For the jobs a platform cannot do. Custom web development means a portal where your clients or your staff sign in, sign off and pay, or a fast site with nothing to update. Always priced in writing before you commit, never at a checkout.
Paid scoping·Written SOW·£400 a day·Your domain
When a web app is right
Most businesses are better off on a platform their team can run. A web app is for the ones where the platform is the thing in the way.
If a package would do the job, it costs less and the price is on the page, so I will point you there first. If it would not, we scope it properly, and you see the price in writing before anything is built. You are hiring one person here rather than a custom website development company, which is why the scope is the first paid step.
Both are priced the same way, in days, and both sit on your own domain. What changes is how they are looked after once they are live.
A place your own clients or staff sign in to, built around how you work with them: what they can see, what they sign off, and what they pay.
Every page is built ahead of time and served as a file. No plugins to keep updated and no database behind the pages, so it loads quickly and there is very little to go wrong.
Web app development services are priced at the same day rate as the packages, not a new one. The difference is that the price comes from a scope rather than a checkout, so the first paid step is the scoping itself.
Step 1
Day 0
A call
Thirty minutes on what it has to do, and whether custom is the right call at all.
Step 2
Paid
Scoping
What it has to do, what it runs on and what each milestone includes, worked out and written down.
Step 3
In writing
Statement of work
Every milestone with its price and its date. You accept it in the portal, and the build starts from there.
Step 4
Milestones
Build and review
Sent to you to check against what the scope said it would do, and usually invoiced when you accept it.
Step 5
After
Looked after
Hosted and looked after by the month. The domain stays yours, and the code is handed over if you leave.
What it costs
The best custom build I can show you is the one you are on. I built adamroe.co.uk and the client portal behind it, where my projects run from the first statement of work to the last invoice.
This is what it does today.
Astro · Cloudflare · Supabase, London
Book a scope callCustom web application development: what stays yours
Your domain
Registered in your name from the start, never in mine.
Your code
Handed over if you leave, so the site goes with you.
Your paperwork
The statement of work you accepted, and every invoice as a PDF, in the portal.
This is for you
It is not, if
Not sure which? Send me a brief and I will tell you honestly, including when the answer is a package.
An app is not a website with a login on it, and hosting one is not the same job. It needs somewhere that suits what it does, monitoring that notices before your users do, and somebody to ring when it stops. Priced with the build rather than bought by the month.
Website hostingThe straight answers. If yours is not here, it is the first thing we cover.
Ask me yoursBuilding the thing a platform does not sell: a portal, a workflow, a calculator, anything where the behaviour is the point rather than the pages. It is scoped and priced in writing first, because the whole reason it exists is that nobody can put it in a checkout.
A website tells everyone the same thing. A portal is the part people sign in to, where each client sees only their own documents, where the work is up to, what they approved and what they owe. If you are sending the same files and updates by email over and over, that is the job a portal does, and the one on this site is the example.
A fixed set of pages at a fixed price, which is what the website packages here are: you can see the price before you call. A custom build is the other way round, scoped first and then priced, because no two of them are the same job.
Both, really. Choosing a theme and adapting it to your brand is design, and making WordPress do something it does not do out of the box is development. On this site a WordPress site is a package with its price on the page, and custom is for the jobs a platform cannot do at all.
Often, yes. Figma is a design tool rather than a development one, and it is good for web design because you can agree the layouts before anything is built, which is far cheaper than changing them afterwards. It is priced per layout, inside the scope.
Probably. I am in Milton Keynes, so if you are nearby we can meet for the first conversation or a kick-off. Everything after that works the same wherever you are, because most of the work is remote, for businesses and agencies across the UK.
It is priced in days at £400, the same day rate as the packages, with a higher minimum. The real number comes out of the scoping stage, and it is written into the statement of work, milestone by milestone, before you commit to anything.
Because it is proper work, and it is where the price comes from. Working out what the site or portal has to do, what it runs on and what each milestone includes is what lets the statement of work give you a fixed price rather than a guess.
Priced with the build, not off a list. A custom build does not go on the WordPress hosting, so what it runs on is worked out in the scoping stage and written into the statement of work. A portal also comes with at least Manage, £300 a month, because it needs looking after.
The domain is in your name from the start. If you ever leave, the code is handed over, so the site goes with you.
The statement of work sets it out. Each milestone has its own price and is usually invoiced when you accept it. Anything to be paid before work starts is a milestone of its own, so there is only ever one price for each thing.
The scoping stage answers that. The statement of work puts a date on every milestone, and the portal shows those dates, and any change to them, as the work goes.
Tell me what it has to do. Book a call, or send a brief first if you would rather write it down.
Or email hello@adamroe.co.uk