We are a UK custom software development firm. We publish our prices, we assign all intellectual property to our clients, and we build systems you own outright rather than rent for ever.
Those three things are unusual enough in this industry to be worth saying plainly.
Why we started this way
Most of what is wrong with buying custom software comes down to information asymmetry. The supplier knows what things cost, how long they take and what the risks are. The buyer does not, and has no practical way to find out before committing.
Every convention in this industry widens that gap. Prices are withheld until a sales conversation. Discovery is given away free and recovered invisibly in the build price. Code ownership is left ambiguous until it matters. Timelines are quoted optimistically because the firm quoting honestly loses the pitch.
We decided to run the opposite way on each of those, because:
It is better business. Publishing prices means the enquiries we get are from people who can afford us and already know it. Fewer calls, better calls.
It filters for the right clients. People who want the cheapest possible price self-select out. People who want a supplier they can leave self-select in, and those are the ones who stay.
It produces better projects. Charging for discovery means it is real work with a real deliverable — a costed plan you own — rather than a sales process disguised as consultancy.
What we believe, specifically
You should be able to leave us. Source code, documentation, infrastructure in your accounts, IP assigned on final payment. If leaving your supplier means rebuilding, you did not buy software — you rented it.
Software you own beats software you rent. Per-seat licensing never stops and rises every year. A custom system is an asset on your balance sheet and a product subscription is a cost on your P&L for ever.
The failure data matters more than the success stories. Gartner expects over 40% of agentic AI projects to be cancelled by end of 2027. The Panorama 2026 study found around 30% of ERP projects go over budget. A supplier who only shows you the upside is not giving you enough information to decide with.
Estimates are wrong and the question is what happens next. Every project of size contains a wrong estimate. The difference between firms is whether you hear about it in week three or week twelve.
Integration is the job. Most of the value and most of the risk sits in connecting to systems that already exist. Firms that treat it as a detail at the end are the firms whose projects overrun.
How we build
The engineering standards, stated so you can hold us to them.
Boring technology, deliberately. We use proven, widely-adopted tools rather than whatever is interesting this year. The test is simple: in five years, can another firm pick this up without specialist knowledge? A system built on something fashionable and abandoned is a liability with a timer on it.
Tests on the logic that matters. Not on everything — testing a layout is theatre — but on the rules that move money, allocate stock, calculate prices or control access. Those are the rules that cost you when they break silently.
Security as part of the build. Validation at trust boundaries, proper authentication and authorisation, least-privilege access, dependencies kept current, secrets never in source control. This is not a line item to be cut when the budget tightens.
Accessibility as standard. Keyboard navigation, sensible contrast, proper labels, semantic markup. Beyond being correct, UK public sector procurement requires it and an increasing number of enterprise buyers now ask.
Documentation written as the work happens. Not retrofitted at the end, because retrofitted documentation is thin and everyone knows it. The test we apply: could a developer who has never seen the project get it running locally using only the documentation?
Infrastructure in your accounts from week one. Not migrated to you at handover — opened in your name at the start. The repository is yours, the cloud account is yours, the domain is yours. You are never in a position where leaving requires our cooperation.
The sectors we are most useful in
We are not generalists by preference. The work compounds in operations-heavy businesses, and that is where we are worth the money.
Manufacturing and wholesale — physical stock, production steps, multi-step fulfilment, batch traceability, pricing models that no product represents properly. The sector where custom most reliably beats configuration.
Logistics and distribution — delivery reconciliation, exception handling, multi-location stock, customer status enquiries that currently arrive by phone.
Construction and trades — job tracking, subcontractor management, compliance documentation, certificate expiry, site reporting.
Professional services — practice management, time recording, client portals, document workflows. Usually replacing a legacy system plus several spreadsheets nobody trusts.
Healthcare administration — booking, records workflow, reporting. UK GDPR and special category data designed in from the start rather than retrofitted.
Where we are not the right firm: regulated financial services requiring a specific FCA track record, and clinical systems requiring MHRA classification. Both need specialists and we will say so on the first call.
Our commitments
Specific enough to be held to, which is the point.
- All IP assigns to you on final payment. Source code, documentation, designs, infrastructure configuration. In writing, with a clear trigger.
- Your system runs in your accounts, on your billing, on your keys. We never host your business on our platform.
- The discovery document is yours, including the right to take it to another supplier and build it with them.
- Prices published. You can qualify us before spending an hour on a call.
- If we are wrong on a fixed price, that is our cost, not your invoice.
- If we misunderstood the spec, fixing it is a defect, not a change request.
- You hear about problems in the week we find them, not at the deadline.
- Two follow-ups maximum. No pursuit sequences.
- You can speak to the engineer, not only the person selling.
- Another firm can pick up our work without us. The documentation is written so that is realistic rather than theoretical.
How we handle disagreement
Every project of any size produces at least one.
When we think you are wrong, you will hear the argument once, clearly, with the reasoning. Then it is your business and your decision, and we build what you decided without relitigating it in every subsequent meeting.
When you think we are wrong, say so directly. If you are right, we fix it at our cost and move on without ceremony. If we still disagree after hearing you, we will say so rather than agreeing in the meeting and quietly doing it our way.
When the estimate was wrong, you hear it in the week we know. The commercial conversation that follows is uncomfortable for us and survivable for you. The alternative — quiet absorption until the deadline arrives — is how projects fail catastrophically instead of expensively.
When a project has stopped being worth finishing, we say so. That has happened. It is a bad conversation and the right one, and it is why we charge for discovery: advice you have paid for can afford to be honest.
What we are not
Not the cheapest. UK-based engineering costs what it costs. ITJobsWatch puts the median advertised UK contractor day rate at £525 for software developers in the six months to 1 October 2026. Anyone substantially below that is offshoring, using juniors, or will recover it through change requests. All three can be fine — if you know that is what you are buying.
Not a staffing agency. We build and deliver systems. We do not supply bodies by the day to work under your management.
Not a strategy consultancy. We will not sell you a digital transformation roadmap. We build working software and we are useful once there is a problem worth solving.
Not an enterprise firm. Our minimum build engagement is £10,000 and our useful range runs to a few hundred thousand. Beyond that you want a firm built for that scale, and we will say so.
Frequently asked questions
Who will I actually be working with?
Jas Singh, Founder. You speak to the person doing the engineering, not a separate account manager. If the project needs more hands, you are told who they are and where they are based.
Why should I use you rather than a larger firm?
Larger firms carry larger overheads and you pay for them. They also tend to staff projects with whoever is free. With us you know who is building it, you can speak to them, and the prices are published so there is no negotiation about what you should have paid.
Why should I use you rather than a freelancer?
A freelancer is a single point of failure and usually cannot absorb ambiguity — you specify, they execute. If you have the capacity to specify precisely, a good freelancer is excellent value. If you need someone to work out what should be built, you want a firm.
Do you subcontract or offshore the work?
No. Development is UK-based. Offshore is a legitimate route and we are straight about the real arithmetic.
What technology do you use?
Proven, widely-adopted tools chosen so another firm could take the work over. We will tell you exactly what we propose and why during discovery, and if you have a constraint — an existing team’s skills, a required platform — we build to it.
Can you work with our existing developers?
Yes. Shared repository, agreed conventions, code review in both directions.
What if we want to take it in-house later?
That is a designed-for outcome rather than a problem. You already hold the code and the infrastructure, and the documentation is written so a new team can pick it up.
What we are building toward
A firm where the published price is the price, where the client holds everything from week one, and where “can another firm take this over?” is a question we are comfortable answering.
That is a narrower business than a general agency. It rules out clients who want the cheapest possible number, and it rules out the kind of lock-in that makes agency revenue predictable. We think it produces better projects and clients who stay for the right reasons.
Things we will tell you that other firms will not
- What the work costs, before you call. It is published.
- What the work costs over five years, including the licence fees you stop paying.
- When your budget and the real cost do not overlap, on the first call.
- When we have made an estimating mistake, in the week we discover it.
- When a project we are mid-way through has stopped being worth finishing.
That last one has happened. It is a bad conversation and the right one.
Working with us
Good fit: UK organisations, roughly 10–250 staff, with a process that has outgrown its tools, a named internal owner, a decision-maker who can say yes, and a build budget from £10,000.
Not a good fit: budgets under £10,000, anyone wanting the lowest possible price above all else, anyone needing a technology strategy rather than a working system, or projects where a product genuinely fits.
How we work, week by week → · What it costs →
Next step
A 45-minute call, free, no proposal attached.
Last updated 8 October 2026.
