Customer and member databases
One record per customer, with the full history attached — quotes, orders, conversations, documents. The single change that makes everything downstream possible, including any useful AI.
Bespoke Software, Apps & Systems
One system that fits how you work — instead of five that nearly do.
Most small businesses run a website holding some customer data, spreadsheets holding what it doesn't, a subscription for email, another for scheduling, something industry-specific, and a social tool on top. That happened because one system was never affordable. It is now.
The case for building
Renting software has a ceiling
Off-the-shelf is the right answer more often than agencies like to admit — for accounts, for payroll, for email. It stops being the right answer at the point where your business does something specific, and that is usually the thing you compete on.
You bend to fit the tool
Every workaround your team has invented to make the software cope is a small permanent tax on the business. Consolidating a fragmented stack typically cuts software costs by 60–80% — and removes the workarounds with it.
The cost grows with your headcount
Per-seat pricing means growing costs you money before it makes you money. A system you own costs what it costs whether you have eight staff or eighty.
Your data is somebody else's asset
Export restrictions, API limits, and a migration that gets harder every year you stay. Owning the system means owning the data in it, in a database you can read.
What we build
Systems, not projects
Everything here we have built and run in production. ClubBrander and SmartGiftShop are our own — designed, built, deployed and still evolving under one roof.
Booking and scheduling systems
Appointments, resources, staff availability, deposits, reminders and cancellations. Built around how your business actually books rather than how a generic calendar thinks you should.
Business and loyalty apps
iOS and Android apps for customers or members: accounts, bookings, points, offers, notifications. Built once and deployed to both, so you are not paying for the same work twice.
Internal tools and dashboards
The screens your team needs and no more. Job boards, stock views, approval queues, the Monday figures. Usually the fastest thing to build and the quickest to pay for itself.
E-commerce and ordering platforms
Product catalogues, personalisation, trade pricing, multi-supplier fulfilment. SmartGiftShop has run this for 15 years and 25,000+ verified reviews.
Integrations between what you already run
Sometimes the answer is not a new system but making three existing ones talk properly. We will say so — it is cheaper and we would rather be right than busy.
How a build runs
Working software, early
No six-month silence followed by a reveal. You see something real within weeks and steer it from there.
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One
Scope and fixed price
A written specification and a fixed price before anything is built. If the scope changes, that is a conversation and a change order — not a surprise on the invoice.
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Two
The first working version
The core of the system, working, in front of you within a few weeks. Real data, real screens. This is where most of the useful feedback happens.
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Three
Live, with your people on it
We deploy to UK hosting, migrate your existing data, and stay close during the first weeks while people find the things nobody thought to mention.
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Four
Owned and maintained
The code and the data are yours. We maintain it if you want us to, and we review it with you twice a year to decide what is worth doing next.
How we work
Always
- Written in-house — no outsourcing and no offshore teams
- Mainstream technology any other developer could pick up
- A fixed price against a written scope before work starts
- The source code and the database are yours outright
- UK hosting, SSL and backups included
- Twice-yearly reviews to plan what comes next
Never
- A proprietary framework only we can maintain
- Per-seat licensing on software you paid us to build
- Holding your data or domains as leverage
- Rebuilding something that off-the-shelf already does well
Common questions
What does a system like this cost?
Most first builds for a business of this size land between £4,000 and £15,000, depending on scope. We give a fixed price against a written specification before anything starts, and the audit is the cheapest way to find out what you actually need before committing.
What happens if you get hit by a bus?
A fair question and one nobody asks often enough. That is exactly why we build on mainstream technology — TypeScript, React, Node, PostgreSQL — and hand over the source. Any competent developer can pick it up. A proprietary framework would make you dependent on us, which is good for us and bad for you.
Can you work with the system we already have?
Often, yes. Extending or integrating what you have is usually cheaper than replacing it, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a rebuild. The exception is a system whose supplier will not give you access to your own data.
How long does it take?
A focused internal tool can be live in three to four weeks. A full customer-facing platform is usually two to four months. Either way you see something working early rather than at the end.
Do we have to host it with you?
No. We host on our own UK infrastructure because it is fast, cheap and we control it, but the system is portable and you can take it anywhere. That is rather the point of owning it.
Related
Working Practices & Process Audit
The fixed-price way to establish what to build before you spend anything building it.
See what's includedAI Consultancy & Integration
Once your data is in one place, this is where the compounding returns are.
Explore AI consultancyWebsites, E-commerce & Search
The public-facing half of the same job.
More on websitesTell us what your business
keeps working around.
Usually the answer is already obvious to whoever does the job every day. Start there and we can tell you quickly whether it is worth building.