Jonathan Bird Web Design & Development
  1. Website Platforms
  3. Laravel Development
Laravel

Laravel Developer Brisbane

Custom software when the business rules are the product.

Our senior team, working in Brisbane, has used Laravel in production since version 4 in 2013. We build custom applications, B2B and B2C commerce platforms, SaaS products, admin tools, APIs, and ERP integrations for organisations across Australia.

You work directly with experienced people from discovery through architecture, delivery, and ongoing maintenance. We recommend Laravel for requirements that justify a custom, long-lived codebase. Straightforward content sites and stores are usually better served by an established platform.

Relevant work includes Culture Kings, ROH Wheels, Velg Training, Impact Office Supplies, Brisbane South PHN, Triple P, All 4 Adventure, and AMA Group. Several of those client relationships have continued for five to seven years.

Book a Free Strategy Session See relevant work
Platform fit

Is this the right platform?

The platform should follow the requirements. These are the conditions we test before recommending Laravel.

A good fit when

Laravel is a strong fit when the organisation needs custom workflows, complex business rules, deep integrations or a platform that will evolve over years.

Consider another option when

It is not the economical choice for a straightforward content site or store that a well-supported off-the-shelf product can handle without heavy customisation.
Case Studies

Featured projects built with Laravel

Selected production projects showing the requirements, integrations and ongoing responsibilities behind our Laravel work.

Want something like this for your organisation?

Tell us what you are trying to achieve. We will clarify the requirements and recommend a sensible next step before defining scope, timing, and cost.

Book a Free Strategy Session View all case studies

What clients say about working with us

“Digital Bird was excellent to work with. After countless attempts with speaking with agencies and other web design contractors, we finally found Jonathan and the team, and what a blessing that was. The project was handled end to end, with clear communication the entire time. We have now engaged Jonathan and the team for on-going website management and work due to how well things turned out. If you are on the fence about which direction to go, I highly recommend just taking a call with Jonathan and the team and seeing what you can achieve together.”

Will Cross ROH Wheels
Head of Marketing & Partnerships, ROH Wheels
Google reviews

“We have used Jonathan for a number of years to develop and maintain our rather complicated Online Portal and website. Jonathan is always extremely responsive to requests and proactive in ensuring our online presence is safe, presents well and is functional to our customers needs. We would definitely recommend Jonathan for your custom web development needs.”

Nathan Smith East Coast Bullbars
Marketing Manager, East Coast Bullbars

“Digital Bird is my first pick for delivering web projects on time, on budget and to the brief — every time.

Beyond being a delight to work with, Jonathan Bird is that rare breed of developer who is both masterful on the tools (an absolute Laravel whizz!) while also being adept at engaging the client in UX-thinking, to which he applies expert insights, gained through years of experience, to help further improve the end design for the target user’s experience.

This powerful combination of skills means that 4 years on and a variety of projects later (from search directories to corporate website developments), Digital Bird firmly remains my first pick for developer.”

Emma Keller Brisbane South PHN
Communications Manager, Brisbane South PHN

“We’ve been working with Jonathan Bird for our website maintenance, and he has been nothing short of exceptional. Jonathan consistently goes above and beyond, responding quickly whenever we need help and resolving issues with impressive turnaround time. His communication is clear and thorough — he always explains what the problem was, how he fixed it, and provides helpful recommendations for long-term solutions. It’s rare to find someone this reliable and proactive. Highly recommend!”

Nichola Ross Rapidline (FurnX Commercial Furniture)
Marketing Manager, Rapidline (FurnX Commercial Furniture)

“Digital Bird has had a huge influence on our business providing many solutions besides just a fantastic reliable website. Jonathan is great to work with and has a solution to every challenge. Jonathan also has the ability to “dumb it down” and provide timely advice and assistance if something goes astray. With Jonathan we have in excess of 99% uptime on all three websites.”

Jeff Ross Impact Office Supplies Logo
Director, Impact Office Supplies

“Velg Training has had an excellent experience working with Digital Bird. Jonathan has supported us with a complex Laravel/PHP website and has brought a rare mix of deep technical knowledge, practical problem solving, and clear communication.

He has assisted with major infrastructure and platform work across AWS, Laravel Forge, Cloudflare, Redis, S3, Sentry, PayWay, Mailchimp/Mandrill and related integrations. His work has included setting up and migrating infrastructure, improving performance, resolving production issues, monitoring errors, modernising legacy code, and strengthening the reliability of key business workflows such as checkout, invoicing, membership exports, PDF generation, transactional emails and background queues.

What stands out most is that Jonathan does not just “fix the ticket”. He investigates properly, explains the cause in plain language, and looks for the right long-term solution rather than quick patches. He has helped us move away from fragile legacy processes, improve automated testing, reduce errors, improve email reliability, address performance bottlenecks, and make the platform easier to maintain into the future.

He is responsive, thorough and highly professional, with an obvious understanding of business-critical websites and custom web applications. We would happily recommend Jonathan to any organisation needing a skilled, reliable and commercially minded Laravel/PHP web developer.”

Leonie Davis Velg Training
Director, Content and Strategy, Velg Training

“Was an absolute pleasure to work with Jonathan. Could not be happier with our new website! Professional, responsive, brilliant communication from the beginning to go live. If you are fortunate enough to be in a conversation with Jonathan for a new site - just do it!”

Alex Brennan Blue Ink Office Supplies
Director, Blue Ink Office Supplies

“I’ve worked with Jonathan from Digital Bird for several years and found him to be a highly competent developer who often exceeds expectations.

Together, we’ve collaborated on a number of medium-sized platforms serving hundreds of thousands of users, including learning management systems, a widely-used school well-being platform, trade promotion competition sites, and more.

Jonathan is very skilled in API and platform integration, payment systems (such as Stripe), AWS, internet security, and more. As a Project Manager/Product Owner, I feel very confident working with Jonathan and recommending his services to our clients.”

Zachary Bavas Invision Media
Technical Operations, Invision Media

“Highly recommend Jonathan for anything web development in Brisbane and Australia-wide. Have worked with a lot of developers over the years and Jonathan’s work and communication on projects has been a clear standout. A very talent developer if you’re looking for anything from WordPress, Shopify, Laravel, or anything in-between.”

Brodie Clark Brodie Clark Consulting Logo
Director, Brodie Clark SEO Consulting

“Jonathan Bird is one of the best I have worked with in this space. He is responsive, clever and contributes to the brief, and most importantly, he is a great person to work with. It can be hard to find the right people who can take on something and lift it to another dimension. Jonathan does that and more.”

Mark Gold AMA Group Logo
Director of Corporate Affairs, AMA Group Ltd
Capabilities

What we build with Laravel

Design, development, integration and support delivered by the people responsible for the technical decisions.

Custom Laravel Web Applications

We use Laravel when a standard product cannot support the required workflows or business rules. Our work includes booking platforms, video activation APIs, time-tracking SaaS products, internal tools and multi-tenant applications. The data model and interfaces are designed around the organisation's processes.

API & ERP Integrations

We build and operate integrations with Xero, MYOB, NetSuite, Options, Westpac PayWay, Stripe, Algolia, AWS services and bespoke ERPs. The Impact Office Supplies platform synchronises over 10 million ERP rows nightly at a 100% success rate, with pricing and inventory updates during the day.

B2B & B2C eCommerce

We build pricing rules, customer types, order approvals and payment flows around the operating model. The Impact Office Supplies platform runs at a 33.5% B2B conversion rate and 3.4 million annual pageviews, with customer pricing, quantity tiers, persistent carts, Westpac PayWay and Algolia search.

Custom Admin Panels & Internal Tools

Each Laravel application includes an admin interface for the people operating it. We design it around the tasks they need to complete, such as managing orders, approving timesheets, syncing data, generating reports and controlling user access.

Authentication, Roles, Permissions & SSO

Laravel supports role-based access control, two-factor authentication and Single Sign-On. We've shipped multi-tier role hierarchies for SaaS platforms, SAML SSO for enterprise applications and policy-based authorisation that can grow with the product. We choose and configure the authentication stack with future upgrades and maintenance in mind.

SaaS Platforms & Subscription Billing

We run our own Laravel SaaS, Hour Cap, with per-member billing across three plan tiers. That production experience informs how we design account lifecycle, billing changes, webhook handling and support tooling for client products.

How the work is staffed

Who works on your Laravel application

The people who scope our Laravel work also design the architecture, write the critical code and support the application after launch.

Separate project roles

Sales, delivery and technical work sit with different people.

  • Senior staff may scope and review the work while other developers handle most of the build.

  • Questions usually go through an account or project manager before reaching a developer.

  • Architecture and day-to-day implementation may be handled by different people.

  • The delivery team often comes in after the proposal is signed and has to learn the application from the brief.

  • A support team takes over after launch and has to learn the codebase.

  • Framework and package updates are applied in bulk, often without checking the changelog or testing the application.

Our team

The developers making the decisions also do the work.

  • Our senior developers write the Laravel code, review it and handle deployment.

  • You speak directly with the people responsible for the work, from scoping through support.

  • The developers writing the code also make the architecture decisions.

  • The same senior team scopes the application, designs the architecture and builds it.

  • The team that built the application continues to support it. Most of our client relationships run for five to seven years.

  • We review each update, test it in staging and record the result before it reaches production.

Integrations

Systems we connect to Laravel

The business systems our team most often connects to a Laravel build. Browse every integration.

Integrating something else?

Tell us which systems need to exchange data and where the current process is failing. We will assess the APIs, constraints, and safest path forward.

Book a Free Strategy Session
Straight advice

Choose the platform from the requirements.

We assess Laravel against the requirements and explain when another option would be cheaper or easier to maintain.

Start with constraints

Content, workflows, integrations, governance and ownership matter more than a feature checklist.

Avoid custom work without a reason

Configuration is preferable when it genuinely meets the requirement and remains maintainable.

Plan for operational ownership

The choice must still make sense for the team maintaining it after launch.

How our team works

The people making the platform decisions also deliver the work.

You speak directly with the developers and designers working on the project, and they continue to support it after launch.
  • Direct access to senior people
  • Design and development working closely together
  • Technical advice from the people responsible for implementation
  • Senior developers remain involved throughout delivery
  • The same team supports the site after launch
“Digital Bird is my first pick for delivering web projects on time, on budget and to the brief — every time. Beyond being a delight to work with, Jonathan Bird is that rare breed of developer who is both masterful on the tools (an absolute Laravel whizz!) while also being adept at engaging the client in UX-thinking, to which he applies expert insights, gained through years of experience, to help further improve the end design for the target user’s experience. This powerful combination of skills means that 4 years on and a variety of projects later (from search directories to corporate website developments), Digital Bird firmly remains my first pick for developer.”
Emma Keller Communications Manager, Brisbane South PHN Brisbane South PHN
Process

From the first decision to ongoing improvement

We keep strategy, design, development, and technical ownership close together. Your team is involved at the decision points, with clear recommendations and visible progress throughout.

  1. Step 1: Understand

    Clarify the audience, business problem, constraints, content, and measures of success.

  2. Step 2: Recommend

    Explain the viable options and trade-offs, then recommend the simplest sound approach.

  3. Step 3: Plan

    Agree priorities, responsibilities, scope, timing, and the decisions your stakeholders need to make.

  4. Step 4: Design and build

    Work in visible increments while strategy, user experience, content, and engineering remain connected.

  5. Step 5: Validate and launch

    Test the important journeys, performance, accessibility, content, integrations, and operational readiness.

  6. Step 6: Improve

    Monitor the live system, resolve issues, and continue improving it as requirements change.

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FAQ

Common Laravel Project Questions

Common questions our team is asked about Laravel Development.
We are a senior Laravel team working in Brisbane. Clients work directly with the developers who design and build the application. Those developers also handle maintenance and feature work.
Our senior team takes part in discovery, architecture, critical implementation and ongoing support. Client questions go to people who know the codebase and remain responsible for the work.
Production work includes the Impact Office Supplies B2B ecommerce platform, which handles 3.4 million annual pageviews and synchronises 10 million ERP rows nightly; the All 4 Adventure competition sites; the Triple P video activation API and admin panel; and Hour Cap, our own time-tracking and billing product.
Yes. We work from Brisbane with clients across Australia. Most delivery can run remotely, with in-person discovery or workshops arranged when they are useful.
Use established software when it supports the workflow without heavy customisation. Laravel becomes relevant when critical rules, data or integrations cannot be accommodated cleanly. The decision should compare custom build and maintenance costs with product licences, configuration, integration work and platform constraints.
Custom Laravel has discovery and build costs followed by maintenance and feature work. Products may carry licence, implementation, integration, per-user, transaction and upgrade costs. We calculate both over the expected life of the system before recommending an approach.
Look for verifiable production experience, relevant case studies, testing and deployment capability, and clear ownership after launch. Ask who writes the code, who reviews releases and who supports the application once it is live.
Cost depends on scope and risk. We price after reviewing workflows, data, integrations, security, migration and support requirements. An engagement may use a fixed scope, staged discovery or an ongoing development allocation, depending on how much is known at the outset.
We estimate the timeline after discovery. A focused workflow may take weeks, while integrations, migrations, multi-tenancy or complex business rules can extend delivery over several months. The proposal identifies phases, dependencies and validation points before development begins.
Look for production Laravel experience beyond feature development: database design, queues, authentication, testing, deployment, monitoring and ongoing support. Ask who writes the code, reviews releases and responds when the application needs attention after launch.
Yes. You own the code. We use Laravel conventions, version-controlled deployments, tests and documentation for critical areas, and provide the access needed for a handover. Another capable Laravel team can continue the work.

Bring us your Laravel platform decision

Book a free strategy session with the senior people who scope and deliver the work. We will help clarify the problem, test assumptions and identify a practical next step—without turning the session into a generic sales call.

Book a Free Strategy Session

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