Services, and what they usually cost
Every project gets a fixed quote after a free first conversation. The ranges below are honest starting points, so you can tell early whether we are in the same ballpark. Prices exclude VAT.
Custom software
For when the spreadsheet has become the business, or the off-the-shelf product does eighty per cent of the job and the other twenty costs you a day a week.
Price shape
- Small internal tool
- £4,000–£7,000
- Customer-facing system
- £8,000–£18,000
- Ongoing support
- from £120/month
Fixed price per phase. You can stop after any phase and keep what has been built.
What you get
- A web application your staff and customers use in an ordinary browser
- Your data in one PostgreSQL database you own, with nightly backups
- Logins and permissions for each person, so the right people see the right things
- The full source code and a plain-English guide to running it
- Hosting on your own server or a UK provider, set up in your name
The typical shape of a project
- Discovery1–2 weeks
- First usable version3–5 weeks
- Refine with real use2–6 weeks
- Handover1 week
AI automation
Agents built on large language models that handle the reading, sorting and drafting in a process, and stop to ask a person whenever a decision matters. Useful for enquiries, quotes, invoices, job sheets and document checks.
Price shape
- Single workflow
- £1,500–£3,000
- Connected set of workflows
- £3,500–£7,500
- Running costs (AI usage, hosting)
- typically £20–£150/month
Running costs depend on volume; I estimate them in the proposal and show you the meter.
What you get
- A written map of the process as it is today, and what will change
- Automations with an approval step wherever money, customers or legal wording are involved
- A log of every action taken, readable by you, kept on your own server
- A simple off switch, and a manual fallback that still works
- A short trial period on real work before anything runs unattended
The typical shape of a project
- Map the process3–5 days
- Build with approvals on1–3 weeks
- Supervised trial2 weeks
- Tune and hand over1 week
DevOps and self-hosting
The plumbing underneath: servers, backups, updates, deployments and monitoring. Either for software I have built, or for the systems you already rely on and nobody quite looks after.
Price shape
- Infrastructure review
- £750 fixed
- Set-up or migration
- £1,500–£5,000
- Monthly care
- from £180/month
The review is a written report you can act on yourself, or hand to anyone.
What you get
- An inventory of what you run, where, and what each thing costs a month
- Backups that are tested by restoring them, not just assumed
- Secure remote access for staff without opening your network to the internet
- Monitoring that tells me before it tells your customers
- Where it makes sense, self-hosted replacements for per-seat subscriptions
The typical shape of a project
- Review and report1 week
- Plan agreed with youa few days
- Set up or migrate1–4 weeks
- Monthly care, if wantedongoing
Not sure which of these fits?
Most enquiries are a mix. Describe the problem rather than the solution and I will suggest a shape and a rough price.