Custom web development for the part no plugin covers
Most websites should not be custom. The ones that should are the ones where the thing you are building is really a tool: a quoting engine, a member area, a directory, a dashboard fed by somebody else’s system. We build those for clients across the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
When off the shelf stops working
If two of these are true, custom is probably cheaper than another year of working around it.
You are running four plugins to fake one feature
Each one nearly does it. Together they conflict, slow the site down and break on a Tuesday when one of them updates.
The real work happens in a spreadsheet
Somebody exports, edits, re-imports and hopes. That spreadsheet is the application you have not built yet.
Different people need to see different things
Roles, permissions and accounts are where template sites stop. Bolting a membership plugin onto a brochure site rarely ends well.
Your systems do not talk to each other
The CRM, the booking tool and the accounts package each hold part of the truth, and a person is the integration.
Custom web development, without the mystique
Bespoke does not mean we write everything from nothing. It means the parts that are genuinely yours get built, and everything else uses something proven.
- Interfaces built to the job, not bent out of a theme
- Application logic in code you own and can read
- Real databases, designed rather than improvised
- APIs into the systems you already pay for
- Authentication, user roles and permissions that match how the business works
- Automated tests on the parts that would hurt if they broke
- Deployed properly, with staging and production kept apart
- Built to scale to the traffic you actually expect, not a hypothetical one
- Written handover so the next developer is not an archaeologist
Fixed price or sprints, and when each is right
Custom work goes wrong when the commercial shape does not match how well defined the job is. So we pick that deliberately.
Fixed price
For work we can specify properly before starting. You know the number, we carry the risk of getting the estimate wrong.
- Scope written and agreed first
- One number, 50% up front and 50% on delivery
- Changes quoted separately and honestly
- Best when you know what you want
Two week sprints
For work that will change as you see it, including an MVP you intend to learn from. You get something working every fortnight and decide what happens next.
- Priorities set at the start of each sprint
- Working software at the end of each one
- Stop whenever it is good enough
- Best when the shape will emerge
We will tell you which one your project is. Quoting a fixed price for something nobody can specify yet is how both sides end up unhappy.
Things we built that did not exist before
Including one we built for ourselves and then gave away.
Monthly users on DNS Previewer, a tool we built because we kept needing it on migrations. Free, no signup, React front end, six week build.
Signup rate against the old page. SaaS company landing page, rebuilt around one job instead of five.
Booking enquiries within 30 days. Residential cleaning service, with an instant quote calculator that did not exist off the shelf.
Rated 4.9 out of 5 across more than 2,800 client reviews
We work with clients directly and on monthly retainers. We also work through Fiverr and Upwork, where we hold Top Rated and Top Rated Plus status. Here is what a few recent website and SEO clients said.
- Verified on Upwork
- Verified on Upwork
- Verified on Fiverr
- Verified on Upwork
- Direct client
- Verified on Upwork
- Verified on Fiverr
- Verified on Upwork
Bespoke questions, answered straight
Not sure custom is what you need? Start at website development services, where we work through the platform question first.
Got a spreadsheet doing a job it should not?
Describe what it does and who touches it. We will tell you whether it is worth building properly, and roughly what that looks like.
What counts as custom web development?
Anything where the behaviour, not just the look, has to be built. A brochure site with a bespoke design is still a template job underneath. A quoting tool, a member area, a directory with real search, or anything pulling live data from another system is custom work.
Is custom more expensive than a template?
Up front, almost always. Over three years, often not, because you stop paying for workarounds, plugin licences and the hours somebody spends moving data by hand. We will do that arithmetic with you honestly, including the cases where it says do not bother.
What do you build it with?
Whatever suits the job and can be maintained by somebody other than us. Often that is WordPress as a content layer with custom application code behind it, sometimes a React or Next.js front end against a Node or PHP API, sometimes plain PHP and a relational database. We avoid anything exotic that leaves you with a hiring problem later.
How long does a custom build take?
Small tools, three to six weeks. Something with accounts, permissions and integrations, two to four months. The variable is rarely the coding, it is how many decisions are still open when we start.
Who owns the code?
You do, in your own repository, from the first commit. That includes the right to take it to another developer tomorrow. We also write the handover documentation on the assumption that one day you will.
Can you take over a half finished custom project?
Often, and we will be straight about it after reading the code. Sometimes the right advice is to keep going, sometimes it is to restart the part that is unsalvageable. You get that assessment in writing either way.
Do you do ongoing support for custom builds?
Yes, either as a retainer or on call. Custom code needs less routine maintenance than a plugin stack but it still needs somebody who knows it when something changes underneath. Our care plans cover the WordPress side of that.
Tell us what you need and we will show you how we would do it
Share a few details about your business and what you want to fix or build. It could be a new website, a WordPress site that keeps breaking, SEO that has stalled, or a sales process that needs automating. We will come back with honest advice, even if that means a smaller job than you expected.
A reply within one business day
A real person on the team reads your message and replies, usually the same day.
A free review of your current setup
We look at your website, rankings or systems before we talk, so the call is useful.
A written proposal
You get a clear scope, timeline and price in writing before any work starts.
Prefer to talk first?
