Bespoke software & CRM
The system your business actually runs on, built to fit it.
Most established businesses are held together by a CRM that nearly fits, two spreadsheets nobody will admit to, and one person who knows where everything is.
Werehouse Media builds bespoke CRM systems, client portals, internal tools and the integrations between them for UK businesses, as a one-person practice based in Sussex. A bespoke CRM is a system built around how one business actually works, rather than an off-the-shelf product the business has to reshape itself to fit. Custom software development here starts with a paid process audit at £495, which establishes what should be built and what should not, and is credited in full against any build over £2,000. Bespoke builds start from £4,500 for a system with its own data model and interface, against a UK agency floor that typically starts around £15,000, and run into five figures for multi-module or heavily integrated work. Simpler connected systems that join two or three tools you already pay for start from £1,950. Every price is fixed in writing before work starts. The system runs on accounts you own and can cancel, the data is yours and exportable, and the code and documentation are handed over, so nothing is locked to the person who built it.
The honest version
Most businesses should not commission bespoke software.
That is an odd sentence on a page selling it, and it is the most useful thing here. Off-the-shelf software is one of the great bargains of running a business. Somebody else spent millions building it, a team maintains it, and you pay forty pounds a month. If a product covers most of what you need, buy the product.
Bespoke earns its cost in three specific situations, and I would rather you recognise yourself in one of them than be talked into it.
One: the product does not model your work
Every off-the-shelf CRM assumes contacts, deals and pipeline stages. That is a superb fit for a business that sells a thing to a person once. It is a poor fit for a firm whose real objects are sites, surveys, certificates, engineers and recurring visits, none of which are a "deal". When people say their CRM is a mess, this is usually why: they have been filing their actual work inside somebody else's idea of what work is.
Two: you are paying per seat for people who use one screen
Twenty five staff on a £60-a-month platform is £18,000 a year, and often twenty of those people only ever need to see today's jobs and tick them off. A bespoke system with an internal tool for the twenty and a full view for the five pays for itself on the subscription line alone, before you count the time saved.
Three: the thing you need to connect cannot be connected
A depot system that only exports a CSV. An accounts package with an API from 2014. A supplier who sends a spreadsheet by email every Tuesday. The work here is not glamorous and it is usually the highest-return thing on the list, because it removes the retyping that quietly employs somebody half a day a week.
When I will tell you not to
If a mainstream product covers most of it and the gap is a preference rather than an obstacle, buy the product. If the process the software would encode is one nobody has agreed on yet, fix the process first. Software makes an unagreed process permanent. And if the whole thing exists to avoid one awkward conversation between two departments, have the conversation. Those three answers come out of the audit regularly, and the audit is worth its fee for producing them.
What gets built
Four shapes, and what each one is for.
Bespoke CRM
A customer and job system built around the objects your business actually has. Custom CRM development is the largest part of this work and the one most often described to me as "we know what we need, nobody sells it". Typically: a record shape that matches the real job, a pipeline with your stage names, documents generated rather than retyped, and reporting that answers the question you ask on a Monday morning rather than twelve you never asked.
Client and customer portals
A logged-in area where customers see their own information and do their own admin: documents, job status, certificates, invoices, bookings, approvals. Client portal software sold as a product tends to be either enormous or generic. Built to fit, a portal is usually modest and removes a specific stack of inbound email. It works best where you can name the ten questions customers ask you by phone every week.
Internal tools
The screens your own team needs and no customer ever sees. A dispatcher's board. A stock count that a warehouse can do on a phone. An approval queue. These are the cheapest builds and often the ones with the fastest payback, because they replace a spreadsheet that three people are editing at once.
Integration and data work
Making two systems agree. API integration between a CRM, an accounts package, a booking system and whatever the industry-specific product is. Where there is no API, there is usually still a file, a feed or a scheduled export, and a reliable bridge can be built on that. This is also where a lot of automation work starts: once the data is in one shape, most of the manual chasing stops being necessary.
A bespoke web application is any of the above delivered in a browser rather than as a desktop install, which is nearly always the right answer now. If your people are on a mixture of laptops, iPads and phones in vans, the browser is the only thing they all have.
Pricing
Published, like everything else here.
Custom software is the part of this industry where nobody publishes a number. These are starting points for the work described, and every project is fixed in writing before it begins.
| What | Price | Right when |
|---|---|---|
| Process audit | £495 | Always first. Establishes what should be built, what should be bought, and what should be left alone. Credited in full against any build over £2,000. |
| Single automation | From £650 | One job, one path, and the data already lives in one place. |
| Connected system | From £1,950 | Several workflows sharing data across two or three tools you already pay for. |
| Bespoke build CRM, portal, internal tool | From £4,500 | A system with its own data model and its own interface. |
| Complex | Five figures, occasionally | Multi-module, regulated, or heavy integration with systems that resist it. |
| Care | From £49/month | Anything live that needs watching, backing up and occasionally fixing. |
Why the audit is paid, and why it is credited
An audit that exists only to sell a build cannot honestly conclude "do not build this", and that conclusion is one of the more valuable things it produces. Charging for it makes the verdict credible. Crediting it in full against any build over £2,000 means nobody pays twice for the same thinking. If the audit says buy a product instead, you have spent £495 to avoid spending £15,000, and I will tell you which product.
Where this sits against the market
Agencies ranking on these terms advertise bespoke CRM from around £15,000, and that figure is not greed: a designer, a developer, an account manager and a project manager have to be paid before a line of code exists. A general freelancer will quote less and frequently cannot deliver a system with a real data model behind it. The £2,500 to £8,000 band is genuine demand with very few credible suppliers in it. That is the same gap this studio already occupies on the web side, applied to a second thing. The trade-off is the same too, and it is written out plainly on the services page: one person means no cover and a queue.
How it runs
Audit, then a fixed quote, then a build in stages.
The process audit. Half an hour each with the people who actually do the work, a look at the systems as they are used rather than as they are described, and a written document at the end: what happens now, where the time goes, what should be built, what should be bought, what should be dropped, and what each option costs. It is deliberately the same £495 as the SEO audit, so this site has one price for a first paid step rather than two.
A fixed quote. Scope, price and timeline in writing before anything starts. Not an estimate and not a day rate with a meter running.
Built in stages you can see. The first usable version lands early and you use it. Software that is shown for the first time at the end is software that gets rejected at the end.
Handover that means something. Documentation of what exists and why, the accounts in your name, the data exportable, and the code yours. Same principle as the terms for a website: you own it outright.
What you end up owning
The system runs on accounts you hold and pay for directly and can cancel without asking me. The data is yours and can be exported in a usable form on any day, not just the day you leave. The source code and its documentation are handed over. Nothing is licensed back to you and nothing stops working if you stop working with me. Where a build is large enough for it to matter, a source code escrow arrangement can be added, which is what larger buyers and public-sector procurement usually ask for. That and the rest of the due-diligence answers sit on the capabilities page.
Alongside this
The rest of the systems work.
- Business automation. The hub for this whole line: what can be automated, what should not be, and how the work is priced.
- Enquiry and document automation. Quotes, proposals, contracts, onboarding packs and invoices generated, sent and chased without retyping.
- AI receptionist. The phone answered when you cannot, booked into the same calendar and written into the same CRM.
- Bespoke web design. Frequently the same conversation: a portal and a public website are one system with two audiences.
Industry-specific versions of this work, including CRM for tradesmen, membership CRM for charities and contract automation for legal firms, are set out on the industries pages.
Straight answers
Common questions.
A bespoke CRM is a customer relationship management system built around one business's actual process rather than a general-purpose product that business has to adapt to. Off-the-shelf CRMs assume a sales pipeline with stages, contacts and deals. That fits a software company well and a groundworks contractor badly. A bespoke CRM models what the business really tracks (sites, surveys, certificates, engineers, recurring visits) and nothing it does not. The trade-off is honest: it costs more upfront than a subscription and there is no vendor roadmap adding features you did not ask for.
Published UK guidance for 2026 puts a genuinely simple single-pipeline bespoke CRM at £2,000 to £5,000, mid-tier builds at £8,000 to £25,000, and a multi-module MVP at £25,000 upwards. Agencies ranking on these terms usually advertise from £15,000, because an account manager and a project manager have to be paid before any code is written. Werehouse Media starts at £4,500 for a build with its own data model and interface, and five figures for multi-module or regulated work. The £495 process audit comes first and is credited in full against any build over £2,000.
Very often, yes, and the audit will say so. If HubSpot, Pipedrive, Monday or a good vertical product covers eighty per cent of what you need and you can live with the rest, buy it. A subscription is cheaper, supported by a team, and updated without you. Bespoke earns its cost in three situations: the off-the-shelf options genuinely do not model your work, you are paying per seat for a large team who each use one screen, or the product you would buy cannot connect to something you depend on. Anything else and a bespoke build is an expensive way to end up where you started.
A fair question to ask a one-person practice, and it is better answered than avoided. Everything is built on mainstream, documented technology rather than anything invented here. The system runs on accounts in the client's name, hosted where the client can see it. Source code and written documentation are handed over at completion, so another developer can pick it up. For larger engagements a source code escrow arrangement can be put in place, which is a standard requirement in public-sector and enterprise procurement and one this practice will meet rather than argue with.
The audit takes about a week from the point the relevant people have half an hour each. A connected system joining tools you already pay for is typically two to three weeks. A bespoke build with its own data model is six to twelve weeks depending on how many distinct jobs it has to do. There is one pair of hands here, so there is a queue, and a start date usually sits two to three weeks out. That is stated at quote stage rather than discovered later.
Yes. Some of this work is joining things that already exist rather than building something new: an integration between a CRM and an accounts package, a client portal on top of a system somebody else maintains, or a data model that finally lets two departments see the same record. Where there is an in-house developer or an incumbent agency, the sensible arrangement is usually a defined piece of work with a clean interface between us, agreed in writing at the start.
Next step
What is the spreadsheet?
Nearly every one of these projects starts with a spreadsheet doing a job it was never meant to do. Tell me about yours and I will tell you whether it needs software or a decision.