Services
Hire the people who build Upscale.
We've built business software since 2017: our own products, and client systems across East Africa and the Gulf. We take a few engagements at a time so senior people do the work. No handoffs, no bench.
AI automation
Assistants and automations that take repetitive work off your team's plate, wired into the tools you already use.
Good fit
You can point at the task everyone dreads: the chasing, the copying, the retyping between systems.
Every business has work that eats a morning. Chasing overdue invoices. Copying orders from email into the system. Writing the same reply for the tenth time. That's what we automate: not a chatbot bolted onto your website, but automation wired into your email, your spreadsheets and the software you run, with a person approving anything that matters.
We start with one workflow, ship it, count the hours it gives back, then take on the next.
What you get
- A working automation in your live systems, not a demo
- Human approval built in wherever money or customers are involved
- A plain count of the hours saved, so you know it paid off
- Documentation and a handover written for your team
AI inside your systems
Practical AI features added to the software you already run, without a rip-and-replace project.
Good fit
Your system does its job, but it feels a decade behind the tools your team uses at home.
Search that understands ten years of records. Purchase orders read from PDFs instead of retyped. Drafts that start from your data instead of a blank page. Features like these belong inside the software your team already opens every morning, not in a separate tab someone forgets.
We put AI into business systems because we build one.
Upscale runs on the same kind of data as your system: customers, invoices, stock, payments. That's how we know where AI earns its keep in software like this, and where it just adds noise.
What you get
- Features shipped inside the system your team already uses
- AI that respects the same permissions your team already has
- An honest list of what won't work yet, and what to fix so it can
Custom software
Web applications and internal tools designed around how your business actually works.
Good fit
You've outgrown spreadsheets or hit the ceiling of an off-the-shelf tool, and the process you need is genuinely yours.
Off-the-shelf covers the first eighty percent of most businesses. The last twenty is where your margin lives: the pricing rule only you use, the approval chain your auditors expect, the workflow you promised your biggest customer. That's the part we build. It's how this company started in 2017, and we've never stopped.
Because we run our own products, we build for year three, not launch week. Boring, proven parts. Tests and migrations. Code a future team can pick up without archaeology.
What you get
- A system shaped around your process, down to the awkward parts
- Your name on everything: the code, the repos, the cloud accounts
- Working software in your hands early in the build
- Support after launch from the people who wrote it
Systems and payments integration
Your ERP, billing, payments and store connected, so data moves itself and nobody retypes an invoice.
Good fit
Two systems with a person in between. Integration work is small and well scoped, which makes it an easy way to find out how we work.
The most expensive employee in some businesses is the one re-entering data between two systems that refuse to talk. We make them talk: payments that reconcile themselves, invoices that file their own tax copy, orders that reach the warehouse without a printout.
We've built against the payment and tax rails our own customers run on:
- M-Pesa (Daraja)
- KRA eTIMS
- Regional e-invoicing (EFRIS, EBM)
Every connection we ship runs unattended, logs what it does, and raises a hand when something needs a person.
AI readiness audit
A short, fixed-price review of your data, systems and workflows that tells you where AI will actually pay off, and what to fix first.
Most businesses don't need an AI strategy deck. They need someone technical to look at their systems and say: automate this, fix that first, skip this for now. That's the audit. One to three weeks, a price agreed before we start, and a scope that doesn't creep.
If nothing would pay off yet, the report says exactly that. And the plan is yours either way: build it with us, with your own team, or with someone else.
Good fit
You keep being told to do something with AI, and you want an answer grounded in your systems instead of the news.
What you walk away with
- Your workflows mapped, with the repetitive ones ranked by payoff
- A systems and data check: what's ready for AI, what needs fixing first
- A sequenced plan you can hand to any builder, including us
One to three weeks. Fixed scope, fixed price.
Book an auditHow an engagement runs
The same four steps whether the job is a small integration or a full build.
- 1
A first call
You describe the job, we ask questions. If we're not the right fit, we say so on the call and point you to someone who is.
- 2
A scoped proposal
What we'll build, what it costs and what it doesn't cover, in plain words. Fixed price wherever the work allows it.
- 3
A senior-led build
The people from the first call do the building, and you watch the software grow week by week.
- 4
You own everything
Code, infrastructure and accounts in your name from day one. If we ever part ways, it all keeps working.
Judge us by what we run.
You don't have to take our word for how we build. We design, build and operate the Upscale suite, ERP and recurring billing on one login, one organization, used by businesses in East Africa and the Gulf. Client work gets the same people and the same standard, with the habits that come from operating software we answer for every day.
Building since 2017 · Two products of our own · Customers in three countries
Questions we get
Who does the work?
The people who build Upscale. Engagements are founder-led and stay with senior engineers from the first call to the last commit. Nothing gets handed to a bench you've never met, which is exactly why we cap how many jobs we take at once.
What does it cost?
It depends on the job, so we won't put a made-up number here. After one call you get a scoped proposal with a price, fixed wherever the work allows it. The audit is always fixed-price. If budget and job don't line up, we'll say so there and then.
Do you take over existing systems?
Yes, and we won't open with a pitch to rewrite everything. We read what's there, tell you which parts are fine and which are costing you, and take responsibility from there. Sometimes the honest advice is a small fix, not a project.
What stack do you use?
The one our own products run on: TypeScript end to end, Vue on the web, Node services, MongoDB underneath. For integrations and AI work we come to your stack instead. Either way, we pick boring parts on purpose. Your system should outlive our involvement.
What happens after launch?
Your call. Some clients keep us on for support and new features. Others take the keys and run it in-house, which the handover is designed for. We operate our own products year-round, so monitoring, backups and clean migrations are habits, not extras.
What don't you take on?
Managed IT, certification-led security work and implementing other vendors' ERPs. If that's what you need, we'll say so early and point you to someone who does it well.
Start with one email.
A few lines about the job is enough. It lands with the people who build the product, and you'll get a straight answer on fit and next steps.