Custom web
development engineered
for growth

The line is fuzzy and the labels overlap, but roughly: web development covers websites and web applications that run in a browser, marketing sites, content platforms, eCommerce, web apps, dashboards, progressive web apps. Software development covers custom software more broadly, including platforms, complex multi-tenant systems, software with significant business logic, and applications where the web interface is one part of a larger system.

In practice most projects sit somewhere on a spectrum. A marketing site is clearly web development. A custom sportsbook platform with a risk engine, real-time data processing, and a regulatory compliance layer is clearly software development even though it has a web interface. The reason the distinction matters is scoping and team composition: a content-heavy website needs strong frontend and CMS skills, a complex platform needs backend architecture and systems thinking. When you contact us, describe what you’re building and we’ll tell you honestly which it is and how we’d staff it. Custom software development covers the heavier end of that spectrum.

Cost depends on what’s being built. A marketing or brochure website with a CMS runs roughly €8,000 to €25,000. A content-heavy site with custom functionality, integrations, and multilingual support runs €25,000 to €60,000. A web application or complex platform (custom dashboards, user accounts, significant business logic, third-party integrations) runs €50,000 to €150,000 and up. These are ranges, not quotes, the actual figure depends on scope, integration count, design complexity, and content volume.

Our hourly rate is €60 to €65 across roles. Most website projects are scoped as a fixed-budget proposal once the discovery phase has defined the work. Larger applications often run as fixed-budget phases or time-and-materials sprints, because the scope genuinely evolves as real usage data comes in. We don’t send a proposal before the budget range, the decision maker, and a scoping call are all in place, quoting blind helps nobody. Pricing and rates page covers the rate structure.

For content-driven websites, WordPress with Advanced Custom Fields is the common choice: mature, well-understood, easy for a client team to manage, with a clean editing experience when built properly (custom blocks, not page-builder sprawl). For web applications, the backend is usually Laravel or Node.js, occasionally Django, with PostgreSQL or MySQL for data. Frontend is React or Vue.js for interactive applications, or server-rendered HTML and CSS where the interactivity is light and SEO matters most.

Stack choice depends on your situation, not our preference: what your team can maintain after handover, what your hiring market supports, what your existing systems are built on, and what the project actually needs. A small business content site and a multi-tenant SaaS application have completely different requirements. We choose the stack during discovery and explain the reasoning, so you understand the trade-offs rather than just receiving a decision. Frontend development and backend work both feed into that decision.

Both. New builds are simpler to scope, but a large share of web development work is improving, extending, or rescuing existing sites. Common existing-site engagements: performance rescue (a site that’s become slow), adding functionality to a working site, a redesign that keeps the existing CMS, a re-platform (moving from one CMS or framework to another), or taking over maintenance of a site another agency built.

For existing-site work, the first step is usually an audit: code quality, dependency health, security posture, performance, SEO, and how maintainable the codebase actually is. The audit produces an honest assessment, sometimes the answer is that the existing site is sound and just needs targeted fixes, sometimes it’s that a rebuild would cost less over two years than continuing to patch what’s there. We tell you which, with the reasoning, rather than defaulting to whichever generates more billable work. Website migration covers the re-platform case specifically.

A marketing or brochure website typically takes 6 to 12 weeks from kickoff to launch. A content-heavy site with custom functionality and integrations runs 3 to 5 months. A web application or complex platform runs 4 to 9 months, sometimes longer depending on scope. The variation comes from design complexity, how many integrations are involved, content readiness on your side, and how quickly feedback and approvals move.

The single biggest timeline risk is usually not development speed, it’s decision latency and content delays on the client side. A project where feedback takes two weeks per round and content arrives late will run far longer than the same project with a responsive client and content ready. We’re explicit about this at the start: the timeline assumes a certain pace of input from your side, and we flag early if that pace slips. How we work covers the collaboration model.

A website is not finished at launch, it’s just live. After launch it needs security updates (especially WordPress core, themes, and plugins), performance monitoring, dependency updates, backups, and occasional fixes. Studio Ubique offers ongoing website ondersteuning through three packages: Care, Growth, and Partnership, sized to how much ongoing work the site needs. A small brochure site needs light Care-level attention, a busy eCommerce site or web application needs the higher tiers.

You’re not locked into our maintenance. You own the code, the repository, the credentials, and the hosting from day one, so you can take maintenance in-house or to another provider. Most clients stay because it’s easier than rebuilding the context elsewhere, not because they’re contractually trapped. Monthly-billed support runs with a one-month notice period. Website support packages cover what each tier includes.

You do. You own the code, the repository, the documentation, the design files, the credentials, the hosting account, and the domain. IP transfers on payment as part of our standard terms. No proprietary CMS that only Studio Ubique can maintain, no page-builder lock-in, no hostage situation where leaving means rebuilding from nothing. The work is done on standard tools (WordPress, Laravel, Node.js, React, Vue.js, standard databases) so any competent developer or agency can take over.

Handover includes a README with local setup, architectural decision records for the non-obvious choices, documentation of custom functionality, a deployment runbook, and a knowledge-transfer session. For agencies who’ve had us build websites for their end clients under white-label arrangements, the handover is structured around that multi-party situation, with documentation written so the agency can support the client directly. White-label services cover that arrangement.