Bespoke business systems
When no off-the-shelf product matches how you actually work and the gap is being covered by spreadsheets and email chains. An application built around your process rather than one you have to bend to fit.
United Kingdom
Software development for UK businesses.
UK development rates are among the highest in Europe, and the usual alternative — a team eight time zones away — trades cost for a day's delay on every question. We sit in Northern Italy: same working day, English-speaking, and a rate that reflects where we are rather than where you are.
What we build
Four kinds of project make up most of what UK clients ask for.
ERP and CRM extensions
You keep the system you have and we add what is missing: integrations, reporting, extra modules, a web interface for customers or field staff. Usually far cheaper than replacing a working platform.
Web applications
Internal tools, customer portals, booking and quoting systems, dashboards. Anything that today lives in a shared spreadsheet with a version number in the filename.
Integrations and automation
Two systems that know nothing about each other, and a person retyping data between them. Automating that handover almost always has the shortest payback of any project on the list.
Nearshore, not offshore
The difference is the reply time
Offshore development is cheaper per hour and slower per decision. When a developer's question waits eight hours for an answer and yours waits eight hours for a reply, a two-day clarification becomes a two-week one. On bespoke software, where requirements are discovered rather than specified upfront, that is where budgets actually go.
Working from Northern Italy removes that. We are one hour ahead of the UK, so a question asked at ten is answered before lunch. Calls happen in English, contracts sit under EU law, and Milan to London is a two-hour flight when a project genuinely needs a room and a whiteboard.
What you give up is a supplier who can be in your office on Tuesday. If that matters more to you than the rate, a London firm is the right answer, and we will say so on the first call rather than three months in.
- Same working day. One hour ahead of the UK. Questions get answered within hours, not overnight.
- Fixed price per stage. The project is cut into stages, each with its own price and its own usable result.
- The code is yours. Source and documentation in your repository, no licence tied to us, no lock-in.
- English throughout. Requirements gathering, code comments and documentation, all in English.
How projects are structured
In stages, so you can stop
The most common way a bespoke software project fails is that everything gets specified at once and then built for a year. What arrives matches the specification and no longer matches how the business works, because twelve months have passed.
We cut it differently. The part that removes the largest amount of wasted time goes live first, usually within four to eight weeks. Then we measure what it actually saved, and only then decide the next stage. Each stage has its own fixed price and produces something that works on its own.
This has an awkward consequence for us: you can stop after any stage and keep everything built so far. We think that is the correct incentive — it forces the value to arrive early rather than at the end.
How we work
A clear method,
no surprises.
You always know where the project stands, what it costs and when it goes live.
- Process reviewWe look at how the work is done today, where data gets retyped and what the detour actually costs in hours. Without that number, no software project can be justified honestly.
- Staging and quoteThe work is split into stages, each with a fixed price and a standalone result. You decide where to start.
- First stage liveThe part with the largest time saving goes into production first, typically in four to eight weeks.
- Measure and decideWhat did the stage actually save? The next one is agreed on that basis — or it is not.
- HandoverSource code, documentation and access in your name. Ongoing support if you want it, never as a condition.
Our price
What it costs with us
There is no honest list price here, because a management system is built around the way you work. What we can say upfront is the starting point and how we get to the number: analysis, fixed-price quote, and it does not move after that.
Custom business ERP
from €1,500per project
VAT included · figure set after the analysis, then fixed
- We map your processes before writing a line of code
- Modules chosen around how you actually work
- Data migration from Excel or your current system
- Training for the people who will use it
- Fixed price agreed before we start
Frequently asked
The answers that actually matter.
What does a project cost?
The first production stage typically lands in the mid four to low five figures. The number depends on how many processes and systems are involved, so we quote after the process review — and then as a fixed price per stage rather than an open-ended day rate.
How does invoicing work with an Italian supplier?
Straightforward cross-border services. For EU clients it is an intra-community invoice with no Italian VAT and reverse charge on your VAT number. For UK clients it is an import of services, handled the same way as any other overseas supplier: your accountant will recognise it immediately.
Who owns the code?
You do. Source code and documentation sit in your repository under your name, with no licence tied to us. If you want another team to take over in two years, they can — which is precisely why the documentation is part of every handover rather than an extra.
How do you handle data protection?
Data stays in EU data centres by default, or in the UK if your contract or sector requires it. Hosting is set up in your name, and we sign the data processing agreement your legal team uses rather than asking you to accept ours.
Can you work alongside our in-house developers?
Yes, and it is a common arrangement. We take the parts your team has no capacity for, work in your repository, follow your review process and stay out of the way. It only goes wrong when ownership of a component is unclear, so we agree that on day one.
Are you a software development agency or a consultancy?
Both descriptions get used, so it is worth being precise. As a software development agency UK companies work with, we build and hand over the software; we do not sell staff by the day or run long discovery phases that produce documents rather than working systems. Firms searching for a software development agency London usually find that the rate difference with a Northern Italian team is the largest single line in the comparison.
Do you build bespoke software or configure existing platforms?
Mostly bespoke. As a custom software development company UK businesses use, our starting question is always whether an off-the-shelf product would do the job — and when one would, we say so. Custom software development company London rates being what they are, the honest answer sometimes saves a client the entire project, which is a better outcome than building something they did not need.