Community & membership apps
For communities that have outgrown what a platform allows them to change.
Custom app or white-label platform?
You have decided your community, members or sellers need an app of their own, and you have accepted that a proper one costs a monthly amount. The choice left is what that money buys: a seat on someone else's platform, or an app built for you, started for a deposit and paid monthly until it is yours. These pages make that choice with the platforms' own documents.
A professional platform's recommended plan costs a serious monthly fee for as long as you use it, and what you get is their product with your logo on it. Put the same monthly amount towards a Baal build and you get an app designed around your organisation, released in stages from the first weeks, with your members and content moved in. A deposit starts the work, the balance is paid monthly as the stages land, and when it is paid the app is yours: to keep, to change and to take anywhere. Quality work is priced properly. Paying for it is flexible.
Flexible payment on every project: a low entrance fee, then monthly payments that suit a growing business, delivered in phases. We agree the terms around your budget.
How you pay for it
The same monthly rhythm a platform would put you on, spent on something you own and can change. Ask for the terms; we set them around your budget.
A deposit to begin
A modest deposit and work starts. You are not asked for the full fee before anything exists.
Released in stages
The core goes live first and each stage adds what you asked for. Working software in the first weeks, not a reveal at the end.
The balance monthly
The rest is paid monthly as the stages land, on terms agreed in writing. When it is paid, it is yours. Nothing renews, nothing rises by contract.
Three things sold as “white label”
The words on the pricing page are the same. What arrives in the app stores is not. Before you compare features, find out which of these you are being offered.
An app in your own store accounts
Published under your Apple and Google developer accounts. Your listing, your ratings, your install base. If you ever leave, the listing is still yours to point somewhere else.
An app in the platform's store account
Looks identical on the day you buy. The store listing belongs to the platform, so your members' installs, reviews and update path are theirs, not yours. Several platforms do this on one operating system and not the other.
Your branding inside their shared app
There is no listing of your own at all. Members download the platform's app and find your community inside it, alongside everyone else's.
The comparisons
One page per kind of buyer, each with a table built from the platforms' own pricing pages, help centres and terms.
Association & membership body apps
For professional bodies, alumni networks, chambers and federations that want a member app of their own.
Marketplace apps
For marketplaces whose platform runs the back end but ships no app, or only a wrapper.
What a custom build changes
Not a lesser version of the same thing. A different thing, at a comparable outlay.
Built around your organisation
Your workflows, your data model, your integrations. Nothing is “not on the roadmap”.
Yours in every sense
Code, store listings, hosting and data in accounts in your name. Leaving us is a hand-over, not a shutdown.
Migration is part of the job
Existing members, content and history are moved in, not left behind. Most platforms will not do this for you.
No platform fee on your revenue
Payments go through your own gateway accounts. We do not take a percentage of what your members pay you.
Instant contact, changes in days
WhatsApp and Telegram reach the team of around ten directly. A question is answered when you ask it, and a change lands in days, not a ticket queue.
Everything in writing, paid your way
Scope, fee, timescale and payment terms agreed before we start. Spread the cost over the schedule that suits you.
Why not an AI app builder?
Part of this audience is weighing a no-code or AI builder instead. They have their place. A marketplace, a membership system or a payments flow is not it.
They generate; they do not understand
A builder assembles what it guesses you mean. Memberships, marketplaces and payments are full of edge cases the guess gets wrong, and the mistakes appear in front of your customers.
Wrong output still costs you
Most charge by the credit. A wrong result costs the same as a right one, so redoing the work is revenue for the tool. The incentive runs the wrong way.
Someone still has to know how it fits
Store accounts, certificates, gateways, data models, APIs. When the builder cannot, a person has to. With us that person is there from the first conversation.
Why trust us with it
No borrowed logos. A team you can reach in a minute, decades of understanding how systems fit together, and everything agreed in writing before we start.
A team with decades between us
Baal is a growing team of around ten, in one office and expanding, with decades of collective experience across the internet, advertising, code and connecting systems. Generating code is easy now. Knowing what to build, and what breaks when it is wrong, is not.
We connect the whole thing
Apple and Google developer accounts, payment gateways, hosting, APIs and the platform you already run, set up in your name and joined together properly.
Everything in writing
Scope, fee, timescale and payment terms before work starts. Stages you can see and test. Code, accounts and data handed over on full payment.
Instant contact, fast changes
WhatsApp and Telegram go straight to the team. A question is answered when you ask it, and a change you want lands in days: not a ticket answered in three days and an upgrade scheduled seven weeks out.
Frequently asked questions
Is a custom app really comparable in cost to a white-label platform?
Often, yes, and the shape of the payments is similar. A platform's recommended plan is a monthly fee for as long as the app exists, usually with the branded app on the top tier and add-ons for the API, extra admins or single sign-on. With Baal a deposit starts the build and the balance is paid monthly as the stages go live. The difference is what the monthly amount buys: rented software you cannot alter, or an app built for you that you own when it is paid. We quote in writing so you can put the two side by side.
White-label platforms launch in weeks. How long does a custom build take?
The timescale goes in writing with the quote. A first version of an app is usually weeks rather than months, and larger builds are staged so something useful is live early. If speed matters more than fit, say so and we will scope for it.
Do I own the app and the store listings?
Yes. The app is published under your own Apple and Google developer accounts, the code is yours on full payment, and hosting and domains sit in accounts in your name. That is written into our terms.
Will members actually download a separate app?
They download apps that do a job they care about, and an app built for your members does exactly one. Where a web version is the better fit for part of the audience, we build both on the same backend, so nobody is left out.
What happens if we stop working with Baal?
The software keeps running. You hold the code, the accounts and the data, and any developer can take it on. Support after release is optional and quoted separately.
Ready to build something?
Tell us what you need. WhatsApp and Telegram reach the team directly, we reply with questions, then a written quote — no obligation, nothing to buy here. Good work is priced properly, and paying for it is flexible: a low entrance fee, then monthly payments that suit a growing business.