Managed platforms, judged on merit
Acquia, Platform.sh, Pantheon, Laravel Forge, Vercel, Netlify — managed platforms can be exactly right or expensively wrong, and the vendors won't tell you which. We work across all of them and sell none of them, which makes our advice unusually easy to trust.
What we help with
Bill audits
A fixed-price review of what you're paying versus what you're using. Platform bills grow quietly — unused environments, oversized tiers, features nobody switched on — and most audits pay for themselves.
Right-platform reviews
Whether a managed platform beats a server we'd manage — answered honestly per workload. Sometimes Vercel is perfect; sometimes it's a £40 Hetzner box wearing a £400 bill.
Setup & configuration
Platforms configured properly: environments, pipelines, caching and access done right on Acquia, Platform.sh, Forge or Vercel — so you get what the subscription actually promises.
Migrations on — or off
Moving onto a platform that fits, or off one that stopped fitting, with the same rehearsed-cutover discipline as our hosting migrations.
Contract-renewal support
Independent technical input before you re-sign: what you actually use, what alternatives cost, and where the negotiating room is.
Ongoing platform management
We run the platform alongside your care plan — updates, deploys and configuration handled by the same team that maintains the code on it.
Common questions
Are managed platforms worth the premium?
When their opinionated workflow genuinely fits your team and traffic — often yes. When you're paying enterprise rates for a site a tuned VPS would serve identically — no. The audit answers it with your numbers, not our opinion.
You also sell managed hosting. Isn't this advice conflicted?
Less than the platform vendor's is — we make our margin on engineering either way, so we genuinely don't mind where your site lives. The recommendation comes with its reasoning in writing; judge it on that.
What does consulting cost?
Bill and platform audits are fixed-price from £500, credited against any follow-on work. Migrations and setup are quoted per project.
What are you paying, and for what?
Send the platform name and the monthly figure. An engineer will tell you whether it smells right — usually the same day.
Get an independent view