Straight answers about building software

What software actually costs in the UK, what we charge, and why the difference is scope rather than corner-cutting.

• How much does it cost to build an app?A straight answer with real numbers, the four things that actually change the price, and how to tell which bracket your project falls into.
• Why app development costs what it does, and why ours doesn'tWhere a £30,000 quote actually goes, why so little of it is writing code, and what changes when you fix the scope and the deadline first.
• What an MVP really costs in the UKUK agencies quote £20,000 to £60,000 for an MVP. Here is where that number comes from, what you can get for a tenth of it, and how to tell the difference.
• What you actually get for under £5,000A realistic account of what a sub-£5,000 budget buys in 2026, what it does not, and how to tell whether your project fits inside it.

Agency, freelancer, offshore, no-code, AI builders, in-house. Honest comparisons, including the cases where we are the wrong answer.

• Agency or freelancer: an honest comparisonCost, risk, speed and what happens when things go wrong. A straight comparison of hiring an agency, a freelancer, or buying a fixed-price sprint.
• Can an AI builder ship your app?What AI app builders genuinely do well in 2026, where they stop, and how to tell whether your project is on the right side of that line.
• Buy it or build it: how to decideA three-year cost comparison, the four questions that settle it, and the cases where we tell people to buy software instead of hiring us.
• Native or cross-platform: how to chooseWhat the choice actually costs you, the three cases where native genuinely wins, and why it matters far less than most people are told.

Practical help for the situations that bring people here: a developer who has gone quiet, a project that has stalled, a process held together by spreadsheets.

• Your developer has gone quiet. Here's what to doPractical steps to take today if your developer has stopped replying: secure your accounts, establish what you own, and work out your real options.
• The real cost of delivery platform commissionWork out what delivery platforms actually cost your restaurant each month, and at what order volume your own app starts paying for itself.
• When spreadsheets stop workingThe five signs a spreadsheet has become a liability, how to cost the hours it is quietly eating, and what to replace it with.
• The quote came back at £40,000. Now what?Why agency quotes land where they do, the five real options when the number is out of reach, and how to tell which one fits your project.

Complete, usable walkthroughs of things we have done many times. Follow them and you can do it yourself.

• Scoping an MVP: what to cut and what to keepA practical method for reducing a feature list to something buildable, including the four questions that kill most features and what never to cut.
• How to write an app brief that gets you a real quoteThe seven things every developer needs to quote accurately, the things you can safely leave out, and why most briefs produce useless quote ranges.
• Building apps that work without signalWhy offline capability is a design decision rather than a feature, what it costs, and the questions to ask any supplier building for field teams.
• GDPR for apps: what you actually have to doThe seven obligations that apply to almost every UK app, what a DPIA is and when you need one, and the mistakes that cause most problems.

Direct answers to the questions people ask before they commit to a build.

• Can an app really be built in two weeks?Yes, with a specific meaning of 'app'. What two weeks genuinely buys, what it cannot, and the three things that decide whether a sprint finishes on time.
• Who owns the code when you pay someone to build an app?You should own it outright, but UK law says otherwise by default. What to check in your contract, and the question to ask every supplier.