Web development for London businesses

WE-DEV builds websites, web applications, online shops and mobile apps for London businesses. We are based in St Albans, about 20 minutes from St Pancras and King’s Cross on Thameslink, so we can be in a meeting room in the City, Farringdon or Camden at short notice. The developers you meet are the ones who write the code, our hourly rates are on the website (development from £50 + VAT), and everything we build is yours once it is paid for.

Development, not just design

London has no shortage of agencies that make beautiful websites. Fewer will build the complicated parts behind them: the booking engine, the customer portal, the integration with your CRM or warehouse, the API that your app depends on. That is the work we enjoy most.

Typical London projects include:

• Custom web applications in Laravel or custom PHP, with React or Vue front ends: client portals, quoting tools, dashboards and internal systems. See custom software development.
• APIs and integrations that connect your website to Stripe, Xero, a CRM, a stock system or a third-party booking platform. See API development and integration.
• E-commerce on WooCommerce, Magento or a bespoke platform when off-the-shelf tools get in the way. See e-commerce development.
• Mobile apps built in Flutter for iOS and Android from one codebase, with Firebase or a Laravel back end. See mobile app development.
• Custom CRMs for franchises and multi-site businesses that have outgrown spreadsheets. See custom CRM development.

Work we have delivered

Our team has built a dedicated e-commerce donation platform and custom CMS for UNICEF, letting supporters choose and personalise symbolic gifts such as vaccines and school supplies. We have designed campaign landing pages for ActionAid, and delivered a redesign with ERP integration and a recurring donations form for LAV. For start-ups, we built Washy, an on-demand car-wash app for iOS and Android with scheduling and push notifications, and KDMasterKey, a web-based keyword-analysis tool for self-publishers. Read the details on our clients page.

Why a team outside the centre makes sense

There are practical reasons to use a team just outside London rather than one in it.

• Our overheads are lower. We do not pay central London rent, and our published rates reflect that. Many London agencies quote by the day and do not publish prices at all; ours are on the website.
• We are still close. Thameslink runs from St Albans City through St Pancras, Farringdon, City Thameslink, Blackfriars and London Bridge, so most central offices are a short train ride away. Meetings in north London boroughs such as Barnet, Enfield and Harrow are just as easy by car.
• You talk to the developers. There is no account-management layer between you and the people writing your code.

Rates

You can buy development time online, pay in full or with a 50 % deposit, and use the hours whenever you need them. Hours never expire. All prices exclude VAT at 20 %.

Service	Hourly rate
Custom Web Development	£60
WordPress Development	£50
E-commerce Development	£65
Mobile Application	£70
UI/UX Design	£55
Brand Identity Design	£50
Website Design	£45

Volume discounts apply automatically: 5 % from 10 hours, 10 % from 15, 15 % from 20, 20 % from 50 and 25 % from 100 hours. For example, 50 hours of custom web development costs £3,000, less 20 %, which is £2,400 + VAT. Book hours online.

If you need a straightforward marketing site rather than an application, our fixed-price packages start at £350 + VAT, and the Business / E-commerce package at £2,650 + VAT covers a custom WordPress or PHP site or shop with payments and multi-language support.

How we run development projects

1. Discovery. A workshop in London or online to map users, data and integrations. For bigger systems we write a short technical specification you can keep even if you do not hire us.
2. Estimate. A fixed price for well-defined work, or a range in hours for work that will change as we learn.
3. Build in increments. You see working software on a staging server every week or two, not just at the end.
4. Test. Automated tests for critical paths such as checkout and payments, plus manual testing on real devices. Our QA checklist explains what we check.
5. Deploy and hand over. Code in a repository you own, documentation, and access to every service in your name.

Standards we hold ourselves to

• Lighthouse 95+ as the target on every public page template, measured on mobile.
• WCAG 2.2 AA for public-facing interfaces.
• Secure defaults: Cloudflare, least-privilege access, secrets kept out of code repositories, and payments handled by Stripe so card data never touches your server.
• Readable, documented code that another developer could maintain. You are never locked in.

Security, compliance and handover

London clients often have procurement or IT teams who need answers before work starts. We can complete supplier questionnaires, explain where data is hosted and which processors are involved, and sign a data processing agreement under UK GDPR when we handle personal data for you. At the end of a project you receive the repository, deployment notes, a list of every third-party service with its owner, and admin access in your organisation’s name. If you later bring development in-house, your team can pick up exactly where we left off.

Choosing the right technology

We are not tied to one platform. WordPress is often the right answer for content-led sites; Laravel suits applications with complex business rules; a bespoke shop makes sense only when platforms like WooCommerce get in the way. If you want to understand the trade-offs first, read web development frameworks in 2026, custom e-commerce vs a platform and how much an app costs to build in the UK.

Based in Hertfordshire rather than London? See web design in Hertfordshire.

Tell us about your project or call +44 (0)1727 309243. We are happy to meet at your office in London.