support tier.
Brilliant Systems came back with an in-depth project proposal of about 50 pages. Once we signed the contract, we had a kick-off sprint week, during which six of Brilliant Systems' employees and I met every day to define the process and how everything would look.
Read the full review
Ownership
It is yours, in the contract, not just in conversation.
The difference between custom software and a subscription is not the interface. It is who holds the asset at the end.
The repository is yours
Full source and IP transfer on final payment. Not a licence to use software we own.
No per-seat anything
Add a hundred users and the cost of the software does not change. That is the whole point.
Mainstream technology only
We do not build on frameworks only we understand. Any competent team can pick this up.
Auditable by design
Compliance trails built in from week one, because retrofitting them is where projects go to die.
Questions we get asked
Including the one about cost.
What kinds of custom software do you build?
Systems that run a business rather than a single task: workflow and operations platforms, customer and partner portals, marketplaces, internal tools, integrations between the systems you already pay for, and replacements for legacy software nobody dares touch. We also run a marketplace of our own, Open Lance, so we know what it takes to operate one.
What does custom software development cost?
It depends on scope, integrations and how much existing software has to be replaced, so we do not publish a price list. Within a week of our first call you get a written approach with a cost and time range and the assumptions behind it. When you are ready, that becomes a fixed proposal with scope, price and milestones in writing.
Is custom software actually cheaper than a subscription?
Often, over time, but not always, and we will say so. Licences are usually cheaper at the start. An owned system tends to become the cheaper option once per-seat costs scale with your headcount while the value does not, or when the current tools force a lot of manual work. We model your own numbers before you commit, and tell you if the crossover is too far away to be worth it.
What happens if we stop working with you?
You keep everything: source, infrastructure, documentation and the ability to hire anyone to continue. There is no minimum term on support, and if you take the work in-house we help with the handover rather than making it difficult.
How do you avoid the classic doomed rewrite?
We do not do big-bang replacements. Legacy work is done in slices: characterise the existing behaviour with tests, replace one capability, run both in parallel, cut over, repeat. It is slower to describe and dramatically safer to do.
Who owns the intellectual property?
You do, in full, on final payment. This is in the contract rather than in a sales conversation. We keep no rights to reuse your system, and nothing you pay for gets resold to your competitor.
How long does a first release take?
For a defined internal system, typically six to twelve weeks to something real people are using. Larger platforms ship in slices, so you get working software early and continuously rather than a single delivery date to worry about.
Related services
- Enterprise Software Development
- SaaS Development
- Web Application Development
- AI Development
- Backend Development
- How we work
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Next step
Tell us what your current software can’t do.
A senior engineer reads every enquiry and replies within one business day with an honest view, including when we think you should buy rather than build.
