Frequently Asked
Questions

You will probably have lots of users with various spreadsheets, Google Docs, file shares etc to support their processes. You have a process that everyone knows by rote but things go awry and some customers get bad service, you take on work that you shouldn’t have or quotes go out wrong. Things feel out of control, users are struggling, customers are complaining.

Yes, a bespoke solution can help to structure and support processes, enforce data consistency, and deliver processing efficiency.
A well-designed bespoke system fits hand-in-hand with your process, making life easy for your employees.

Definitely! Spreadsheets popping up everywhere usually indicate a process that has evolved without an IT strategy, but they can incur a lot of risks. Building a solution to replace the spreadsheets can really help to properly define and encapsulate that process, removing risks associated with process consistency and data storage.

Yes, usually, because they fit your processes perfectly and evolve with your needs easily. The cost of ownership is lower. Integrations are easier. Users are happier. You own the source code. You control your data.
The perceived benefits of SaaS/Off-the-shelf solutions have largely been negated by AI.

A bespoke developer should be someone that you can view as a long-term partner. They need the basic ability to deliver and support a system for you but it’s also important that they demonstrate an understanding of your business and can help guide you in decisions that affect your solution. In today’s world, they should be leveraging the benefits of AI-powered development because this delivers the best results, fastest, at the lowest cost.

The cost depends on the scope and complexity of what you need, but AI-powered development has made bespoke software far more accessible. A focused single-purpose application typically costs between £5,000 and £15,000. A comprehensive multi-department business system usually falls between £15,000 and £40,000. These figures are 80–90% lower than traditional development costs. We provide a detailed estimate after the initial prototype stage so there are no surprises.

Most projects are delivered end-to-end within two to four months, including prototyping, build, testing and go-live. An initial prototype is usually ready within one to two weeks, and the full prototype within two to four weeks. The build itself takes between two and eight weeks depending on complexity. This compares to twelve to eighteen months using traditional development methods. Learn more about our rapid prototyping process →

Yes, absolutely! You can easily make changes that you would like to your bespoke solution after the initial build. Since you own the source code, you have the flexibility to modify and extend the software as your business needs evolve. We also offer maintenance and support services to help you keep your solution up-to-date and optimized.

We work with small and medium-sized businesses across many sectors including insurance, financial services, e-commerce, logistics, property, professional services, healthcare and education. The common thread is businesses that have outgrown spreadsheets and generic tools and need software that supports their unique processes rather than constraining them. Read about our experience →

Yes, absolutely. When we build a bespoke solution for you, you own the source code outright. This means you are never locked in to any provider. You can have the system maintained or extended by anyone, and your intellectual property is fully protected. This is one of the key advantages over SaaS solutions where you have no ownership of the underlying software.

In short, no, you're not. Once we deliver your bespoke solution, you have full ownership and can choose to maintain it yourself or engage any other provider you prefer. AI makes it easy for another provider to understand your codebase and take over maintenance if needed.

Yes, much! AI works much faster than human developers so it's much cheaper, even compared to offshore development houses. However, we need to consider that there is more work required to give it tasks and manage its work. Overall we reckon that AI-Powered development costs between 10%-20% of the traditional cost to build a bespoke solution.

Yes if the AI is well managed it should be much faster. One AI process can do the work of a human developer but in a fraction of the time, while it is possible to spin up multiple AI agents in parallel to create a team as big as you need, all working together. There are risks with going this fast but with experience, good process and care it's possible to deliver applications in less than 10% of the traditional timescales.

Yes, it used to be a bit random back in 2024 but it has improved immensely since then. We believe that AI actually produces better results than typical human developers, particularly given the inherent speed advantage of AI, which means there is more time for testing whatever gets written. We have AI doing code reviews and testing output in addition to human-in-the-loop quality processes.

As well as being much faster and cheaper than traditional development, AI Powered dev makes it quick and easy to add all the advanced features you need, with minimal cost. This means you can get an even better fit to your business requirements than previously possible. Also, the faster dev time, combined with rapid prototyping means minimal demands placed on your team while your solution is generated.

Yes, they can, but it's the processes that surround the coding (tech design, code analysis, security, deployment etc) that still require technical skills, so the unskilled user still has many challenges to overcome in order to successfully build and deploy a system with AI.

Pretty much all of today's popular languages are available — HTML, JavaScript, C#, Python, Rust, Ruby, Swift, PHP. The AI models are trained on vast datasets that include source code in older languages from years ago such as Cobol, Pascal, and Prolog, so most common languages are available provided they have seen them during their training.

Vibe-coding tends to imply the use of AI to build code without understanding what the AI is doing which can lead to releasing flawed or risky solutions. Here at Provanta we were coding commercial-quality solutions for decades before AI arrived and so we understand how to instruct AI, we know what we are expecting the AI to do and how to deal with what it produces.

In terms of how we know software developers today, yes it will. However, the availability of AI-powered development is leading to an explosion of demand for bespoke systems, so developers with skills in AI-powered development, business analysis and application design will have plenty of work!

We use advanced AI models to generate, review and test code based on detailed specifications that our experienced developers create. The AI handles the laborious coding work while our team focuses on solution design, architecture, quality assurance and the business logic that makes your system work correctly. Think of it as having an extremely fast, tireless programmer that works under the close supervision of experienced developers who understand your business needs. Read our explainer on AI-powered development →

We apply multiple layers of quality assurance. AI agents perform automated code reviews and testing. Human developers review all output for architectural soundness, security and business logic accuracy. We use continuous integration pipelines that run automated test suites, and we conduct manual acceptance testing against the approved prototype specification. The result is code quality that meets or exceeds what traditional development produces, delivered in a fraction of the time.

Since the advent of AI-Powered coding, yes, bespoke solutions are often cheaper to build and run than the total cost of ownership of the off-the-shelf equivalent.

Not really because bespoke solutions can easily be created and continually evolved to be a perfect fit for your business needs. An off-the-shelf solution may turn out not to fit your needs, today or in the future, and you may not find out until it's too late. You may not be able to adapt the system or you may face a long wait for a solution. Some companies don't like off-the-shelf (SaaS) solutions because they force you to share databases with their other customers. You may also find that a SaaS provider changes or adds features in a way that doesn't suit you. All of which represent risks to a business that relies on such systems.

Bespoke solutions have always been the best option for any business because they fit perfectly. However, bespoke development used to be viewed as time-consuming, expensive and high-risk due to the laborious process of writing code by hand. SInce the maturing of AI-Powered development at the start of 2026 those issues have been eliminated and so today, bespoke solutions are generally the better choice.

The purchase price or monthly subscription is only the beginning. Businesses frequently underestimate per-seat licence fees that compound as headcount grows, customisation consultancy costs to work around platform limitations, integration middleware or manual data transfer workarounds, training costs for users learning to work around the software rather than with it, and migration costs when you eventually outgrow the platform. When all of these are factored in, the total cost of ownership for SaaS over three to five years frequently exceeds that of a bespoke solution built with AI-powered development.

Yes, and we have done this many times. We can analyse your current SaaS setup, understand the data structures and workflows you rely on, and build a bespoke replacement that replicates and improves upon what you have. Data migration from the SaaS platform is handled as part of the delivery process. The result is a system that fits your business perfectly, with your data fully under your control.

Absolutely! We use AI to generate modern versions of solutions from legacy code bases. If you have the source code for the legacy system then we can analyse this with AI to produce technical specifications and then pass this along with carefully crafted prompts and the source code to AI generation tools that will create a new equivalent system on a modern platform ready for another 10 years of production use!

Yes, although its a slightly more complex process. Our tools enable us to understand your old system by analysing binaries or using AI to follow the system screens. We can analyse the output from this to produce technical specifications which direct AI generation tools to create a new equivalent system running on your prefered platform.

The key question here is whether your old system still reflects your current business needs and processes. If it does, modernising it may be the more cost-effective and straighforward option - plus you can always add more features once the new version is running. However, if the system is outdated and no longer aligns with your business goals, building a new solution might be the better approach. Whichever path you choose, AI-powered development will make the process far less painful that your previous exeriences!

It can. If you point your preferred AI (we recommend Claude Sonnet) at your existing code files and ask the right questions then it can give you meaningful insights and helpful answers.

A solution prototype is a preliminary version of a software solution that is built to demonstrate the functionality and user interface before full development begins.

Solution prototypes are useful for demonstrating functionality, gathering feedback, and validating concepts before committing to full development. They allow stakeholders to visualize and interact with the proposed solution early in the development process.

AI has significantly accelerated the prototyping process through automated code generation. This also makes the cost of prototyping negligible, allowing developers to focus more on creative solution design and strategic aspects of the project.

We can build initial prototypes in a few hours or a couple of days. Detailed fully functional prototypes take a few days to a couple of weeks for large/complex requirements. We are talking fully functional systems here that work and look just like the real thing.

Prototyping allows us to validate ideas, gather feedback from stakeholders, and identify potential issues early in the development cycle. This eliminiates suprises later in the project, meaning a smoother delivery process, a better end-product and accurate costings.

A solution prototype is not built for production grade usage — it's not secure, has no ability to share data, its architecture is not scalable. It's built just as a demonstration of how the finished system will work, look and feel. A full solution will have a proper database, decent code structure, security features and will scale to whatever usage level is required.

We provide a detailed fixed-price estimate after the initial prototype stage. At that point both parties have a clear picture of what the finished system will look like, so the estimate is accurate and there are no surprises. The prototype effectively becomes the specification — you approve what you see before the build begins. We do not charge by the hour, because we believe you should know your total investment upfront.

The initial prototype is included as part of our discovery process. We invest this time to ensure we understand your requirements and can demonstrate a credible solution before asking you to commit to a full build. It also means you get something tangible to evaluate very early in the relationship, rather than signing up based on a written proposal alone.

Ongoing costs typically include hosting (which we can arrange or advise on), a support and maintenance agreement if you would like one, and any future enhancements you request. Because you own the source code, you are not locked into any ongoing fees with us. Our maintenance agreements are designed to be flexible and can cover bug fixes, security updates, minor enhancements and helpdesk support for your users. Learn about our maintenance & support packages →

AI-powered development has reduced our build costs by approximately 80–90% compared to traditional methods. We pass these savings directly to our clients, which is why bespoke solutions are now affordable for small and medium-sized businesses that previously could not have justified the investment. The combination of lower build costs, faster delivery and zero per-seat licence fees makes the financial case for bespoke stronger than it has ever been.