Independent software consultancy
We build the software your business runs on, straight forward.
Codebox designs, builds and runs web applications, cloud systems and AI features for businesses that need software to work first time and keep working. We have done this since 2012, for clients from energy and healthcare to HR, media and legaltech. No buzzwords, no bloat, just working software.
Services
What we do
From a first conversation to a system in production, and on into support. This is what we cover.
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01
Web applications
Browser-based applications your staff and customers use every day. Fast, secure, and built to be maintained for years rather than rewritten in two. From a single internal tool to a full SaaS product with sign-up, billing and admin, we build the whole thing, not just the visible part.
Consumer products with subscriptions, shareable reports and AI-personalised results.
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02
Cloud & AWS
Serverless where it saves money, containers where it saves effort. We choose the boring option and explain why. Moving an existing system to the cloud, or building a new one that was cloud-native from the start. Either way, no surprises on the bill.
Infrastructure you can rebuild from a repository in an afternoon, with alarms that email you before your customers do.
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03
APIs & integration
Clean, documented APIs for your own apps and for the systems you have to talk to: payments, identity, HR, email, third-party data. Each one is a solved problem when it is done carefully, and a long weekend when it is not.
Payment, identity and AI providers integrated into production systems.
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04
Data & hosting
PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQL Server, designed and tuned properly, backed up daily, and hosted on infrastructure we manage so you do not have to. Data is the part of your business that outlives every app built on it. We treat it that way.
Daily automated backups with retention and restore testing.
Reporting against formal standards such as ISO 9001 competence requirements.
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05
Consultancy
Not sure what to build, or whether to build at all? A few days with us gives you a clear plan, a realistic estimate and an honest opinion. Short, fixed-scope engagements: a discovery week, a roadmap, a proof of concept. You keep everything we produce whether or not you go on to build with us.
Discovery, roadmaps and proofs of concept, fixed scope and fixed price.
Fractional technical leadership for companies that need senior engineering judgement but not a full-time CTO.
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06
Support
Software that is still being looked after five years later. Most of ours is. Maintenance agreements, response times you can hold us to, and a roadmap for the improvements that are worth making.
Formal release procedures with pre- and post-release backups.
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07
AI features
AI features that earn their place: generating structured documents, personalising results, drafting assessments. Streamed to the user, tested like any other code, and priced per call so you know the cost.
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08
Legacy modernisation
Old .NET Framework, Web Forms, classic ASP, VB. We have maintained them all and moved them forward without stopping the business.
A bespoke build and deployment pipeline for a legacy platform at a global security company, built so releases went from days to minutes.
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09
Product development
Taking a product from idea to paying customers: sign-up, billing, admin, email, reporting, the lot.
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10
Mobile apps
React Native apps for iOS and Android that share code with your web front end and talk to the same APIs.
GPS activity tracking, video calling, real-time chat. Shipped to the app stores.
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11
Identity & security
Single sign-on with Azure AD, SAML and AWS Cognito, breached-password checks, encrypted secrets, and least-privilege access as the default.
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12
Documents & reporting
PDF reports from Word templates, Excel import and export, dashboards and audit history. The unglamorous features every business system actually needs.
About
Fourteen years of building software that works
Codebox was set up in 2012 by a software engineer who had already spent fourteen years building systems for shipping companies, training providers and energy firms, and who wanted to keep doing that work directly, without layers in between. That is still the idea. We take on a small number of projects, we take them seriously, and we stay with them.
We have since built software for healthcare, HR and talent, media, online betting, pharmaceutical marketing and the legal sector. If there is a thread, it is this: businesses whose software has to be right, working with people who would rather explain a trade-off than hide it.
From oil and gas to legaltech, with healthcare, HR, media and shipping in between.
- Est.
- 2012
- Based
- Liverpool
- Experience
- 25+ years
How we work
Discover, prove, build, improve
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Discover
A short, fixed-price engagement to understand the problem and sketch the answer. Most problems are not technical, so we spend the first days finding out what the real one is. We listen more than we talk: the best designs come from the people who live with the problem.
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Prove
A proof of concept where the risk justifies it. Cheap to throw away, cheaper than being wrong. Then a clear scope, a realistic estimate and an honest view of the risks. If the right answer is to buy something off the shelf, we will say so.
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Build
The full system, in releases, with tests and pipelines from the start. Short cycles, working software you can click on early, and a running conversation rather than a reveal at the end. Senior engineers doing the work, not supervising it: the person you planned with is the person writing the code.
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Improve
Measured, prioritised change after launch, because the first version is never the last. Fixes, upgrades and new features, prioritised together each month. No ticket queue you shout into.
Contact
Got a problem software could solve?
A short message is enough. We will reply within a working day, and the first conversation is free and without obligation.
