Services / Freelance developer builds
Freelance developer builds
Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, a CMS, or something written for the job. One developer from the first commit to the handover.
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What you get when you hire one developer
The person who quotes the job is the person who builds it, and the person who picks up the phone when something breaks six months later. There is no project manager relaying messages and no junior learning on your budget.
You own the code.
Repositories, hosting accounts and credentials are set up in your name, so nothing is held back if we stop working together.
A price that fits the project.
Each project is priced on its own, on what it is worth to your business, and agreed in writing before work starts.
Tests and a way to deploy safely.
Releases go out through a repeatable process, so a change does not quietly break something elsewhere.
Documentation someone else can follow.
If you later bring in another developer or grow your own team, they should be able to pick it up.
Pick the platform you're building on
Magento and Adobe Commerce
Version upgrades, Hyvä frontends, custom modules.
AI-generatedShopify and Shopify Plus
Themes, apps and checkout work.
AI-generatedWooCommerce
Stores that run on WordPress.
AI-generatedCMS and headless
When the website is more than the shop: Strapi, WordPress, Drupal.
Beyond the platforms
Bespoke builds
APIs, internal tools and anything that fits no platform.
Freelance PHP and Laravel developer
PHP is where my career in building started and it is still most of the work. Laravel for web applications, admin systems and APIs; Symfony where a project already runs on it; and the PHP inside Magento and WooCommerce, which is its own discipline. I also connect Laravel applications to the tools around them, Klaviyo and Mailchimp being the common ones.
Laravel upgrades and support dates
Published by LaravelMajor versions cannot be skipped. An application on Laravel 10 goes to 11, then 12, then 13, and each step can surface a package that has not kept up. Automated tools handle much of the framework's own changes; the time goes on your dependencies and your own code. I quote an upgrade after reading the dependency list, since that is where the unknowns live.
18
Months of bug fixes Laravel publishes for every major version.
Source · laravel.com/docs/releases
2
Years of security fixes. After that, a newly found vulnerability in your version stays unfixed.
Source · laravel.com/docs/releases
2027
Laravel 12 stops receiving security fixes on 24 February 2027.
Source · laravel.com/docs/releases
8.3
Laravel 13, released in March 2026, needs PHP 8.3 or newer, so an upgrade can mean a server change as well as a code change.
Source · laravel.com/docs/releases
Freelance Django developer
On the Python side I build with Django, Django REST FrameworkDRFAn add-on for Django that turns an application's data into an API that other systems, stores and apps can call. and FastAPIPythonA Python framework for building APIs, used where a product is mostly an API rather than a website.. Django earns its place when a business needs a data-heavy application with a proper admin: back-office systems, customer portals, reporting, and APIs that other systems call. Its Django adminBuilt inScreens Django generates from the data model, so staff can find and edit records without a custom interface being built first. gives staff a working interface to the data from day one, which is often most of what an internal tool needs.
Most searches for a Django freelancer end on a marketplace listing, where you choose from profiles and hope the one you pick can also design the system. Hiring me directly means the data model, the API and the deployment are decided by the same person who writes them, and you talk to that person throughout.
Typical Django work: a new application from scratch, an older Django project brought up to a supported release, an API added so a store or mobile app can use data that is currently locked in a spreadsheet, or Klaviyo wired into a Django app so emails follow what customers actually do.
Point at or tab to an underlined term for a plain-English definition.
Solution design
SaaS solution design, before a line of code
Most SaaS products that stall do so because of decisions nobody made on purpose.
- Architecture outline
- Drawn
- Data model and first-release feature list
- Settled
- Build plan with a price for the build
- Delivered
Solution design is the step between an idea and a build. It settles the questions that are cheap to answer on paper and expensive to change later:
- Accounts and tenants. How customers, their teams and their data are kept apart.
- Sign-in and permissions. Who can see and change what, including your own staff.
- Billing. Plans, trials, upgrades and what happens when a payment fails.
- The data model. What the product stores and how it relates, written down before tables exist.
- Integrations. Which outside systems it must talk to on day one, and which can wait.
- Hosting and running costs. Where it lives and roughly what that costs as usage grows.
- The first version. What is in it, what is deliberately left out, and why.
You receive the design as documents you keep: an architecture outline, the data model, a feature list for the first release and a build plan with a price for the build. You can take that to any developer. If you want me to build it, the design becomes the scope.
For web products built on Next.js I usually recommend hosting on Vercel, which keeps deployment simple for a small team. The backend follows the product: Laravel or Django for most, FastAPI where the product is mostly an API.
This overlaps with technical leadership. If the business needs someone senior making these calls on an ongoing basis rather than once, that is a fractional or interim CTO arrangement. Fractional and interim CTO
How builds are quoted
A price for the thing, agreed before it starts
AI-generatedStart with a call.
Thirty minutes, free. Bring the idea, the existing codebase or the problem.
AI-generatedScope in writing.
What will be delivered, what will not, and what counts as finished.
AI-generatedA price for your project.
Set on the scope and the value it brings, not a day rate multiplied by a guess.
AI-generatedOn-site time priced in.
I’m based in North Wales and mostly work remotely; if the job needs visits, the travel appears in the quote.
AI-generatedUnsure where the problem is?
An existing ecommerce site can start with a health check from £500 instead.
The health check
Work you can inspect
Open source you can read before you hire
Client names stay private, so here is code that doesn’t:
AI-generatedkeelOpen source
An open-source command-line studio that sets up a web project with its framework, services, tests and deployment wired together. Its recipes cover Laravel, Magento, WooCommerce, Django, FastAPI and Next.js.
AI-generatedsonarShipped
Checks a site the way ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI fetch it.
Who owns the code?
You do.
It lives in repositories you control, from the first commit.
How much does a freelance PHP developer cost in the UK?
Freelance rates vary widely, and an hourly figure tells you little until you know how many hours a job takes. Every project is priced on its own, on its scope and the value it brings.
Should I hire a freelancer or an agency for a Laravel or Django build?
A freelancer suits a product that one senior person can design and build. An agency suits a job that needs designers, several developers and a project manager in parallel.
What happens after launch?
The same person who built it fixes it and adds to it.
Can you take over from another developer?
Yes. The first step is reading what exists and telling you honestly what state it is in.
Stalled build rescueDo I have to use you for the build after a SaaS solution design?
No. The design is yours to take to any developer or team.