How much does a custom web app cost?

From £1,950 depending on the size of the job. That figure covers a straightforward single spreadsheet or form rebuilt as a web app. Bigger jobs cost more and you get the exact figure in writing before you commit anything. There is no VAT to add and there are no per-user fees.

How long does a build take?

From two weeks. You get a link to try halfway through rather than a surprise at the end. Half the fee is paid up front and half when it goes live.

Do we have to stop using Excel?

No. Data goes in from a spreadsheet and comes back out as one. You can import an existing file, bulk-update from a sheet later and export every row into Excel whenever you want. Anyone who prefers Excel carries on using it.

Are there licence fees or per-user charges?

None. You pay for the build once and the software is yours. Adding ten people to it does not change the price. Support after the first 30 days is £750 a year or £75 a month and you can cancel at any time, keeping the code and the data.

Can you replace a Microsoft Access database?

Yes. An Access database that only runs on one machine can be rebuilt as a browser-based application with the existing data brought across. Microsoft support for Access 2021 ends on 13 October 2026.

What happens after the app is built?

The first 30 days of fixes are included. After that, support is optional at £750 a year or £75 a month, covering small changes of up to two hours a month, security updates, backups and hosting. If you would rather take it in-house, the application files and a full export of your data are yours free of charge whenever you ask.

For UK firms, 5 to 50 staff

Custom web apps for manufacturers and trade firms

Whatever the business actually runs on: the spreadsheet nobody dares touch, the Access database from 2009, the pad of job sheets in the van, the board on the office wall. I rebuild it as software that works on a phone, a tablet or the office PC. Same information, same way of working, no formulas to break.

Send me whichever one is causing you grief and I'll tell you what it'd take, in writing, free.

From £1,9502 weeksYou own it

Show me what you’ve got See the demos

	A	B	C	D	E
1	JOB	CUSTOMER	DUE	STATUS	VALUE
2	J-2291	Halden Fab	12/08	done	1,840
3	J-2292	Marlow Eng	14/08	Running	#REF!
4	J-2293	marlow eng.	18/08	running	2,110
5	J-2295	Barr & Sons	03/08	LATE!!	640
6	J-2296	Halden Fab	21/08		3,300
7				TOTAL	#VALUE!

JOBS - DO NOT EDITquotes v4 FINALquotes v4 FINAL (2)Sheet3

One file. One person who understands it. No backup.

Jobs Add job

12Open

3Due this week

£18,400Outstanding

Marlow EngineeringJ-2292 · due 14 Aug · £2,110Due soon

Barr & SonsJ-2295 · due 3 Aug · £640Overdue

Halden FabricationJ-2296 · due 21 Aug · £3,300In progress

Halden FabricationJ-2291 · £1,840Complete

Same jobs. Same numbers. Nothing left to break.

What I build

Every job is built from scratch around what you already do. These are the ones that come up most often, each with a page explaining what it involves.

A bespoke build

One process, rebuilt around how you already work. A spreadsheet, an Access database, a pad of paper job cards or the whiteboard on the office wall. Your columns, your job numbers, your checks. Your existing data comes across with it, so you don't start from an empty screen.

£1,950starting price, depending on the size of the job. No VAT, no per-user fees.

Show me what you’ve got How it works

RootLog · £1,950 a site

NCR tracking

Raise a non-conformance at the machine, chase it without email and close it out with the evidence attached. Built for ISO 9001 firms who are tired of the spreadsheet and the wallet file.

What RootLog does Quality

Goods-in inspection

Book a delivery in on a phone. Certificates, measurements and gauge calibration held against the delivery, instead of in three places nobody can find at audit.

Goods-in inspection Legacy systems

Access database replacement

The database that only runs properly on one machine, rebuilt in a browser with the data brought across. Microsoft support for Access 2021 ends on 13 October 2026.

Replacing Access Legacy systems

Spreadsheet replacement

The workbook that has been copied, renamed and patched for eight years, rebuilt so the formulas stop snapping and two people can use it at once.

Replacing a spreadsheet Quality

Quality system on spreadsheets

Seven workbooks, three versions of each and one person who knows which one is current. What that costs you and when it stops being good enough for the auditor.

Quality systems Free tool

Cost of poor quality calculator

Puts a pound figure on scrap, rework, returns and quality admin using your own numbers. No sign-up and nothing to install.

Open the calculator

Written for a particular trade

Three I've built. Have a proper go on them.

All three are live and fully working, with example data for made-up firms. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to install.

From a spreadsheet

Job tracker

A fabrication shop's job list: search it, add a job, add notes, mark one complete, export it all back to a spreadsheet.

Open the demo From a paper job sheet

Pre-hire inspection

A plant hire check sheet: pass or fail each item, photograph the failures, sign it on the screen and out comes a dated record. Best opened on a phone, because that's where it gets used.

Open the demo From a receiver sheet

Goods-in inspection

A delivery booked in on a phone: count it, attach the certificate, measure against the drawing, check the gauge is in calibration, sign the disposition.

Open the demo

Nothing you type into a demo is saved. Refresh and it goes back to how it started.

Firms held together by one file, one pad, or one person

Usually a company between five and fifty staff, doing real work, with no IT department and no appetite for another monthly bill.

Engineering subcontractors
Machine shops
Fabricators & welders
Plant hire
Builders' merchants
Wholesalers
Print & signage
Food producers & packers

Get in touch if

One spreadsheet holds jobs, quotes, stock or prices
Work gets recorded on paper, then typed up again later
Non-conformances or goods-in checks live in a wallet file and a workbook
The real plan is a whiteboard only the office can see
Only one person properly understands how it hangs together
It's been copied, renamed and patched for years
You've looked at off-the-shelf systems and they all want £200 a month for things you'll never use

Don't waste your time if

Nothing about how you work now costs you time you'd want back
You need it to talk to Sage or Xero from day one
Thirty people need their own login
You want it built and finished this week
You're after the cheapest possible price

A working app, built from what you already use

Not a template with your logo on it. Your columns, your job numbers, your checks, your way of doing things.

Your spreadsheet, form or board rebuilt as a web appSame fields, same rules, same output, without the formulas that snap when someone sorts a column, or the bottom copy that never comes back.
Your existing data moved acrossEvery live row comes with it, exactly as it is in your file. You don't start from an empty screen. I can't fix what was already wrong in the spreadsheet, but I'll tell you what I spot.
Works where the work happensPhone in the workshop, tablet on site, desktop in the office. Same record, whoever's looking.
Live on a web address you ownHosted and running. Nothing to install on anyone's machine.
Excel in, Excel out, whenever you wantImport a spreadsheet to get data in, export one to get it back. Whoever likes working in Excel carries on doing exactly that; the app just stops it breaking.
One round of changes after you've used itNot guessed at up front, changed once you've run real jobs through it.

Four steps and the first one takes you a minute

You send it over

Email me the spreadsheet, or a photo of the job sheet or whiteboard. Tell me what it's meant to do. That's the whole brief. No forms, no discovery workshop.

You get a blueprint, free

Within two working days, in writing: what it would become, what it wouldn't do, how long it'd take and exactly what it'd cost. The price holds for 30 days. No charge, no obligation. Sometimes the answer is don't bother.

I build it

Two weeks. You get a link to try halfway through, not a surprise at the end. Half the fee up front, half when it's live.

You run it

Use it on real jobs. One round of changes, thirty days of fixes, then it's yours to keep using.

The same problem, over three years

You've got four options and only one of them is free. Here's what each actually costs by the time you're three years in.

Option	Three-year cost
Development agencyBuilt from scratch, billed by the day	£8,000 to £15,000plus every change request
Off-the-shelf job management software8 people needing a login, on the cheapest published tier, £34 each per month	£9,792priced per person, so it rises every time you hire
ToolWright£1,950 build, first 30 days included, then £750 a year	£4,200cancel any time, keep everything
Carry on as you areThe spreadsheet stays where it is	Nothinguntil the day it costs you everything

The last row is the one worth thinking hardest about. It costs nothing right up until the file corrupts, or the person who understands it hands their notice in. Then it costs a fortnight of somebody's life and a customer or two.

Where these figures come from

The off-the-shelf row is eight logins on the entry tier of a leading UK job management product, at its published price of £34 per person per month, checked 23 August 2026 and excluding VAT. I've used the cheapest tier rather than the dearest and left out the optional extras most firms end up paying for. The agency range is what UK development firms typically publish for a focused internal tool; it's their figure, not mine. I would treat the top of it as optimistic. My own row is a starting price plus three years of support at £750 a year. I'm not VAT registered, so there's nothing to add to it. And the honest caveat: off-the-shelf software does more than what I'd build you. You're trading breadth you may never use for something shaped around how you actually work. If a product off the shelf fits your job, buy it. It will be cheaper than me.

What's not in the starting price

None of this is off the table. It's just more work, so it costs more and takes longer. Told to you now, rather than halfway through the job.

No licence fee, no per-user pricing

You pay for the build once and the software is yours. Add ten people to it and the price doesn't move. Support after the first 30 days is £750 a year or £75 a month, cancel any time. If you cancel, you take the code and the data with you.

Accounts integration is extra

As standard it exports a file you can import into Sage or Xero. Having it push invoices across on its own is a separate phase, quoted separately.

Logins and permissions are extra

Version one is deliberately simple, because simple gets used and complicated gets abandoned. Individual logins, roles and who-can-see-what can be built as phase two, once you know how you actually use it.

Not your whole business at once

One process, one app. If you've got four things that all need to talk to each other, that's a bigger project and I'd price it as one. I would still rather do the worst one first and prove it works before you spend the rest.

Everything on that list is possible: customer portals, dashboards, photo evidence, reminders, barcode scanning, certificates generated as PDFs. It's just a bigger job with a bigger price. Say what you're after in your first email and the blueprint will tell you what it'd take and what it'd cost, free either way.

Nobody has to give up Excel

The usual worry is that a new system means everyone learns something from scratch and the old way is gone. That's not what happens here.

Data goes in from a spreadsheet and comes back out as one. If your accountant wants the quarter's jobs in Excel, that's a button. If someone in the office would rather do a bulk update in a sheet and import it, they can. If you want a copy of everything on a Friday afternoon for peace of mind, take one.

What changes is the part that's actually causing you grief: the formulas that snap, the version everyone's arguing about, the fact that it can't be used on a phone and the one person who knows how it hangs together. What stays is the spreadsheet you already know how to use, for the jobs it's genuinely good at.

Import Bring in your existing file, or bulk-update from one later
Export Every row, any time, straight into Excel
No lock-in Your data never stops being yours, in a format you can open
No retraining Anyone who likes Excel carries on using Excel

Software doesn't fail on day one. It fails in year two.

Nobody abandons a system because it was built badly. They abandon it because the business changed, nothing changed with it and eventually someone opened a spreadsheet instead.

Small changes, up to two hours a monthA new field. A renamed column. A price that calculates differently now. The things that seem too small to pay for and that quietly kill a system when they pile up unaddressed. Anything bigger gets quoted as its own job.
Someone who answersYou email me. I aim to answer the same working day and normally within two. No ticket number, no first-line support, no explaining it again to somebody new.
Security updatesThe parts underneath it get patched as vulnerabilities come out. This is invisible when it's happening and expensive when it isn't.
Backups and getting it backTaken automatically. If something goes badly wrong, I put it back. Keep your own copies too. Mine are a safety net, not a replacement for yours.
HostingIncluded. Worth mentioning, not worth paying much for.

First 30 daysincluded in the build

You pick which option you want when you accept the quote and it starts once the first month is up. I'll remind you in writing a fortnight before anything is due, so nothing arrives as a surprise. Say no and you've lost nothing.

£750a year

£75a month

Same cover either way. The only difference is how often you pay. Cancel any time: you keep the software, the code and the data and I'll help you move it.

What it doesn't cover is new features. Those still get quoted as their own job, at a fixed price, before anything gets built. And the two hours don't roll over. An unused month isn't four hours the next.

Taking it in-house is a perfectly good answer

Some firms have someone who can look after it, or would simply rather own the lot outright. That's fine and it costs you nothing. Your data and the application files are yours for the asking, whenever you ask, at no charge. That doesn't change.

Being straight about what happens next: I keep it running for a further 30 days so you've time to sort out where it's going. At the end of that it comes off my hosting and stops working on the address I gave you. The software is still yours. It just needs to live somewhere else.

If you want the handover done properly rather than just handed a folder, there's a pack for it.

£250one-off, optional

The application files
A full export of your data
A written guide covering deployment, backup and restore
An hour on a call with whoever's taking it on

The files and the export are free on their own. The £250 is for writing the guide and the hour of my time.

One person. The one who builds it.

Joe Thorp

ToolWright

Background: Twenty years in engineering, most of it in quality inspection
Builds: Web apps for small manufacturers and trade firms
Contact: joe@toolwright.co.uk
Working: Remote, UK-wide. Written by default, phone if you'd rather

My trade is inspection: looking at something complicated, working out what's actually wrong with it and saying so plainly. Twenty years of it, in an industry where getting it wrong isn't an option.

Software turned out to be the same job with different tools. A spreadsheet that's been patched for eight years, or a job sheet with four boxes everyone's stopped filling in, has exactly the same tells as a part that's been repaired one too many times and I've spent my career reading those.

There's no team here, no account manager and nobody in a call centre. You email me, I answer, I build the thing. That's the whole company, which is also why I only take on a few of these at a time and why I'll tell you early if yours isn't a good fit.

Show me what you’ve got. Get a blueprint back, free.

Attach the file, or the paper sheet, or whatever it is you want replacing. Tell me in a line or two what it's supposed to do. Within two working days you'll get a written breakdown: what it would become, how long it'd take and exactly what it'd cost. No charge and no obligation to go ahead.

Get your free blueprint

The blueprint is free whether or not you ever hire me. No sales call unless you ask for one.