Custom software development

Bespoke software built around how your business actually works, at a published fixed price in fourteen days. When custom is right and when it isn't.

The App14 team1 min read

Software built for how your business actually works, rather than software your business has to reshape itself around.

Starter App

Launch fast

£3,999£2,999

For small and medium businesses ready to launch their first app.

  • iOS & Android app
  • User login & accounts
  • Push notifications
  • Admin dashboard
  • 14 day delivery
Book this sprint

Advanced App

Built to scale

£6,999£5,999

For advanced apps with complex and heavier customer usage.

  • All starter app features
  • Complex app logic
  • AI and blockchain features
  • Security audits
  • 14 day delivery
Book this sprint

When custom is the right answer

Good reasons

  • Your process is a genuine advantageAnd generic software would make you work like everyone else.
  • Off-the-shelf does 80% and the missing 20% is the point
  • Per-seat pricing has become punitiveYou are being charged for growing.
  • You need to own itBecause the process is core and you cannot have a vendor decide its future.
  • Integration between systems that will never integrate themselves

Bad reasons

  • Custom sounds more professional
  • A tool exists that would do it, but the interface is ugly
  • Someone said we should have our own platform
  • To avoid a subscriptionCustom has running costs too. Compare properly over three years.

What we build

Operational tools, client portals, dashboards, marketplaces, booking systems, and the connective tissue between systems that were never designed to talk to each other.

We do not build games, heavy real-time infrastructure, or anything requiring clinical or financial certification. The full list of what we refuse.

Common questions

When is custom software actually worth it?

When the way you work is a genuine competitive difference, when off-the-shelf tools force you to change a process that works, or when per-seat pricing punishes you for growing. Not because custom sounds better.

Isn't custom software risky?

Open-ended custom software is risky. Bounded custom software with a fixed price and a fixed deadline is considerably less risky than a multi-year SaaS commitment you cannot leave.

What happens if you disappear?

You own the code, the repository, and the accounts from day one rather than on completion. Any competent developer can pick it up. That is a better answer than most SaaS vendors can give you.

Want to talk it through?

Tell us what you're trying to build and we'll tell you honestly whether a 14-day sprint is the right way to do it.

Free. No commitment. Just a conversation.

About the author

The App14 team · Design and engineering, Appetite Studio

App14 is the 14-day app sprint run by Appetite Studio, a London-registered design and engineering studio. We design, build, and ship production iOS and Android apps in two weeks, at a published fixed price. Everything we write here comes out of work we have actually delivered: the prices are our real prices, the timelines are our real timelines, and the limits are the ones we genuinely hold to.

Our articles are drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the App14 team before publication. The prices, timelines, delivery record, and client outcomes described are our own.

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