First, describe what does not work today
You do not need a technical brief or the right jargon. It is enough to describe what does not work today and what result you need. “Customers cannot find us” leads somewhere else than “we retype orders into invoicing”, and that leads somewhere else again than “we do not know who has which job”.
Website, e-shop and application get mixed up in enquiries all the time. That is why on the first call we do not ask what you want built, but who will work with it and where manual work happens today. The type of solution usually falls out of the answers.
Four questions that narrow it down
Who will work with it?
If it is mostly read by customers and you only change a text or price list now and then, it is a website. If your team works in it every day, creating records, changing statuses and handing work over, it is an operations tool. That is a different thing, even though both open in a browser.
Do you sell online?
If a customer picks products, pays and waits for delivery, you are looking at an e-shop. Ready-made platforms handle that flow well, so we mostly ask about the exceptions: variants, wholesale prices, several vendors, capacities or dates. The more exceptions, the more likely something will need to be added on top of the platform.
Is it about operational data and roles?
Jobs, attendance, leads, approvals, overviews for management. If today this lives in spreadsheets and e-mails and each person needs to see something different, you are close to a custom application. The number of roles and the statuses a record can be in are what affect the scope and price the most.
Do you already have a system that is missing one piece?
This is the question worth asking first. If your website or e-shop works and lacks one feature, an add-on or modification is usually enough. If you have two systems that do not talk to each other and someone moves data between them by hand, you are looking for an integration rather than a new system.
The cheapest solution is usually the one that leaves what works alone and adds only the missing piece.
Five options side by side
The table sums up what each option solves and where it runs out. The amounts are indicative lower limits or ranges excluding VAT, taken from our service pages. They are not quotes: we prepare the exact price once the brief is clear.
| What it solves | When it is enough | When it is not | Indicatively from | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website | Presents the company and services, brings in enquiries | You edit the content yourself and no orders or operations run through the site | Customers need to pay, book or log in | CZK 15,000 to 25,000 for a one-page site, CZK 40,000 to 60,000 for a company site up to ten pages |
| E-shop | Catalogue, cart, payments and shipping | You sell products without special rules; then a ready-made platform is often enough too | Several vendors, individual price lists or selling dates with limited capacity | new e-shop from CZK 60,000 |
| Add-on or modification | One missing feature in the system you have | The site or e-shop otherwise suits you and one specific thing is missing | The feature goes against how the platform works, or the system is at the end of its life | one feature from CZK 18,000, operations module from CZK 45,000 |
| Integration | Moving data between systems without retyping | Both systems suit you and the only problem is the manual transfer | The rules are not agreed, or the task comes up a few times a year | one connection from CZK 18,000, process automation from CZK 42,000 |
| Custom application | Operational data, roles, statuses and overviews in one place | Ready-made tools force you to change how you work or to bend the rules by hand | Your process fits an existing system, or you expect savings within a month | first version from CZK 53,000, operations tool from CZK 80,000 |
Hosting, the domain and fees for third-party services are usually paid separately, directly to their providers, and development after launch is charged on its own. The hourly rate is CZK 1,500 excluding VAT. We go into what the price is made of in How much does a custom application cost.
How it turned out on our projects
The same question, “what do we actually need”, ended differently on each project. Five examples where the difference is easy to see:
A ready-made system does not fit: an add-on to the site
The screen printing studio Screeno paid a monthly fee for a ready-made booking system that did not account for preparation between jobs or for workshops with limited capacity. No new system was built. We moved bookings into an add-on for the WordPress site the studio already had, and payments stayed in the existing WooCommerce.
The same data in two places: an integration
The agents at Spolu v realitách entered every listing twice, once in their real estate software and again on the website. The answer was not a new site but an import that takes listings, photos and parameters from POSKI REAL into WordPress. The site looks the way it did.
Several vendors: an e-shop with a custom layer on top
Art of Život started without an e-shop. The catalogue and orders run on WooCommerce; vendor accounts, payment splitting and payout records we added as our own layer. The platform does what it can, custom code only what it lacks. The project is before launch.
A website that sells dates
Layered had no website and courses were arranged over social media and e-mail. From the outside it looks like a website; inside it is course sales with capacity, payments, invoicing and tickets. Neither a presentation site nor a standard e-shop was enough here, because what is sold is a place on a specific date.
The spreadsheet stopped being enough: a custom application
We ran sales for Walio in a spreadsheet, and after a few hundred records it stopped being enough. Ready-made CRMs handle the basics, but none could take in batches of contacts without overwriting work in progress. So we are building our own WCRM with leads, tasks and roles. It is in development.
Often it is not just one option
The lines between the five options are not sharp. A website can have a booking add-on, an e-shop an invoicing integration, and a custom application a website that presents it. What matters is where to start: usually where most manual work happens today or where customers drop off.
- If you are not sure, start smaller. A first version for one role or a single integration shows what is needed next.
- Before ordering a new system, check whether the current one can be extended. Sometimes the answer is an existing add-on we only set up.
- Count the hours of manual work per month. For a task that comes up a few times a year, development usually does not pay off.
- Agree on the rules. Neither automation nor an application will decide for you what should happen in the exceptions.
If the questions show that a ready-made solution is enough, we will say so. Each of our service pages has a section on when you do not need us, and we mean it.
What to do next
If you already have a sense of direction, the calculator gives an indicative scope for a website, e-shop, add-on, integration or application. It is not a quote, it is a guide.
If you do not, write to us about what does not work today. In a 30-minute consultation we go through the four questions above and tell you which route we recommend and why. Just click Discuss a project.
