About us
Looney Devs is a founder-led web and software studio in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. We design, build and run websites, web apps and AI products, in English and Spanish, for businesses here in the Bay of Plenty and anywhere else.
Every project is written by us, so it is fast, secure and does exactly what your business needs. No page-builder bloat, no plugin roulette.
Automated tests run on every change we make. You get the same green checks we rely on before anything goes live.
Source code, domain and analytics are in your name from day one. Hosting we run for you is documented and handed over whenever you ask. Nothing is held hostage.
The quote builder shows a real estimate in about five minutes, before anyone calls you. The number you see is the number we mean.
We work in English and Spanish natively. Bilingual sites, bilingual support, no translation agency in between.
Coffee in Tauranga or at the Mount when you want to talk it through. Everything else happens online, so it never slows you down.
Surf check at dawn, a flat white before the inbox, headphones on for the deep work, a lap around Mauao at lunch and a client message at half past five saying it is live. Thirty-six seconds of how a working day here goes, narrated by Doris, our own AI hiring director.
Two products we built and run ourselves, and a site for a client. Open them, tap around, judge for yourself.
Small and medium businesses in New Zealand usually get one of two things when they need software: a template put together by someone who does websites on the side, or an agency quote with a sales process attached. Neither gives them what a product company takes for granted: fast pages, proper security, automated tests, clear pricing and someone who answers the phone.
Looney Devs was set up in Mount Maunganui in 2025 to close that gap. The idea is simple: bring the engineering habits of a software product team to a café, a trades business, a clinic or a startup, at a price those businesses can actually say yes to. The quote builder on this site is the most visible result of that idea. You can price a website or an app yourself, in five minutes, without talking to anyone first.
Most studios only ever build for other people. We also build and run our own. Hire Doris is an AI hiring director that interviews candidates by voice and writes up what it heard. Familiagram is a private family tree where relatives add photos, stories and recipes together. Both are live, and both are built on the same stack and the same habits we use for client work.
Running products in production changes how you build. You live with your own decisions about performance, security, hosting cost and support. When a page is slow at two in the morning, you are the one who gets the alert. That experience is what we bring to every client project: not theory about best practice, but the things that actually kept our own products up.
It starts online. You build a quote, we read it, and we come back with questions or a time to talk, in person or on a video call. Design happens with you, not to you: we agree the pages, the flow and the look before writing code, so there are no surprises later. Then we build, in short rounds, with a preview link you can click through whenever you like.
Launch is not the end. We put the site live on infrastructure we manage, set up analytics and Google Search Console, and stay around for the changes that every business needs once real customers arrive. Plain language the whole way: if we cannot explain a decision without jargon, we have not understood it well enough ourselves.
We build websites and web apps with React and Next.js, the same tools used by many of the fastest sites on the web. Where a project needs a heavier back end we use .NET and PostgreSQL, a combination known for being boring in the best sense: stable, secure and well understood. Everything runs in containers on servers we look after, with Cloudflare in front for speed and protection.
We choose tools for longevity, not fashion. A site we build this year should still be easy to maintain in five, by us or by whoever you choose next. That is also why you get the source code and the accounts: the work is yours, and it should outlive any one supplier.
Our base is Mount Maunganui, in the Bay of Plenty. Most of our clients are in Tauranga and across the Bay, and we are happy to meet at your place, ours or a café in between. Businesses elsewhere in New Zealand work with us entirely online, in the same time zone and in NZD. Spanish-speaking clients, here and overseas, get the same service in their own language.
The best part was working with him. He understood what we wanted from the very first moment, explained everything clearly, and always responded quickly. You can tell he’s passionate about what he does. We recommend him 100%. Carlos is a genius, truly the best by far.
Translated from Spanish
Neither, really. Looney Devs is a founder-led studio: you deal with the person who designs and builds your project, and we bring in specialists when a job needs them.
Yes. Quotes, design reviews, previews and launches all happen online, so where you are does not change how we work, anywhere in New Zealand or beyond.
If you are in Tauranga or the Bay, yes, and we encourage it. A coffee at the start of a project saves a lot of email later.
Yes. The quote builder includes hosting and support options, and every project ships with a clear plan for who looks after what once it is live.
Speed, security and ownership. A custom-coded site loads faster, has no plugin attack surface and belongs to you, code and all. You also get a developer who knows your business, not a help centre.
Get an itemised estimate in about five minutes. No sales call needed.
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