A business system is not finished on launch day. Software it depends on gets updated, the business changes, and people find better ways of working. The question is not whether it will need looking after, but whether you will have a choice about who does it.
The short answer. With Inferred you own the source code and documentation, and get a proper handover. Support is optional: Care from £195 a month covers monitoring, updates, tested backups and small fixes. Larger changes are scoped and priced as work. Each system is documented so that another competent engineer could support it, and if you stop paying us, it keeps working.
The real risk is dependence
Every system needs someone to look after it. The risk is being unable to choose who. That happens when the supplier owns the code, hosts the system, holds the only admin access and is the only one who understands how it works.
Before you commission anything, from anyone, ask:
- Who owns the source code?
- Where does it run, and who holds the admin access and backups?
- What happens if we stop paying for support?
- Is it documented well enough for another developer to pick up?
- How are changes priced after launch?
The answers matter more than the size of the supplier.
What you receive at handover
With us, the delivered system, its source code and its documentation are yours. You decide where it runs: on your own server, or on hosting we manage from £45 a month, on your own instance that is never shared with another customer.
The documentation is there so another competent engineer could take it on. We would rather keep your business because the work is good than because leaving is difficult.
What ongoing support covers
Support is optional. Our Care runs on a rolling month and covers four things:
- monitoring, so problems are noticed;
- updates to the software the system depends on;
- backups that are tested, not just scheduled;
- small fixes.
New features and larger changes are not hidden inside a support fee. They are scoped and priced as work, so you decide whether each one is worth doing.
Cancel Care and the system keeps working. Care pays for looking after it, not for the right to keep using it.
What this looks like after eighteen years
BEL Signs, a Sussex sign maker, ran its quotes, works orders and job sheets on a system built for them in 2008, every working day for 18 years. It was not hosted or licensed back to them, and there was no fee simply to keep it running.
The business decided when a change was worth making. In 2026 it decided the technology had aged, and asked us to rebuild it. WORMS 2 brought every record across, and BEL owns the code. Read the BEL Signs case study.
A long working life is evidence of continued usefulness, not a promise that another system will last a particular number of years.
Ask us the awkward questions
If you are weighing up a build, send us the five questions above and we will answer them in writing for your project. We reply by the end of the next working day.
About this guide
Prices are Inferred’s published prices in October 2026, excluding VAT. Related reading: what bespoke business software costs and bespoke versus off-the-shelf software.