Web design
Web design builds your website — pages, layout, content, the things a visitor sees. More on web design
Custom Software & Web Development in Miami
Lighthouse Internet Media designs and develops secure, scalable websites, web applications and custom software for Miami businesses. We create solutions around your operational needs—from WordPress development and e-commerce platforms to API integrations, business portals and workflow automation.
Every project is built for performance, usability and long-term growth, with clean development practices and technology your team can confidently manage.
Lighthouse builds custom web applications, integrations and automation for businesses across Miami and South Florida. Two developers do the work — Amir Khan, Chief Web Programmer, and Julian Stark, Chief Web Developer — both in our Coral Gables office. No offshore subcontracting, and no account manager between you and the person writing the code.
How this differs from our web design service
This page
This page is for everything a website alone will not do: connecting systems that do not talk to each other, replacing a manual process with software, building an application rather than a site, or adding functionality no plugin provides.
If you are unsure which you need, that is a normal place to start. The first call sorts it out and costs nothing.
What We Build
Most of what we build falls into three shapes: an application that replaces a spreadsheet or a manual process, an integration that makes two existing systems exchange data, or custom functionality on a site where the off-the-shelf option does not fit. The rest is maintenance and support on things we or someone else built earlier.
WordPress development
Fullstack web applications
Python development
AI and machine learning integration
Custom software solutions
Code you own
The repository is yours, in your organisation’s account, from the first commit. You get admin access and the deployment credentials at handover.
Someone answers
Support requests acknowledged within N business hours. Critical issues — a site down or payments failing — worked on the same day. Named person, not a ticket queue.
Documented
Every build ships with setup instructions, environment notes and a plain-language description of what does what — so another developer can pick it up. We assume you might one day want to.
Our Development Expertise
WordPress Development
Custom themes built from scratch rather than bought and modified, custom post types and fields where content needs structure, and plugin development when the functionality does not exist. We also inherit other people’s WordPress builds — about half our development work is untangling a site somebody else assembled from fourteen plugins.
Web Applications
Front end through to database, for the jobs a website does not cover: client portals, booking and scheduling systems, quoting tools, internal dashboards, inventory tracking. Built where the spreadsheet has run out of room.
Systems Integration & APIs
Making the tools you already pay for exchange data — CRM, accounting, scheduling, payment processing, inventory. Usually the highest-return work we do, because the alternative is somebody retyping the same information into a second system every day.
Automation
Python-based automation for the recurring manual tasks: report generation, data cleaning and transfer, scheduled jobs, scraping and processing feeds. Start with whatever your team does every Monday morning.
AI Integration
Adding AI capability to something you already run — document processing, classification, retrieval over your own content, chatbots grounded in your data. Chatbots and AI consulting have their own page: AI Consulting. This card is the engineering side.
Our stack
Front endHTML, CSS, JavaScript; frameworks: React / Vue / vanilla; build tooling
Back endPHP version, Python version, Node; frameworks: Laravel / Django / Flask
CMSWordPress, and which page builders you will and will not work in
DatabasesMySQL, PostgreSQL, whatever else
Hosting & deploymentwhere you host, how you deploy, staging environment
Version controlGit, GitHub or GitLab, branching approach
Testingwhat you actually test and how
Third-party services you integrate regularlyStripe, Twilio, QuickBooks, HubSpot, name the real ones
One or two technology positions you actually hold and can defend. For example: which page builders you refuse to work in and why; when you use WordPress versus building from scratch; why you avoid a particular plugin category. A named preference with a reason behind it tells a technical buyer more than any list of logos.
How a project runs
Scope
1–2 weeks. We write down what is being built, in language you can check, before anyone estimates anything. Most project failures are scope failures.
Build
In N-week stages, with something you can look at and use at the end of each one. No three-month silence followed by a reveal.
Test
What you actually test: browsers, devices, load, security basics.
Deploy & hand over
Staging first, then production. You receive repo access, deployment credentials, the documentation and a walkthrough recording.
After
N days of bug fixes at no charge, then optional maintenance. Bugs are what we got wrong; new requirements are new work, and we will say which is which.
What we don’t build
Native mobile apps.
We build responsive web applications that work on a phone. If you need something in the App Store, we will refer you.
Enterprise ERP or accounting systems.
Wrong scale for a twelve-person team, and integrating with the one you have is usually the better answer anyway.
Rescues of code we cannot see.
If a previous developer holds the repository and will not release it, that has to be resolved before we can quote. We will tell you honestly whether a rebuild is cheaper than a recovery — sometimes it is.
Fixed-price work on an undefined scope.
We will not quote a number against a description that is still changing. It ends badly for both of us. Scope first, as a paid discovery if it is large.
Who writes the code
Amir Khan — Chief Web Programmer
Amir writes the code behind Lighthouse builds — WordPress development, custom functionality, and the performance work that gets a site through Core Web Vitals. If your site has a technical problem, Amir is who fixes it.
Julian Stark — Chief Web Developer
Julian handles the harder builds: integrations with the systems a client already runs, custom functionality that does not come out of a plugin, and the architecture decisions that determine whether a site is still maintainable in three years.
How we price development work
Two models, depending on what is being built.
Fixed price
For work with a settled scope — the 1–2 week scoping stage produces the specification, then the price is fixed against it. Changes are quoted separately rather than absorbed silently.
Monthly retainer
For ongoing development, maintenance and a block of hours. Suits businesses with a live application that needs continuous work.
We do not bill hourly against an open-ended brief. Either way the number comes after a 30-minute call, at no charge.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns the code you write?
You do — the repository, the code and the license, from the first commit. The repo sits in your organisation’s account and you get admin access and deployment credentials at handover. We keep access only for as long as we are working on it.
Can you take over a project another developer started?
Usually yes, provided we can see the code. The first step is a paid review of what exists — and occasionally the honest answer is that rebuilding is cheaper than untangling. If a previous developer holds the repository and will not release it, that has to be resolved before anything else.
How much does custom development cost?
Fixed price for settled scope, monthly retainer for ongoing work. The number comes out of the scoping stage rather than off a rate card, because the same feature can differ by a factor of five depending on what it has to connect to. Free 30-minute call to start.
What technology do you build with?
See the stack section — repeat the two or three headline items here in one sentence. We choose per project and we will tell you why, including when the answer is that you do not need custom software at all.
What happens if something breaks after launch?
N days of bug fixes at no charge after handover, then optional maintenance. We distinguish between bugs — something we got wrong — and new requirements, and we say which is which rather than quietly billing for both.
Do you build mobile apps?
We build responsive web applications that work well on a phone. For a native App Store or Play Store app we refer you to someone who does that full time.
How long does a custom project take?
Scoping is 1–2 weeks. A small integration might be 2–3 weeks after that; a full application runs to months. The scoping stage is what produces a real timeline — anyone giving you one before that is guessing.
Will I be able to change it myself later?
Depends what “it” is, and we will be straight about that in scoping. Content changes: yes, always. Functionality: some things are safely editable and some are not, and we will tell you which before we build rather than after.
Need traffic to go with the build? We also handle SEO and Google Ads — quoted separately.
Start with a scoping call
Tell us what you are trying to do — not how you think it should be built. Thirty minutes, no charge, and you will leave knowing whether custom development is the right answer, roughly what it would involve, and whether we are the right people for it. Sometimes the answer is that an off-the-shelf tool already does it, and that is a useful call too.