The application that built your business is now the thing slowing it down.
Legacy software that's slow, unmaintainable, or built on a stack that no one wants to hire for is a growing liability. A modern rebuild on Next.js, TypeScript, Postgres, and Vercel produces an application that's faster, more maintainable, and built by developers who are available. Fixed scope, fixed price.
Your business runs on a legacy application — old framework, outdated dependencies, or a codebase no one understands — and it's preventing the product improvements and operational scaling the business needs.
Legacy application debt compounds over time. The PHP application built in 2012 worked for the business it was built for. By 2024, it runs on a server that no one knows how to update, uses dependencies that haven't been maintained in 6 years, has no test coverage, and is the only thing between the business and its customers — but no developer who interviews for the team wants to work on it.
The rebuild decision triggers are: developer hiring failures (qualified developers decline the role specifically because of the tech stack); feature velocity collapse (adding a feature that would take 2 weeks on a modern stack takes 8 weeks on the legacy application because every change requires understanding the accumulated workarounds); performance degradation that can't be addressed without architectural changes that the legacy code doesn't support; and security vulnerabilities in unmaintained dependencies that can't be patched without breaking the application.
The rebuild approach matters as much as the rebuild decision. A "big bang" rebuild that tries to deliver a complete replacement on a deadline is the highest-risk approach — it requires maintaining the legacy application and the new one in parallel, the scope tends to grow as the rebuild team discovers undocumented features in the old system, and the cutover risk is concentrated at a single point. A strangler fig approach (replace the legacy system incrementally, one feature area at a time, routing traffic to the new system as each area is rebuilt) de-risks the rebuild by distributing the cutover risk across many smaller migrations.
A modern rebuild of the legacy application — same functionality, modern stack, clean architecture — ready for the feature additions and team growth the legacy codebase was preventing.
Architecture assessment and specification
The legacy application is reviewed to document the data model, the feature set (including the undocumented features that live only in the behaviour of the current system), and the integration points. The specification for the replacement is derived from the documented behaviour of the legacy system — not from a wishlist, but from what the legacy system actually does.
Modern stack rebuild
Next.js for the application framework, TypeScript with strict mode, Postgres for the database (with Drizzle ORM for type-safe queries), Clerk for authentication (replacing whatever auth the legacy system has), Stripe for payments if applicable. The modern stack that developers want to work on and that the business will be able to hire for.
Data migration
The legacy database is migrated to the new schema — data transformation, validation, and the migration scripts that move production data to the new system cleanly. The migration is tested against a copy of the production data before the cutover.
Performance and security baseline
Core Web Vitals optimised in the new application. Security posture: parameterised queries (SQL injection prevention), server-side session validation, secure headers, dependency vulnerability scanning. The baseline that the legacy application couldn't provide.
Cutover plan
A defined cutover strategy — either big bang (legacy off, new on) for simpler applications, or strangler fig (incremental feature migration) for complex applications where the risk of a single cutover event is too high. The cutover includes a rollback plan.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
A modern rebuild of the legacy application — same functionality, modern stack, clean architecture — ready for the feature additions and team growth the legacy codebase was preventing.
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Legacy rebuild scope is fully definable from the existing system. The legacy system's behaviour is the specification. Fixed price is the right model.
Related engagements.
The application works. The codebase is holding the business back. Here's how to modernize it without a big-bang rewrite.
Read more02You hired an offshore agency. The code doesn't work, the team is unresponsive, and you've spent $40k.
Read more03The app your junior developer built worked at the time. Now it's holding your business back.
Read moreQuestions, answered.
The architecture assessment phase is specifically designed to find these. Reviewing the legacy code, the database schema, and (if available) the users of the system identifies the feature surface area. Any features discovered after the specification is approved are change orders.
Not always. If the legacy system is stable, the business is not growing in ways that require product changes, and the operational cost of maintenance is acceptable, maintaining it is a valid choice. The rebuild decision is warranted when the cost of maintaining the legacy system (in developer time, performance problems, security risk, and hiring difficulty) exceeds the cost of the rebuild plus the new system's ongoing costs.
The cutover plan is a risk-mitigation exercise. For systems with a clean data model and limited integration surface, a controlled big bang cutover (scheduled maintenance window, legacy off, new system on, legacy accessible in read-only mode for 72 hours as a fallback) works well. For systems with complex integration dependencies or very high availability requirements, the strangler fig approach distributes the cutover risk.
Smaller applications (25k–50k lines of code equivalent): $25k–$45k. Mid-size applications: $45k–$80k. Large applications with complex data migration: $80k+. Fixed-price based on the scope defined in the architecture assessment.
Smaller applications: 10–14 weeks. Mid-size: 14–24 weeks.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.