When the package is the wrong shape.
A site that is not Town, Metro, Region, or Coverage. An internal tool. A calculator. A rebuild that has to keep every old URL. Or software other people log into. A call, then a written scope — not a grid.
01 · Custom projects
Work that is not a package and not a named app.
Most of what shops need is a package. Some of it is not. When the current site is part of the problem, the $500 Baseline is still the door: I write down what you have, then we decide what to build.
A rebuild that keeps every URL
Fifteen years of links do not get thrown away for a cleaner template. Every old address still lands somewhere real.
A calculator, a tool, a page that does something
A quote builder like the one on this site. A service-area checker. A form that goes where you need it, not into a CRM you did not ask for.
A portal
Customers see their job. The crew sees the day. Nobody has to call the office to ask.
A site with a shape the packages do not have
A restaurant with three locations. A shop that sells online and also drives to houses. The package is a starting point, not a cage.
02 · Applications
Software more than one company can log into.
Accounts. Each company in its own room, seeing only its own data. A database. Maybe billing. Maybe a phone number that rings into it. This is a different sale from “build me fifty pages,” and it uses a different door: a call, then a scope.
I have built this shape several times — the call-tracking system, the reputation dashboard, the field-walk app’s company layer, the board our own shop is moving to. The Software page shows them. The same craft builds yours, whether it is your own copy of one of those or something net-new.
Sold as a build, then care. The ownership rule is the same as the websites: you should never be trapped in my account.
A written scope
What it does, what it does not, what it costs. Before anything is built. You keep the document either way.
Built in the open
A weekly note: what moved, what did not, what is next. The same reporting the website work gets.
Cared for after
Hosting, updates, the small changes that come up. Priced like site care — a number, not a retainer you cannot decode.
Yours
Your accounts, your domain, your data. If we part ways, you leave with the software, not a login I hold.
Not sure which door?
Most people are sure after one question. If you are not, the answer is the phone, and I do not sell on the first call.
Which door
What do you actually need?
Four doors. Most people are sure after one question.
Call me. I’ll pick up.
(571) 301-5952Matt Long. This is my line — not a form, not a voicemail tree. If I miss you, I call back.