happydigital

Services / Custom software & SaaS

Custom software & SaaS development

Custom software shaped like your business, not the other way around.

Custom software development from a single-purpose internal tool to a full SaaS platform with billing, roles and reporting. Built to scale past version one, on a stack you can hire for, with a handover that means you are never dependent on us.

Proof SchoolWare — ours — runs admissions, attendance, fees and academics for a live school.

  • 2020founded · New York, working globally
  • 47products shipped
  • 10+in-house team, one team end to end
Scope of work

What we build in a custom software project

The systems a business runs on, and the replacement of the ones it has outgrown.

Internal platforms

The system your operation actually runs on — orders, scheduling, inventory, approvals — instead of eleven spreadsheets and an inbox.

SaaS product development

Multi-tenant SaaS with accounts, roles, billing and reporting, built so tenant number two does not require a rewrite.

Workflow & approvals

Requests that route to the right person with the context attached, chase themselves, and leave a record of who decided what.

Reporting you trust

Numbers assembled from the source rather than re-keyed, so the weekly report stops being an argument about whose spreadsheet is right.

Legacy replacement

Software that works but nobody can change any more. We map it, rebuild it in stages, and migrate the data with a rehearsal first.

Roles, audit & permissions

Who can see what, who did what, and when — the unglamorous layer that decides whether the software survives an audit.

Built onReact · Next.js · Node.js · Python · PHP · Postgres · Firebase

Honest fit

Should you build or buy?

When building wins

Your process is a genuine advantage and off-the-shelf software would force you to abandon it, or you are paying for five tools that half-solve one problem and none of them talk to each other. That is when custom returns the investment.

When buying wins

If a mature product covers your needs for a monthly fee, buy it. Custom software carries a maintenance cost forever, and building to avoid a subscription is usually the more expensive path. We would rather tell you that than take the project.

In practice

An engagement like this

A distributor takes orders by email, keys them into an accounting package, and tracks delivery on a whiteboard. We build one system: orders arrive through a portal, stock and pricing come from the existing database, and the warehouse sees the queue on a screen. Month-end reconciliation stops being a two-day job because the numbers were never in two places.

How a project runs

Four steps, no theater

Same four steps whether it’s a website, a mobile app, or an integration. The scope changes; the process doesn’t.

  1. 01

    Listen

    NDA first, then plain-English discovery: your problem, your users, your numbers.

  2. 02

    Plan

    Research, a proposal you can repeat back to us, and an honest estimate.

  3. 03

    Build

    Agile cycles with working software you can click — not status decks.

  4. 04

    Ship

    Rigorous testing, launch, and a handover that survives a code review.

We’re a New York studio with a standing in-house team of 10+, working with clients globally. You’ll talk to the people who write the code.

Straight answers

Questions we hear a lot

How do you price custom software development?

Fixed scope, fixed price, agreed after a plain-English proposal. Larger builds are broken into phases with their own scope and date, so you are never signing a blank cheque for something a year out. We do not publish a rate card, because the honest number depends on what the software has to do — you get that number in writing after one conversation, free.

How is this different from your MVP service?

Scope and intent. An MVP is built to produce evidence fast — the 20% that proves the business. Custom software is built to be lived in for years: roles, billing, reporting, audit trails, the things that only matter once real money and real people depend on it. Founders usually want the first; operating businesses usually want the second. If you are still proving the idea, start with MVP development instead.

Can you work with our existing systems and data?

Usually that is the job. Most custom software has to sit alongside an ERP, an accounting package or a database somebody built in 2011. We map what exists before proposing anything, and we migrate data with a rehearsal and a rollback rather than a big-bang cutover. Where the work is mostly making two systems agree, that is systems integration.

What happens when we need changes later?

You own the code and the accounts, so you can take it to any competent team. If you would rather we kept going, we do that too — but the handover is written so you are never trapped. A handover that survives a code review is part of the deliverable, not an extra.

What stack, and will we be able to hire for it?

React and Next.js, Node.js or Python or PHP, Postgres, on mainstream cloud infrastructure. Chosen partly because they are easy to hire for. We will not build your business on something exotic that makes you dependent on us.

Start here

What is your business running on that it shouldn’t be?

Describe the spreadsheet, the workaround, or the system nobody dares touch. We’ll tell you what we’d build, what it costs, and how long it takes.

Start a project