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Web development agency · Europe

Web Development Agency for Startups and B2B Teams Across Europe

By Obaid Tariq, Founder & Lead Engineer · Published · Last updated

AI Dev Planner is a remote web development agency for Europe, working with startups and B2B teams. We build web applications, SaaS products, MVPs and fast websites on Next.js, React and PostgreSQL. Our team is in Islamabad, Pakistan (UTC+5), and works remotely with European clients: we have no office in the EU, and we say so up front. Our working day overlaps four to five hours with Central European Time, hosting can sit in an EU region in your own cloud account, and the GDPR paperwork is planned before the build, not after it.

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The short version

  • Web applications, SaaS, MVPs, portals and redesigns on Next.js, React, TypeScript and PostgreSQL.
  • Four to five working hours of overlap with CET; three to four with the UK and Ireland.
  • Production data in an EU region, in cloud accounts you own; GDPR roles and transfers planned before the build.
  • Published planning ranges from £25,000–£45,000 for a web app MVP, then fixed two-week sprints.
  • You own the code, repository and deployment setup, with a 60–90 day warranty after launch.

Web development services for European companies

We are a full-stack web development company: one team covers design, front end, back end, database, testing and deployment, so you do not have to coordinate three suppliers. Each service below has its own detail page with deliverables, technology and case studies.

Web application development

Dashboards, booking and operations systems, and customer-facing platforms with accounts, roles and integrations.

Web development services

Next.js development

Our default framework for web apps: App Router, React Server Components, TypeScript and PostgreSQL, plus upgrades and migrations.

Next.js development

React development

Data-heavy interfaces, portals and the component libraries behind them, or extra senior hands on an existing React codebase.

React development

SaaS development

Multi-tenant products with organisation workspaces, subscription billing through Stripe and role-based access.

SaaS development

MVP development

A first launchable version built around the core workflow, so you can put it in front of real users and grow it in phases.

MVP development

Customer portals

Secure self-service portals for customers and partners, with permissions enforced in the database.

Customer portal development

UI/UX design

Interfaces and developer-ready design systems for data-heavy products, designed with accessibility and localisation in mind.

UI/UX design

Custom web application development

Our core work is custom web application development: software that runs in the browser and lets people do work, such as logging in, entering data, booking, paying or managing records. That is different from a marketing website, and it is priced differently, because the cost is driven by user roles, workflows, integrations and compliance rather than by the number of pages.

As a web application development company we usually build on Next.js with the App Router, TypeScript and PostgreSQL, with Stripe for payments. European products add a few requirements we plan from the first sprint: more than one language, locale-aware dates, numbers and currencies, VAT-aware billing where you sell to consumers in several countries, and hosting in an EU region. Retrofitting these later costs more than building them in.

If you need software beyond the browser, such as mobile apps, back-end systems or a dedicated team over several months, see our software development company for Europe page.

Why European startups choose a remote web development agency

For a European startup, the alternative to an agency is usually hiring. Hiring senior web engineers takes time, adds fixed monthly cost before the product has users, and leaves a non-technical founder managing people whose work they cannot easily review. A remote agency trades some of that control for speed and a defined budget. Here is how the trade looks with us, including the parts that are not in our favour.

Where a remote agency helps

  • Senior people from day one. You work directly with founder and lead engineer Obaid Tariq and the engineers who write the code, in a dedicated Slack channel, rather than through an account manager.
  • A budget you can plan. We publish our planning ranges and price the build as fixed two-week sprints against a written scope, so you know the cost before you commit, and you can stop after any milestone.
  • Speed to a first version. A focused SaaS MVP takes 8–12 weeks from agreed scope to production release, which is often less time than it takes to hire the first engineer.
  • No lock-in. The code, repository and accounts are yours, and handover is documented, so you can bring development in-house once the product proves itself.

Where it does not, and when we are the wrong choice

  • Overlap is partial. Four to five shared hours with CET is enough for daily decisions, not for working side by side all day.
  • Data protection needs paperwork. Because our team sits outside the EEA, any access to personal data needs a transfer safeguard as well as a processor contract.
  • We are a small, founder-led studio. If you need many engineers next week, a supplier with an EU establishment, or a guarantee that no one outside the EEA can ever reach your data, a larger or EU-based firm will suit you better.

We use the word “affordable” carefully. Our prices are transparent rather than cheap: you see the ranges before the first call, and the written scope lists what is excluded as well as what is included.

Remote, nearshore or offshore: how we compare

European buyers usually choose between three options: hiring in-house in the EU, a nearshore agency in a lower-cost EU country such as Poland, Romania or Portugal, or an offshore team like ours. None is right for every product. This is how they differ on the points that decide most projects.

In-house EU team, nearshore agency and AI Dev Planner compared
In-house team in the EUNearshore agency (Poland, Romania, Portugal)AI Dev Planner (offshore, Islamabad)
What you pay forSalaries, employer social costs, recruitment and management time, every month whether or not there is workAgency day rates or sprint prices, set by each firm and countryPublished planning ranges, then fixed two-week sprint costs against a written scope
Overlap with CETThe full working dayThe full or nearly full day: Poland is on CET, Romania an hour ahead, Portugal an hour behindFour hours in European winter, five in summer, in the European morning
GDPR set-upEmployees, so no processor contract or international transferAn Article 28 data processing agreement; no third-country transfer while the agency stays inside the EEAAn Article 28 data processing agreement plus a transfer safeguard, usually the SCCs, because Pakistan has no adequacy decision
Code ownershipThe employer exercises the economic rights in programs employees write in the course of their dutiesNeeds an express assignment or licence in the contractNeeds an express assignment too; our terms assign bespoke code to you once the contractual milestones are met
Time to startAs long as recruitment takesDepends on the firm's availabilityAfter a scoping call and an agreed written scope

The ownership row follows the Software Directive, under which the employer exercises the economic rights in programs created by employees in the execution of their duties (Directive 2009/24/EC, Article 2, EUR-Lex, accessed 17 October 2026). Outside companies are not your employees, so the contract has to do that job. For a wider comparison including freelancers, see agency vs freelancer vs in-house.

Working hours: CET, GMT and EET overlap

Islamabad is on UTC+5 all year and does not change its clocks, so the gap with Europe is an hour smaller in the European summer. In the table, the first value applies in European winter and the second in summer. The overlap assumes both sides keep a 09:00 to 17:00 local day; it is arithmetic for planning, not a promise of availability.

Time difference and working-day overlap between Islamabad and European time zones
RegionOffset (winter / summer)Islamabad is ahead byOverlap of a 09:00–17:00 day
Western Europe (Dublin, Lisbon, London)UTC+0 / UTC+15 h / 4 h3 h / 4 h
Central Europe (Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Warsaw)CET UTC+1 / CEST UTC+24 h / 3 h4 h / 5 h
Eastern Europe (Helsinki, Athens, Bucharest)EET UTC+2 / EEST UTC+33 h / 2 h5 h / 6 h

In practice the shared hours fall in the European morning: 09:00 CET is 13:00 in Islamabad in winter. We put the stand-up, planning and design reviews there, and use the European afternoon for review and feedback that the team picks up the next morning. Every two weeks you also get a recorded walkthrough of working software on staging.

The same table, with the EU summer-time rules and sources, is in our guide to offshore software development for EU companies.

GDPR, data processing agreements and EU hosting

If a development team processes personal data on your behalf, for example by accessing a production database or running a data migration, it acts as your processor. Three things then matter:

  • A data processing agreement (DPA). Article 28 of the GDPR requires a contract with any processor, inside or outside the EU, covering what is processed, on whose instructions, with what security and which sub-processors (GDPR on EUR-Lex).
  • A transfer safeguard. Pakistan is not on the European Commission’s list of countries with an adequacy decision (European Commission), so a transfer needs appropriate safeguards under Article 46, most commonly the Standard Contractual Clauses, usually Module Two, controller to processor.
  • EU hosting in your own account. Production can run in an EU region of a cloud account your company owns, with the repository in your own GitHub or GitLab organisation. Hosting in the EU reduces exposure, but remote access from outside the EEA can still be a transfer, so it does not remove the paperwork.

The practical answer is to design the project so the team rarely needs real personal data: build and test on synthetic or anonymised data, keep production access to a named person during incidents, and use least-privilege, logged, time-limited credentials. Ask any supplier outside the EEA, including us, for the Article 28 terms and the transfer safeguard before the build starts.

General information, not legal advice. The full checklist, including which SCC module applies and how to record the assessment, is in our GDPR, SCC and working-hours details for EU buyers.

European Accessibility Act and WCAG 2.1 AA

The European Accessibility Act covers products and services including e-commerce and consumer banking, and Member States have applied its requirements since 28 June 2025 (Directive (EU) 2019/882, EUR-Lex, accessed 17 October 2026). The Directive exempts microenterprises providing services, but if your product sells to consumers in the EU, assume it is in scope until your adviser says otherwise.

In practice, teams build web interfaces to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Where a project requires it, that is what we design and test against, as we did for the older user group in our patient portal case study. It means:

  • semantic HTML, so screen readers can navigate headings, landmarks, forms and tables;
  • full keyboard access with visible focus, including menus, dialogs and custom components;
  • sufficient colour contrast, and no information carried by colour alone;
  • clear labels and error messages on every form, including checkout and sign-up;
  • accessibility in each sprint’s acceptance criteria, not in a final audit.

We do not issue accessibility certificates or claim certification. If you need a formal conformance audit or an accessibility statement, an independent auditor should review the finished product; we fix what they find.

What a web project costs in Europe

There is no honest fixed price for a web application before it has been scoped, but there are honest planning ranges, and we publish ours. After discovery you get a written estimate with fixed two-week sprint costs and the exclusions listed. That is what we mean by transparent pricing.

AI Dev Planner published planning ranges by product type
Product typePublished rangeTimeline
SaaS or web app MVP£25,000–£45,0008–12 weeks for a focused SaaS MVP; 12–16 weeks for a standard web-app MVP
Focused B2B SaaS MVP$25,000–$65,0008–12 weeks
Internal tools£40,000–£80,000+Agreed after discovery
Customer portals£60,000–£120,000+Agreed after discovery

GBP ranges from our custom web application cost guide; the USD range from our SaaS development cost guide. A “+” means the figure can be exceeded. Hosting, third-party licences and maintenance are separate.

Our bands are set in pounds sterling. For an indicative range for your own product in euros, use the free MVP cost calculator, which converts the GBP figures at European Central Bank reference rates. For brochure websites we do not publish a fixed price, because the scope varies too much; see how much a website costs for market prices.

Website redesign and replatforming

Many European companies come to us with a site that has outgrown its platform: slow pages, plugins nobody dares to update, or a marketing site and a product that no longer fit together. Our website redesign work usually means moving to Next.js, and starts with what to keep: URLs and content that bring in search traffic, redirects for anything that moves, and tracking that still works on day one.

A redesign is not always the answer. Our guide on when to redesign your website covers the signs that a refresh is enough, and WordPress vs Next.js explains where each platform fits, including when staying on WordPress is the better choice.

Ecommerce and headless commerce

For ecommerce website development in Europe we build headless: decoupled catalogue and transaction APIs that handle bursts of orders without slowing the storefront, behind a fast Next.js front end, with payments through Stripe. It suits shops with unusual pricing or ordering rules, B2B catalogues with customer-specific prices, or stores that must sync with an ERP or warehouse system.

Selling across Europe adds requirements to plan early: prices and VAT shown correctly per country, several languages and currencies, consent for cookies and marketing, and the European Accessibility Act, which covers e-commerce services. For a standard shop with a normal catalogue, a hosted ecommerce platform is usually cheaper to run, and we will say so. More on the APIs is on our web development services page.

Our process

Every project follows the same five steps, whether you are in Berlin, Dublin or Madrid. The aim is that you always know what has been agreed, what has been built and what comes next. More detail is on how we work.

  1. 01

    Discovery and written scope

    We map your workflows, data model, authentication and integrations, then turn them into a written scope with an estimate and a list of exclusions. Changes later are measured against this document.

  2. 02

    Two-week sprints on staging

    We build in fixed two-week sprints and deploy to a staging environment you can click through. Every two weeks you get a video walkthrough of the working software, not a status slide.

  3. 03

    Testing before launch

    Automated tests and load tests check how the application behaves under expected and peak traffic before it goes live.

  4. 04

    Launch, handover and warranty

    You receive setup and deployment documentation, environment configuration and a walkthrough. A 60–90 day warranty after launch covers defects in what we delivered.

  5. 05

    Optional ongoing support

    A maintenance retainer is scoped separately and can cover monitoring, security patches, dependency upgrades and performance work. You can equally support the product in-house.

Case studies

Client names and figures are anonymised for confidentiality. Ask for an architecture walk-through on a call, where the engineers who did the work explain the decisions they made.

Countries we work with

Europe is not one market. Time zones, languages and, for the UK, data protection rules differ by country, and we plan for the ones that apply to you. UK businesses have their own page: web development agency for UK businesses, covering GBP pricing, UK time zones and UK GDPR.

  • United Kingdom

    London is the usual hub. UK GDPR and the ICO's international transfer rules rather than the EU SCCs; GMT/BST overlap of three to four hours.

    Working with us from the UK

  • Germany

    Berlin, Munich and Hamburg are the usual hubs. CET, so four to five working hours overlap. Plan German as a launch language if your customers expect it.

  • Netherlands

    Amsterdam is the usual hub. CET, with the same overlap as Germany. Dutch and English interfaces are both common.

  • France

    Paris is the usual hub. CET. Products for French customers usually need French at launch, not as a later translation.

  • Spain

    Madrid and Barcelona are the usual hubs. CET on the mainland; the Canary Islands are an hour behind. Plan Spanish, and Catalan if you need it.

  • Ireland

    Dublin is the usual hub. Western European time (as in the UK), so three to four hours overlap. English-speaking, and inside the EU GDPR.

  • Nordics

    Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki are the usual hubs. Sweden, Denmark and Norway on CET; Finland on EET, with five to six hours of overlap.

  • Poland

    Warsaw is the usual hub. CET, with the same overlap as Germany. Polish interfaces need plural forms handled properly.

FAQs about hiring a web development agency in Europe

Do you work with startups in Europe?

Yes. We work remotely with founders and B2B teams across Europe, from first MVPs to SaaS products adding features. Our published timelines are 8–12 weeks for a focused SaaS MVP and 12–16 weeks for a standard web application MVP, from agreed scope to production release. You work directly with founder and lead engineer Obaid Tariq and the engineers on your project.

Are you a European company?

No. AI Dev Planner's team is based in Islamabad, Pakistan (UTC+5), and serves European clients remotely. We do not have an EU office, EU entity or EU representative, and we would rather you know that before the first call than after it.

Do you build websites for companies in Germany, France, the Netherlands and other European countries?

Yes. As a web development agency for Europe, we work remotely from Islamabad with companies across Europe, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Poland and the Nordics; the countries section on this page names the markets and the language and time-zone points to plan for each. There is no EU office: delivery is remote, with four to five hours of overlap with Central European Time and production hosting available in an EU region.

Can our data stay in the EU?

Yes. Production hosting can be set up in an EU region, in cloud accounts your company owns and controls. Note that remote access to that data from Pakistan can still count as a transfer under the GDPR, so we build and test on synthetic or anonymised data and keep production access to a named person with logging and time-limited credentials.

How many working hours overlap with CET?

Islamabad is four hours ahead of Central European Time in winter and three hours ahead in summer. If both sides keep a 09:00 to 17:00 day, about four hours overlap in winter and five in summer, in the European morning. That covers a daily stand-up and same-day decisions; afternoon feedback is picked up the next morning.

How much does a web application cost?

Our published planning ranges are roughly £25,000–£45,000 for a SaaS or web app MVP, £40,000 to over £80,000 for internal tools and £60,000 to over £120,000 for customer portals; our SaaS cost guide puts a focused B2B SaaS MVP at $25,000–$65,000. The free MVP cost calculator gives an indicative range for your own scope and can show it in euros. Every project is quoted in writing after discovery.

Should we build on Next.js or WordPress?

It depends on who edits the site and what it has to do. For a content-led marketing site that your team edits without a developer, WordPress or a website builder is often the better choice, and we will say so. For a web application with logins, data, workflows and integrations, or a fast site that sits alongside a product, Next.js is our default. Our WordPress vs Next.js guide compares the two.

Who owns the code?

You do. You receive full IP in the bespoke source code, database design and documentation we write for you, with the exact wording in the contract and our terms of service. We recommend the repository, hosting, domain and third-party accounts sit in your company's name from day one. Under EU law the employer rule does not cover outside contractors, so make sure any supplier assigns ownership in writing.

Do you redesign existing websites?

Yes, mainly where a site is moving to Next.js, sits alongside a web application, or has outgrown its current platform. We start by checking what still works, including the URLs and content that bring in search traffic, so a redesign does not lose them. If your site mainly needs new content or a fresh theme, a redesign may not be the best use of budget; our guide on when to redesign covers the signs.

Do you build ecommerce sites?

We build headless commerce: custom catalogue and checkout APIs behind a fast Next.js storefront, with payments through Stripe, for shops whose rules, integrations or traffic do not fit an off-the-shelf platform. For a standard shop with a normal catalogue, a hosted ecommerce platform is usually cheaper to run, and we will tell you if that is the better fit.

Can you work alongside our in-house team?

Yes. We can join your Git workflow, code review standards and sprint cycle and take ownership of a defined workstream, such as a new module, a migration or the front end. We do not place individual developers in your team by the hour; we deliver agreed pieces of work, with the same handover documentation as a full build.

Do you build to WCAG 2.1 AA?

Where the project requires it, yes: we design and test against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, as in our patient portal case study. Accessibility is built into components from the start, with semantic markup, keyboard navigation, focus management and contrast. We do not issue accessibility certificates; if you need a formal audit, an independent auditor should do it.

Sources

  1. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) — Article 28 processor contracts; Article 46 safeguards for transfers.
  2. European Commission: Adequacy decisions — Pakistan is not among the countries with an adequacy decision.
  3. European Commission: Standard contractual clauses — The modernised SCCs adopted on 4 June 2021.
  4. EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act) — Requirements apply from 28 June 2025; services provided by microenterprises are exempt.
  5. EUR-Lex: Directive 2009/24/EC — The employer rule for computer programs created by employees.

All accessed 17 October 2026. General information, not legal advice. AI Dev Planner figures are our own published planning ranges, not quotes; see our disclosure policy.

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