A conversation I keep having
More and more, the first thing a business owner says to me is some version of "we've coded an app with Lovable, and now we need to rebuild it into a real thing". Sometimes it is Bolt or Replit instead. The app works well enough to show people, the team likes it, and now someone wants to put real customers or real money through it.
That is a good problem to have. This article covers who a rebuild suits, what it involves, what to bring to the first conversation, and how it is priced.
Who a rebuild suits
A rebuild makes sense when the app has moved past being an experiment. The signs I look for:
- Real people depend on it. Staff use it every day, or customers are about to.
- It holds information that matters. Customer details, prices, payments, health or financial records.
- It needs to connect to other systems. Xero or MYOB, a job system, an online store.
- You need someone to call. When it stops working at 7am on a Monday, somebody has to fix it.
If the app is still an idea you are testing on yourself, keep going with the tool. It is the fastest way to work out what you want. Come and see us when the answer to one of the points above is yes.
What a rebuild involves
Tools like Lovable, Bolt and Replit are built to get an idea on screen quickly. They are not built for the things a business app needs underneath. When our engineers rebuild a vibe coded app, these are the things that change:
- Security. Proper logins and permissions, customer data handled carefully, and we try to break in ourselves before anything goes live.
- Testing. Automated tests that check the app still works every time something changes.
- Hosting. The app runs in your own Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, which we set up, with separate test and live versions.
- Ownership. You own the app, the code and the data. Nothing is locked inside a tool's subscription.
- Support. The same team who built it looks after it.
The good news is that your prototype is a head start. It is the clearest brief I could ask for. Instead of describing what you want, you can show me, and we can point at a screen together and agree how it should work. Some of what you built may carry across. We tell you which parts before we quote.
There is more detail on our vibe coded app rebuild page.
What to bring to the first conversation
You don't need a specification. Bring:
- The app itself, and a login we can look at. A screen share is ideal.
- Who uses it, and for what. Staff, customers, or both, and the two or three jobs it does for them.
- What it needs to connect to. Your accounts package, job system or store.
- What worries you most. Data, reliability, cost or something else. That is often where we start.
How it is priced
You get a fixed quote before each stage starts, so you know the price before any work begins. Small jobs are paid up front. Bigger jobs (about $10,000 + GST and up) are paid half at the start and half on completion. A first working version of the rebuild is usually in front of you in about 2 weeks.
There are no monthly maintenance fees. You get 30 days of free bug fixes after launch, and after that support is $250 + GST an hour, only when you ask for it. Every proposal includes a payback calculation for your business, so you see the numbers before you commit.
See exactly how a project works, step by step, or tell us about your app.