Custom Web Applications
Data-driven web apps with real user roles and workflows — React, TypeScript, Node and MongoDB. Fixed price from USD $2,500, scope agreed before work starts.
Data-driven applications with real user roles and real workflows — most recently a hospital platform where reception, doctors and administrators share one patient record and each sees only what their role permits.
Website or web application?
Worth settling first, because it decides the price bracket and half the arguments that follow.
A website informs.
People read it, decide whether to trust you, and get in touch. If the value is in the reading, it's a website.
A web application does something.
Users log in, enter data, change state, and trigger work. If the value is in the doing, it's software and it's priced like software.
The clearest test:
Can two different people log in and see different things? If yes, you're building an application.
What I build
- Internal tools and admin systems — the thing your team currently runs on five spreadsheets
- Customer and client portals — logins, roles, permissions, data each user sees only their slice of
- Booking and scheduling systems — where the hard part is what happens when two people book the same slot
- Dashboards and reporting — order, inventory and payment views that stay readable as numbers move
- Workflow apps — approvals, statuses, handoffs that currently live in email
What I don't build
- Enterprise platforms with a team of ten and a six-figure budget — agency job
- Native mobile apps — a separate build for iOS and Android
- Anything an off-the-shelf tool already does well — if Shopify or a $40/month SaaS solves it, I'll say so
The two problems that actually make applications hard
Permissions, enforced at the server
Roles are the single biggest cost driver in any application with more than one kind of user. One person seeing their own data is simple. Three roles seeing different views of the same record is real engineering.
On the hospital platform, role-based access control was designed first and enforced server-side. The UI only ever hides what the API already refuses — so removing a hidden button by hand gets you a 403, not a patient record.
Concurrency, wherever two users want the same thing
Two receptionists opening the same appointment slot is not an edge case, it's Monday morning. A read-then-write check has a gap between the two operations where both requests pass.
Appointments are validated against the calendar at write time, not in the client. Client-side availability is a display optimisation; it can't arbitrate between requests arriving in the same second.
What it costs
From USD $2,500 — about NZ$4,200 / €2,300
Fixed price, agreed in writing before anything starts. Typical delivery 6–10 weeks.
Included: full MERN build · authentication and role-based access · REST API and MongoDB schema design · admin dashboard · automated deployment · 30 days post-launch support.
Why that's below agency quotes
Agencies quote $10,000–$25,000 for a simple tool and $50,000–$150,000 for a medium app. That's for an agency team — project manager, designer, two developers, QA.
What you get here is one senior developer building a focused first version. That works well when scope is clear. It works badly when you need parallel workstreams, a designer, or someone in your timezone at 2pm.
Not included: copywriting · brand design · ongoing feature development · paid third-party fees (billed to you at cost).
Start smaller than you think
The most expensive mistake isn't hiring the wrong developer. It's building version three before anyone uses version one.
Write down every feature you want. Find the smallest subset a real user could do their job with. Build that, put it in front of people, let what they do decide what comes next. Half the "must-haves" turn out not to matter, and you'll discover two things nobody thought of.
How it works
- 1
Free 30-minute call
What the app has to do, who uses it, what happens today instead.
- 2
Scope and fixed quote
Features, timeline, price, and what's excluded.
- 3
Schema and API design first
Data model and permissions before interface — both are expensive to change later.
- 4
Build
With regular updates and a link to follow progress.
- 5
Launch and handover
Code, hosting and accounts in your name, plus 30 days of fixes.
Why work with me
- You talk to the developer — the person you brief writes the code
- Fixed price agreed upfront — no hourly meter, no scope-creep invoice
- You own everything — code, database, hosting, in your name from day one
- Permissions designed first, not retrofitted
The tradeoff, plainly:
I work remotely from Pakistan with clients in New Zealand and Cyprus. That's most of why the price is what it is. It also means no in-person meetings and a timezone gap. If your project needs a team or someone in your building, hire an agency. That's a real answer.
Questions before we start
Related services
Many applications also need admin panels or operational dashboards. Some benefit from speed optimization.
Get a fixed quote
Tell me what the app has to do and who uses it. You'll get a realistic scope, timeline and fixed price before anything starts.
Get a fixed quote