How to choose a custom software company for your small business

What to look for

• They ask how you work before they talk about technology. The first meeting should be about your jobs, your people and your paperwork, not their tools.
• A written plan before any building: what it will do, and just as important, what it won’t.
• Something working early. Today that means weeks, not months. If the first thing you see is in six months, that’s a lot of money on faith.
• A clear price. One price for the project where possible, or at least a ceiling. An hourly meter with no end puts all the risk on you.
• You own it. The code, the hosting account, the domain and the data in your name.
• Plain answers. If you can’t understand what they’re telling you, that won’t get better once you’ve signed.
• Someone who will look after it. Ask what happens when you need a change in a year.

Questions to ask before you sign

Put these to anyone you’re thinking of hiring, us included:

• Can we see software you’ve built for a business like ours, working?
• Can we talk to a past client?
• Who actually builds it, and who do we call when something’s wrong?
• When will we see the first working version?
• What does it cost, and what makes that number change?
• Do you use AI to build it, and who checks what it writes?
• Will the code, the hosting and the data be in our name?
• What do changes cost after it launches?

Warning signs

• A price before anyone has asked how your business works.
• Hosting only on their servers, with a monthly fee for “the software”.
• No written plan, or one so vague that anything could count as finished.
• Months of meetings and documents before you see a single working screen.
• Answers full of jargon that never get to yes or no.

Small firm or large agency?

A large agency has more people, and a price to match. A small firm usually means you talk to the people doing the work, and decisions take a phone call instead of a meeting. For most small and mid-sized businesses, what matters more than size is whether they’ve built software a business actually runs on, and whether they’ll still answer the phone after launch.

How we answer these

We learn how you run things first, write a plain plan, and usually have a first version working two or three weeks after you sign off on it. Many projects fall between $15,000 and $30,000, priced after a first call. We build with AI and check every piece ourselves. The code is yours, the hosting is in your own account, and we’re happy to keep looking after it. Based in New Jersey, serving businesses across the US.