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Custom Internal Platform

When the spreadsheet became a business system, this is the replacement.

Discovery R45,000 – R75,000 Then build from R450,000 · delivered in phases

Is this you?

The tool your business depends on has become the risk

Somewhere in the business there's a tool doing a job it was never designed for. A spreadsheet with years of growth and formulas nobody dares touch. Or a system built long ago by a developer nobody can reach. It started as a convenience. It is now the thing the operation actually runs on.

And it has started to frighten the people who understand it. Everyone who opens it can see everything, or change anything, and there's no record of who changed what. It has broken before, and work stopped while someone fixed it. New staff take months to learn its folklore. The person holding it together has become a single point of failure, and knows it.

What the team needs isn't database access. It's a real interface: screens built around the actual work, permissions so people see what they should, integrations so data stops being retyped between systems. That's a custom platform. It's serious money, which is exactly why I won't put a number on yours before doing the work of understanding it.

What you
actually get

Every line below is a deliverable, not an intention. If it's on this list it's in the proposal, and if it's not on this list it isn't included.

Paid discovery first, always

R45,000 – R75,000, fixed, agreed upfront. I sit inside the current system and the team that uses it, map the data, workflows, permissions and integrations, and find the requirements nobody thought to mention. This is not a sales exercise. It's the engineering that makes the build price honest.

A written technical specification you own outright

Data model, screens, roles, integrations, phase plan and a fixed price for the build. It's yours whatever you decide: take it to another developer, run a tender with it, or shelve it. It has standalone value, which is why it isn't free.

A build delivered in phases

Each phase ends with something real in use, starting with the core data and the screens a pilot group needs. No eighteen-month silence followed by a reveal. If priorities shift between phases, the plan shifts with them.

Role-based permissions

Each person sees and edits what their job requires, nothing else, and every change is attributable. The everyone-can-break-everything era ends at phase one.

Integrations with your existing stack

Accounting, email, whatever the spec identifies. Data entered once and flowing where it's needed, instead of retyped by the person who already has the most to do.

Documentation and a training programme

Written as the build progresses, not reverse-engineered at handover. Your team trained on their own screens, with their own data.

An agreed support period

Defined in the spec, in writing: what's covered, for how long, what happens after. Real use always finds things discovery didn't, and the support period exists to absorb them.

How it runs

So you know what's happening and when, and so nobody has to ask for a status update.

Weeks 1–4

Discovery

Inside the business, with the system and the people who use it. Workshops, walkthroughs, and the awkward questions about workarounds. Paid, fixed and scoped before it starts.

End of discovery

The specification

The full written spec with a phase plan and a fixed build price. We walk through it, then you decide: build with me, take the spec elsewhere, or stop. All three are legitimate outcomes.

Phase 1

Core build

The data model and the first working screens, in the hands of a pilot group doing real work. Weeks to something usable, not months.

Phases 2+

Permissions, integrations, the rest

Each phase priced from the spec, each one live and settled before the next begins. You can pause between phases. That's the point of phases.

Final phase

Training and handover

The whole team trained, the documentation complete, and the old tool retired deliberately rather than abandoned.

After go-live

Support period

As agreed in the spec. Fixes and tuning while real use finds the edges.

What I need from you

The projects that run late almost always run late for one of these reasons, so they're worth reading properly before we start.

A decision-maker with real authority who answers within 48 hours, phased builds stall on absent decisions faster than on hard problems
Access to the current system and the people who actually use it, especially whoever maintains it, they know where the bodies are buried
A recorded walkthrough of the core workflows, and honesty about the undocumented workarounds, they decide whether the spec is right
Hosting, infrastructure and licence costs are yours, in your name from day one, the spec includes a running-cost estimate so nothing surprises you
A pilot group for phase one who will actually use it and complain properly, polite silence is useless to a build

What's not included

On the public page rather than buried in the proposal, so there's no argument in week five.

A fixed price before discovery. Ever.
Free scoping or specification work
Hosting and infrastructure costs

Your other options

What happens if you don't do this

Keep the current tool. Cheapest this year. But the risk compounds: every month adds data, dependencies and folklore, and the eventual failure gets more expensive. The real question isn't whether it breaks but what a bad week costs when it does, and whether the person holding it together will still be there.

Buy off-the-shelf. Sometimes the right answer, genuinely. If a product covers what discovery finds you actually need, I'll tell you to buy it, put that in writing in the spec, and the engagement ends there for the cost of discovery. That is the cheapest possible way to find out for certain.

Start smaller. Plenty of teams who think they need custom software need a properly modelled no-code database with automation and dashboards on top. That's The Operating System at R165,000 – R300,000, and if discovery points that way I'll say so, because a build at a fraction of the price that fits is a better outcome than a platform that flatters my invoice.

Straight
answers

Why won't you quote the build without paid discovery?

Because any number given before the work is understood is a guess dressed as a price. It's either padded to cover the unknowns, so you overpay, or it's wrong, and the gap surfaces later as change requests and arguments. Free scoping isn't free either, its cost hides in the build price of everyone who says yes. I'd rather charge for the thinking openly, do it properly, and put a fixed number on the build that I can stand behind.

What happens to the specification if we don't go ahead?

You keep it. It's yours outright, and it's written so another developer can build from it. Run a tender with it, hand it to an internal team, or shelve it. Using discovery as an independent scoping exercise is a legitimate outcome, and I'd rather you took the spec elsewhere than built the wrong thing with me.

You're one person. Who builds and maintains a platform this size?

The build is structured so that never becomes your risk. Delivery is phased, and at every phase boundary you hold a working system, its source and current documentation, in accounts you own. It's written in widely used technology, nothing exotic, so a competent developer can take over at any boundary. After the support period, maintenance is yours to place: with me, through a Care retainer, or with anyone else. Dependency on one individual is a design flaw, so it gets designed out.

Wouldn't an off-the-shelf tool be cheaper?

If one fits, yes, dramatically, and discovery answers exactly that question before the big money moves. Part of the discovery work is checking the market for a product that covers what you actually need. If it exists, the spec says buy it, and you've spent R45,000 – R75,000 to avoid spending R450,000. That's the best return this page offers.

What does it cost to run once it's live?

Hosting, infrastructure and any licences are paid by you, directly, in your own accounts. They're excluded from the build price deliberately, no markups, no resale. The spec includes a running-cost estimate, so the monthly number is on the table before you approve the build, not discovered after it.

Why does the build start at R450,000?

Because it's months of senior design and engineering: data modelling, interface design, permissions, integrations, migration, testing, training. Custom software priced far below that is usually cutting the parts you'll miss most, error handling and documentation. And if the number doesn't fit the problem, that's useful information. It usually means you want the Operating System tier instead, and discovery will tell us.

Want it maintained, extended and watched after handover?

The Whole Backbone, From R28,000

Your outsourced digital department. On call, on retainer.

See The Whole Backbone →

Sound like
your problem?

One call, no deck. If this isn't the right package I'll tell you which is.

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