If it doesn't exist, we build it.

// What we build

Custom software for Sydney business: the shapes we build.

Here are the shapes of the work, not client names. Each starts as a process that does not fit any product on the shelf, and each is built custom only for the part that is genuinely different.

• A quoting engine. Pricing logic that no product quotes the way your business quotes, turned into a tool that produces a consistent quote from the inputs the staff actually know. The accounting side stays in the accounting package.
• A customer portal. Customers log in, see the status of their job or order and download their documents, instead of phoning to ask. Built as a window onto the data the business already has, not a second copy of it.
• A booking system. Availability, the rules about who can book what and when, and the reminders, matched to how your business takes bookings rather than how a generic booking product assumes it does.
• A monitoring dashboard. Readings from equipment and environment on one screen, with an alert the moment a value crosses a line you set. The point is the alert, not the graph.
• A LoRaWAN sensor network. Battery sensors spread across a property, reporting to one gateway and covering ground a mobile signal never will. Water levels, gates, flood and pumps first, the clever sensors after. The cheaper indoor and garden version runs on Zigbee sensors and Home Assistant.

Two smaller builds are published in full so you can see how I think about hardware: the ESP32 internet down indicator, a ten dollar light that tells you whether the fault is your router or your provider, and the DIY hardware password key, a five dollar button that types a passphrase, with an honest explanation of why it is not a real security key.

// Lean now, migratable later

Build lean. Architect so growth is a migration, not a rebuild.

Here's how I actually approach a custom build: start with the lean option, but design it so that when you outgrow it, you migrate rather than throw it away and start again. Those are two different things. A cheap build that has to be scrapped the moment you get busy isn't cheap, it's a deposit on a second project. So I keep the data clean, the parts separable, and the growth path in mind from day one, even when we're only shipping the small version first.

// Custom or off-the-shelf

Custom where you are different, off-the-shelf where you are not.

The other half of the doctrine: I write bespoke code only for the genuinely unique logic, the thing no product on the market does the way your business does it, like a pricing engine tuned to how you actually quote. Everything around it I wire up from commodity tools that already do their job well: accounting, CRM, workflow automation. There's no sense hand-building an invoicing system when a proven one exists and just needs connecting. The honest answer to "custom or off-the-shelf?" is rarely either/or. It's custom where you're different, off-the-shelf where you're not, and the wiring in between done properly.

This is also why a small build starts at $5,500 rather than a number with more zeros. When the commodity parts do their job, the custom part stays small, and small is what you can afford to support for years.

// How it runs

How a build runs: scope, fixed price, stages, handover.

Every build follows the same order, and you know the number before a line of code is written.

• Free consultation. What the process is, what you use now, and where it hurts. If an off-the-shelf product already does it, I say so, and that is the end of it.
• Discovery and scoping, $990, credited if you proceed. I map the process, the data, the systems it touches and the growth path. You get a written scope and a fixed price, and the $990 is credited if you proceed.
• Fixed-price build. A small build, a tool, a dashboard or a portal, is from $5,500. The lean version ships first, built so that growth is a migration rather than a rebuild.
• Staged delivery for larger systems, from $13,200. Bigger systems are delivered in stages, so you are using the first part while the next is built, and each stage is priced before it starts.
• Engineering day rate, $1,320. For work that does not fit a fixed scope: a change to something that already exists, an investigation, a small feature.
• Handover. Documented and owned by you. The documentation is written for the next person, not for me, so nobody is held hostage to the person who built it.
• Lifetime support, from $110 a month. Because I built it, I can support it for life: updates, monitoring, and the small changes a business asks for as it grows.

// Hardware and software

Hardware and software together.

Some problems are not solved by software alone. A reading has to come from a sensor, a light has to come on, a gate has to report that it opened. Purpose-built hardware and software combinations are the part of the list above I enjoy most.

The pattern is the same each time: a small sensor or microcontroller at the point of measurement, a radio or network link back, a gateway or small server that collects the readings, and a dashboard with alerts. For a property, the radio is LoRaWAN and one gateway can carry the whole site. For a building or a garden, Zigbee sensors at 20 to 35 dollars each and Home Assistant do the job. For an office, an ESP32 board at about $8 can be the thing that watches the internet connection.

The hardware choice follows the same doctrine as the software: commodity parts where they exist, custom only where nothing does the job. Buy the sensor, build the logic. If the question is what the software should run on, the real server vs good desktop guide covers when a business needs redundancy and when a good desktop or a mini PC is the right answer.

// Indicative pricing

What it roughly costs.

Real numbers, because "contact us for pricing" is code for "brace yourself." These are honest ballparks, your fixed quote comes after a free consult.

Indicative pricing ex GST at market rates +10%. Every build starts with a fixed-price scope so you know the number before a line of code is written.

// Questions

Bespoke, your questions answered.

// Pairs well with