When it needs a backend
Some work does not fit a plan on a pricing page. This is how that work gets scoped and what it costs.
Some work does not fit a plan on a pricing page. A login, a checkout, a dashboard, a store that has to stay in sync with somewhere else. Those are custom builds, and they are quoted rather than listed.
Custom builds cover web apps, dashboards, headless Shopify storefronts and anything with a login or a database behind it. They are scoped on the same 30 minute call and quoted in writing within 24 hours. They do not ship in 3 business days, and the honest timeline is given before you pay rather than after.
What counts as a custom build
- Anything with accounts. If a visitor signs in, there is a database, and a database is a different kind of project.
- Anything that takes money beyond a simple payment link: carts, subscriptions, invoicing.
- Headless commerce. A storefront written from scratch with the checkout, catalogue and orders left in the platform. LOHAIA is a live example of exactly that.
- Dashboards and internal tools. Something your team uses rather than something your customers read.
- Integrations with real consequences: a CRM that has to stay in step, stock that has to be right, a booking system that cannot double-book.
How it gets scoped
The same 30 minute call, with different questions in it. Instead of pages and words, it is about what the thing has to do, who it does it for, and what already exists that it has to talk to.
What comes back within 24 hours is a written scope: what is being built, what is explicitly not being built, the sequence, the timeline and the price. If the answer is that the project is bigger than it sounded, that is in the document too. It is cheaper for both of us to find that out on paper.
What it costs
Price on request, and that phrase is doing real work rather than hiding something. A headless storefront and an internal dashboard have almost nothing in common except that neither is a 1,000 EUR page.
Two things are fixed regardless. The quote is a fixed price rather than an hourly rate, so an estimate that turns out to be wrong is our problem rather than a surprise on your invoice. And the handover is the same: the source code, the repository and every key in your name.
What stays the same as the rest
- You own it. Repository, hosting, accounts, all in your name.
- Fixed price, agreed in writing before the work starts.
- 14 days of fixes after it goes live.
- 0 retainers. If you want ongoing work, it is quoted as work.
- Hand-written code on the same stack as everything else. Read the stack.
If it is not a fit
Sometimes the honest answer on the call is that what you want is a product you can buy for 30 EUR a month, and building it is a waste of your money. You will be told that on the call. It costs us a sale and saves you a project, and the second one is worth more to both of us.