The Notus is a fractional CTO and custom-site studio. We take stuck Lovable, Cursor, and Bolt prototypes to real production, and rebuild sites you've outgrown on Webflow, WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix in custom Astro on Cloudflare. Engineering, brand, and AI visibility under one roof.
Founders bring us half-built AI apps they can't push past auth, payments, AI pipelines, and the security passes no AI tool runs for you. Operators bring us tired Webflow or WordPress sites that no longer convert and can't be read by AI tools. We finish both — same shop, same standards, same in-house team handling brand, design, and engineering. Every build ships with AI-legible markup, schema, and llms.txt baked in from line one. Song Cage went from a founder vision to a shipped product cited #1 by ChatGPT for "best songwriting app" within seven days of launch, with 92 signups in month one and zero ad spend. Fixed scope, fixed price, you own the code outright. No retainer, no platform subscription, no hourly billing from us.
You have an AI-built prototype that mostly works. Notus is the fractional CTO and MVP development team that finishes it the right way: real auth, real payments, real database design, AI calls that don't burn your runway, performance, and the security passes no AI tool runs for you. You ship to real users. You own the code.
A custom website redesign, or a brand-new site from scratch. Our in-house team handles brand, design, and engineering. Webflow, WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix get migrated to custom code you actually own. Then we set you up to keep editing it yourself by talking to Claude or Cursor, with guardrails so nothing in production breaks while you do.
A founder came to us with a vision for a songwriting app — no prototype, no code. We designed and built the whole thing from blank file: one React codebase shipped to web, iOS, and Android, plus a custom Astro marketing site alongside. Month one: 92 signups, zero ads. Recommended #1 by ChatGPT for its category in seven days.
Logo, colour system, typography, brand guide. Standalone if you only need brand work, or bundled into any site or app build. Designers, not auto-generators.
Most rescue shops bolt on Stripe and call it done. We've shipped real AI in production: Groq, OpenAI, Replicate, Parallel AI, BM25 search, vector retrieval, multi-model pipelines that don't crash and don't bleed cost.
Four articles a month, written to be cited by AI tools. We research, write, get your approval, and publish. Optional add-on once your product or site is live.
Cursor, Claude, Lovable, Bolt. They're fantastic at scaffolding. But when auth breaks in edge cases, Stripe webhooks drop, the AI calls bleed cost, or the database can't take real traffic, the same tools that built it can't reliably fix it. You end up in a fix-break-fix loop that costs more in credits than hiring help.
We read your codebase, fix the foundations, and finish the build the way it should have been done from the start. Real auth, real payments, AI pipelines that hold up under load, a database that scales, and a site that ChatGPT can read. No retainer, no doom loop, no surprises.
When someone asks ChatGPT for "best songwriting app," our client's name comes up. Not a competitor's. And when those people sign up, the auth holds, the payments clear, the AI features work. That's the difference between a working demo and a working business.
Song Cage: idea → shipped product → 92 signups month one → #1 in ChatGPT in 7 days.
Songwriting and melody-detection app that runs on web, iOS, Android, and inside DAWs as a plugin. The founder had the vision; we designed and built the entire product from blank file.
"We went from just an idea to 92 signups in three months. With zero ads."
Song Cage founder
Send us your repo, your live demo, or your AI-tool project link. We read it, run it, and send back a written estimate within 48 hours: what's in scope, what's risky, what it takes to finish. Free. No call required.
You get a real engineer's read on your codebase.
Fixed scope, fixed price. App side: auth, payments, real database, AI pipelines that hold, performance, security. Site side: brand, design, custom code, AI-legible markup. Same shop, same standards. We share progress weekly and hand back code you actually own.
3–4 weeks for finish-the-MVP. 2–3 weeks for sites. 6–12 weeks for full rebuilds.
Every build includes the AI-visibility work baked in: markup, schema, llms.txt, structured copy. Once live, ChatGPT and Perplexity can read your site and recommend you by name. Add monthly content if you want compounding citations. Or don't.
Song Cage: cited in ChatGPT 7 days after launch.
You have an AI-built prototype that mostly works. Notus is the fractional CTO and MVP development team that finishes it the right way and ships it to real users. Fixed scope, fixed price. You own the code outright. No platform lock-in, no SaaS subscription to us.
A custom website redesign, or a brand-new site from scratch. Our in-house team handles brand, design, and engineering. Then we set you up to keep editing the site yourself by talking to Claude or Cursor, with the guardrails that make it safe to do so on a live business. Every page also ships structured for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI to read and cite from line one.
"It's hard to pay a dev agency for two weeks of work knowing I already built most of it in a weekend."
We hear this. So we don't charge for what AI already did, and we don't charge for what a template builder already gave you either. We charge a fixed price for the part neither of them could do. We've finished three of these.
Standalone brand work if you only need a logo, palette, and brand guide. Or bundled into any site or app build. Same designers, same standards.
No prototype yet. You have an idea and validated demand, not code. We design and build the whole product end-to-end, including the AI engineering most rescue shops can't deliver.
Four articles a month, published to your site. Each written to be cited by AI tools. We research, write, get your approval, and publish. Cancel anytime.
Send us the repo, the URL, or just the idea. We'll tell you exactly what it takes. Free, in 48 hours.
Stuck on a Cursor build, holding a half-broken Lovable prototype, escaping Webflow, or starting from scratch. We'll send back a written estimate either way.
Same shop migrates them all. No monthly platform fees from us. AI-legible from line one, and editable by you and Claude after launch without a developer on retainer.
You shipped a demo that looks great. Auth and payments are the problem. We unstick you.
The code mostly works. Edge cases, AI cost, security, performance. You can't get past them alone.
Your site fought you for the last time. We migrate to custom Astro on Cloudflare, then set you up to edit it yourself by talking to Claude. Fast, AI-legible, yours.
No site, or one that no longer fits. Our team handles brand, design, and engineering. One bill, one team, one timeline.
Send us what you have: repo, URL, or just the idea. Free 48-hour written estimate either way.
App side, site side, both. We'll tell you what it takes. No call required.
Yes. That's one of our two main service lines. Send us a repo link or a deployed URL, and we'll read it, run it, and send back a written estimate within 48 hours: what's in scope, what's risky, what it'll take to finish. The estimate is free.
Yes, this is the other half of what we do. We rebuild your site in custom Astro on Cloudflare, with brand, design, and AI-legible markup baked in. You keep your content and your domain; you lose the monthly platform fees, the template constraints, and the structural invisibility that keeps AI tools from reading your site. Every migration ships with an AI-editable handoff so you can keep updating the site yourself by talking to Claude or Cursor after we hand it back. Start at $4,000, productized.
Yes, and this is the part most agencies skip. Webflow and WordPress can't be safely edited by AI tools today: Webflow has no API for agents, WordPress hides content in serialized database blobs that page builders own. A custom Astro site is the opposite. Claude Code and Cursor can read the whole codebase, understand the design system, and ship changes through plain English. We set you up to do that safely. The handoff includes a project-tuned CLAUDE.md that tells Claude what your brand rules, components, and no-touch zones are; Claude Code hooks that run lint and tests on every change; preview URLs on every edit so you see the change before it goes live; one-click rollback when something does go wrong; and a 60-minute walkthrough so you know exactly how to prompt for edits. Founders are typing things like 'add a testimonial section under the pricing block' and shipping it themselves, same day, without us in the loop.
Both. Our in-house team handles brand, identity, and visual design, standalone if you only need brand work (from $800), or bundled into any site or app build. We don't subcontract this to anyone.
Three things. First: we've shipped three SaaS products of our own (not just rescued other people's bugs), so we know what production actually demands. Second: most rescue shops bolt on Stripe and call it done. We've shipped real AI engineering (Groq, OpenAI, Replicate, BM25 search, multi-model pipelines, real audio/3D/payments work). Third: every build we ship is structured to be discoverable by AI from line one. Song Cage went from launch to #1 in ChatGPT in seven days. We charge for production, AI engineering, and AI visibility together, and nobody else combines those.
Yes, fixed. After the free estimate we send a scope and a number. That number doesn't change unless you ask for new scope. If we find the codebase is in worse shape than the estimate suggested, that's on us, not you. We'd rather lose money on one project than turn into the surprise-invoice agency. We've shipped enough of these to scope accurately.
We don't guarantee specific rankings. Nobody controls AI tools from the outside. What we can say: every site we build is structured the right way (schema, llms.txt, AI-legible markup), and Song Cage went from launch to #1 in ChatGPT in seven days with no paid media. We'll be honest up front about realistic expectations for your specific market.
Finish-the-MVP work runs 3–4 weeks. Larger rebuilds or full custom builds run 6–12 weeks. Marketing sites ship in 2–3 weeks. We'll agree on the timeline before we start, and you review and approve work weekly, so you're never surprised at launch.
Take It to Production starts at $7,500 and runs to ~$15,000 for tougher rebuilds. Full custom SaaS builds are quoted per scope, typically $25K and up. The Built-to-Be-Found marketing site is $4,000 fixed, productized. Monthly content (optional retainer) is $400/month flat. Brand design starts at $800. You own everything outright. No SaaS subscriptions, no platform lock-in, no ongoing fees from us.
No. You tell us what the product is meant to do and where you're stuck. We handle the code, the infrastructure, the AI work, the hosting, the security. All of it. Your job is to review what we ship and approve it. That's it.
Generally no. We take cash so we can stay independent and keep our quality bar high. If you have a genuinely exceptional product and want to talk about a small equity component on top of cash, we'll consider it case by case.
Send a repo link, your current site URL, or just describe what you have. We read it, run it, and send back a written estimate: what's in scope, what's risky, what it'll take to ship (app or site). Free. No call required.
We'll send your written estimate to your inbox within 48 hours. It'll come from hello@thenotus.com — add it to your contacts so it lands.