How a project runs at Applicable.
Our process
Five steps. Two weeks to a fixed price.
01. Listen
When you come to us with an idea or a set of requirements for a website, web app or portal, our first priority is to listen closely, ask questions and draw out a clear understanding of your vision. We give you a ballpark in this first conversation, and if a website builder or an off-the-shelf product would do the job, we say so here.
02. Prototype Sprint
Two weeks, NZ$5,000 plus GST, fixed. Two workshops with the people who would build it, followed by our desk time: flows, wireframes, then a clickable prototype of the key screens. Putting an early cut in front of the people who will use it, before anything is built, is the cheapest way to find out what they will and will not do.
The sprint ends with a written scope, a fixed price and a timeline. Risks and integrations are checked against the systems you already run, so the price that comes out is one we will hold.
03. Build
Short cycles that provide many points of client and user feedback along the way. You see working software, not status reports. If you want something added during the build, we quote it in writing before we build it; that is what fixed scope means in practice. For clients who prefer it, we also offer agile billing, where the budget is fixed and the variability lies in the number of lower-priority features delivered.
04. Test
Larger builds get automated test frameworks. Every build gets user acceptance testing, where representative people from your side review the release to confirm everything works as intended before it goes live.
05. Roll-out & support
Release to the live environment through automated deployment pipelines, with redirects from old URLs verified, and continuous delivery for ongoing updates. Then a handover: code, hosting accounts and content system are in your name. Most clients keep us on a monthly plan; some do not, and that is fine.
Pricing, plainly Every from-price is fixed at the end of the sprint. The full list, with monthly plans, is on the pricing page.
How we build faster
The back-end of a web app, the database, business logic, notifications and APIs, is the part below the water line that often eats a lot of a project's budget. Applicable's own build accelerator, Hypercode, combines traditional code generation with AI to produce most of it. That is why our prices land where they do, and what it produces is ordinary code that can be deployed anywhere, is fully owned by you and carries zero licence fees.
Common questions
The deliverables are written down and priced before the build starts, and Applicable builds exactly that. Anything you add during the build is quoted before it is built. No surprise invoices.
They usually do a little. Small changes are absorbed; anything that changes the scope is quoted in writing and you decide. The build continues either way.
Yes: the Prototype Sprint is NZ$5,000 plus GST for two weeks, and it is credited against the build if you proceed. You keep the prototype, the written scope and the fixed price whether or not you go ahead. A brochure website is quoted from a conversation and skips the sprint.
The Prototype Sprint is two weeks. A business website takes four to eight weeks to build. Web apps and portals take six to sixteen weeks; the timeline is fixed at the end of the sprint.
Everything: code, hosting accounts, content system, data.