Frequently Asked Questions

Important questions answered

Software Development

The client has the copyright ownership to any source code we write for them. Whoever appoints and commissions us to write and develop the code, is the owner of this. Usual practice is for Circle Software & Design and the client to first sign an NDA and then once appointed, a contract which confirms ownership of the code is with the customer.
Employing your own software developers can work really well, however, finding skilled, available and affordable engineers is a time consuming process. The costs of keeping an in-house software development team is also high, by hiring us, we can get started right away, there’s no additional business costs to consider and with 10+ years Ruby on Rails experience, little training is required.
Absolutely! We offer a 360 service from consulting, prototyping and application development to upgrading, testing, training and maintenance. We take on projects of all sizes so if you’re looking for a company who’s going to keep a watchful eye over your application, we’d happily do this for you.
We favour flexible, reliable open source technologies such as Ruby on Rails for our backend and React & Javascript for our front-end. Our full tech stack list can be found on our website.
We’ve been specialising in cloud solutions and Ruby on Rails applications for 10+ years. Developing multi-tenant, globally recognised SaaS applications that could handle 5 million page requests per day. New features were deployed and released with zero downtime and near perfect 24/7 access and availability. We’ve also built many seamless integrations with leading, recognised brands such as; Mailchimp, Xero & Intercom.
We strongly believe in rigorous testing (conducting both development and acceptance tests), reviewing every line of code developed. We present the application to you at various stages of development to ensure you are happy with the progress and apply any feedback you have for us along the way. We also evaluate the end result with you after a few weeks in a live environment to be certain that all is working as expected, you’re happy and no bugs or errors have surfaced that couldn’t have been foreseen.
The golden question! The honest answer, we’re not so expensive we’d make your eyes water but we’re not super cheap you’d question our quality - we’re somewhere in the middle. We pride ourselves on delivering high quality at affordable prices and happily take on small to large projects. The cost depends on many factors such as; project scope, technological background and requirements and the time spent on this.
We are an exclusively UK based company which means our team is fully located in the UK. We don’t offshore or outsource any of our development work. The software development rates we provide you with in your project proposal are the rates to have our in-house, highly skilled and experienced UK team develop and deliver your project. We like to work in an open and transparent way, priding ourselves on producing high quality, well structured code at affordable prices.

Design Services

Creating a new brand or modernising an existing one involves everything from brand conception and logo design to selecting the fonts, colours and icons. As your brand is your company identity we take the time to get to know you as a business and your core values before getting to work, crafting up a beautiful new brand that represents your offering.
The cost of designing and building a website varies depending on the scope and size of the project. Key considerations include; whether the website is to be bespoke or built via a CMS, the size of the website (how many different templates), integrations and required functionality or customisation. We’ll identify all you need in our scoping session and aim to turnaround a quote for you within a few days from the meeting - no obligation or cost involved.
Our number one priority is that you’re happy with what we deliver. Our scoping sessions and briefing process helps us deliver designs our customers can be proud of. If on the very rare occasion you aren’t happy with what we’ve produced, we’ll revisit the brief with you, ensure we are in agreement and work through any problems so you are fully satisfied at the end of the project.
We run a collaborative process, offering a range of design concepts for you to choose from and then 3 rounds of revisions on your chosen concept. Your revision rounds can be as small or large as you like, we just ask clients to try and group feedback together to ensure we are working as productively and efficiently as possible. Most clients find not all rounds of revisions are needed but it’s good to have the option.
You! Clients always own the completed designs and websites produced. If you appoint us and commission the project, then it’s owned by you. All we ask is permission to display your project in our portfolio on our website.
We have 15 years of design experience so can create pretty much anything but are focussed on offering and specialising in the following core services; logo design & branding, website design & build, user interface design as well as digital and print campaigns (banners, graphics, brochures, social media assets etc). If you are unsure on whether we are the right fit for your project, get in touch today so we can hear more about it.
We have extensive experience building small and large websites on a wide range of different platforms. We’re happy to build and work with your preferred CMS or guide you to the best suited platform for your project. We’ll talk through your website requirements in the scoping and discovery phase and make suggestions on what website platform we feel will work best for you and why.
In your project proposal, we’ll suggest an appropriate length of time post go live to be all hands on deck and offer support and assistance to you, if you need it. If you’re looking for a watchful eye and help with maintaining your website after this point, we can discuss retainer packages with you and decide which one’s best for your business.