Web applications
The product your customers see, plus the admin tools, dashboards and internal screens your team runs it with. The internal screens are usually underestimated, and they are usually where staff time actually goes.
Services / Web and mobile app development
Applications people sign into and keep using
Web, iOS and Android, built so that the second version is not harder than the first. Most of the cost of an app arrives after launch, so the decisions that matter are the ones that make changing it later cheap.
Start here
Web app, mobile app, or both
The first thing worth settling, and cheaper to settle before anyone is paid to build.
iOS and Android
Cross platform lets one team ship to both phones, which saves real money and is the right answer for most products. It stops being right when the app leans hard on the device, or when responsiveness is the product rather than decoration.
The parts underneath
APIs, databases, authentication, payments, and the integrations that make the product useful. Most of the engineering sits here even when the visible product is a phone screen.
The rule we apply
Native where the app depends on the device. Cross platform where it does not. We will tell you which, and why.
Costing
What actually drives the cost of an app
We will not put a price on this page: a number without your requirements attached is a guess, and you would be right not to trust it. What we can tell you is what moves it.
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How many kinds of user there are
An app with one account type is a fraction of the work of one where customers, staff and administrators all see different things.
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What it has to talk to
Integrating a payment provider is routine. Integrating a system from 1998 that came with no documentation is not.
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Whether it works offline
It sounds small and is not. Offline means sync queues, conflict handling, and roughly twice the test paths.
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How much is already decided
A clear specification is cheaper to build than a conversation, which is most of why discovery exists.
How the work runs
Three steps. The first one is the product.
Everything else on this site follows from these three steps.
- 01
Discovery that ends in a written plan
A short piece of paid work. We sit with the problem and you get back a document that says what is being made, how it fits together, what order it gets built in, and what it costs. The plan is yours unconditionally. Take it to us, take it to another firm, or decide not to build at all.
- 02
A named team, and one person you can reach
The people who understood the problem build the thing. You get names rather than a rotating cast, and one lead who answers to you directly. If someone is not working out, we raise it first and manage the replacement ourselves.
- 03
Progress you can check, changes you can price
Work arrives in increments you can see and use, not in a reveal at the end. When scope moves, and it will, the change is costed in writing before anybody starts it.
Where discovery differs here
App discovery settles the expensive questions while they are still cheap: web, mobile or both, native or cross platform, and how much of the product is already decided. Those answers move the rest of the plan more than anything else in it.
Ownership
What you own
From the first commit, everything belongs to you. Not at handover. From the beginning.
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Code and repositories
All of it, in accounts you control. There is no private framework underneath and no dependency on continued payment to keep the thing running.
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Infrastructure and keys
Cloud accounts, domains, credentials and certificates are created in your name. We hold nothing that you cannot revoke yourself.
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Documentation
Decisions, diagrams and runbooks are written while the work happens, so the knowledge leaves with the documents rather than with the people.
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The freedom to leave
If you stopped paying us tomorrow, the product would keep running without us. That is the test we design against.
Questions
Questions we get on the first call
Do we need one platform or three?
Do we need one platform or three?
Follow the users rather than the fashion. A web application serves people at desks who arrive through links. A mobile app earns itself when the work happens away from a computer, or when you need notifications, the camera, or offline use. Plenty of products are a good web app and nothing else, and that is the cheapest correct answer. If you genuinely need both, budget for both, because together they are closer to two products than one and a half.
What drives the cost of an app?
What drives the cost of an app?
Four things more than any others: how many kinds of user there are, what the app must integrate with, whether it works offline, and how much of the product is already decided before anyone writes code. Numbers quoted without those four answers are guesses wearing a font. Discovery converts them into a figure you can hold us to.
What happens after launch?
What happens after launch?
The work changes shape rather than ending. Users ask for things, operating systems move, and a dependency releases an update that cannot be ignored forever. Plan for the app continuing to exist rather than being finished. Afterwards, some clients keep a named engineer from us under a maintenance agreement; others take the runbooks and run it themselves.
Native or cross platform, honestly?
Native or cross platform, honestly?
Cross platform, usually, and saying so saves you money. It stops being the answer when the experience leans hard on the device, when animation and response time are the product, or when you need a platform feature the week it ships rather than the month the framework catches up. We will tell you which side of that line your product sits on, and why, before you spend anything on the wrong one.
Next step
Tell us what you are trying to build
Write the problem rather than the solution. Which platform it should land on is exactly what discovery is for.
Tell us about the app
A few lines about the situation is plenty. We read every one.
It is with us.
Expect a reply within two business days. If we are not the right fit for the work, the reply will say so rather than dodge.