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. The choice left is what you get: a seat on someone else's platform, or an app built for you that is yours. These pages help you make it, using the platforms' own documents.
A platform's plan is a monthly subscription for as long as you use it, and what you get is their product with your logo on it. A Baal build gives you an app designed around your organisation, released in stages from the first weeks, with your members and content moved in, and the app is yours: to keep, to change and to take anywhere.
How it works with us
A system built for your business, under your name, that you own and can change. It starts with a conversation.
Tell us your idea
We ask the questions we need about your business, your customers and what you want the system to do.
Get your proposal
The screens, how it works, your written quote and a launch date, all set out before work starts.
We build it, fast
Built around the way your business works and released under your name, with working software in the first weeks, not a reveal at the end.
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.
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, so nobody starts again from zero.
Your revenue comes to you
Payments go through your own gateway accounts, so what your members pay arrives with 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 rather than waiting in a ticket queue.
Everything in writing
Scope and timescale set out in a written quote before we start, and stages you can see and test.
Why not an AI app builder?
You may be weighing a no-code or AI app builder instead. They have their place, but 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
Many charge by the credit, and a wrong result costs the same as a right one. Every time you redo the work, the tool earns again.
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 minutes, decades of experience in 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 and timescale in a written quote before work starts. Stages you can see and test. Code, accounts and data handed over to you.
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 is made in days, not weeks after a support ticket.
Frequently asked questions
How is a custom app different from a white-label platform's plan?
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. What it gives you is rented software you cannot alter. A Baal build is an app made for you, released in stages, that you own. We send a written quote 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 handed over to you, 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 around your members does exactly that. 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.