# Rapture

> Independent software engineering studio in Zürich. We build software for other companies, and products of our own.

Every page of this site is published twice: as HTML for people, and as Markdown at the same address with .md on the end. The Markdown is the page without the header, the footer or the layout, which is to say the part that says something.

Language: en-GB.
In de-CH the same index is at https://rapture.sh/de/llms.txt.

## An independent software studio in Zürich.

Rapture designs and builds software for the web: the part your customers touch, the systems behind it that decide whether it holds up, and the work of keeping both running once it is live.

We work straight with whoever owns the problem. The people who plan a project are the people who build it, so nothing is lost translating one into the other, and there is nobody in the middle to ask.

- Where we are: Industriestrasse 8, 8618 Oetwil am See, Switzerland
- Contact: hello@rapture.sh
- The minds behind Rapture: Abinayan Sureskumar (Co-founder), Michel Studer (Co-founder)

## Everything we build, and then keep running.

Ten things we get hired for. Most studios pick one and send you elsewhere for the rest; we have shipped all of this and we operate a product of our own, so none of it is a first time on your money.

- **Consulting**: A second opinion from somebody with nothing to sell you afterwards. On a project that stalled, on an architecture, on a quote you were handed, or on the engineer you are about to hire.
- **Websites**: The page people land on before they decide whether to trust you. Designed around what your business actually sells, quick on a phone on a train, and written so Google and the assistants people ask instead can both read it.
- **Web apps**: Where your customers sign in and do something that has to be remembered afterwards. Accounts, permissions, payments, and the admin side your own team runs the business from.
- **Complex platforms**: Marketplaces, booking systems, anything with two sides and money moving between them. We built one of our own and we run it, so the parts that go wrong here are not a theory to us.
- **Mobile apps**: An app people install from the App Store and Google Play. Built once for both, with the notifications, the offline behaviour and the store paperwork that come with it.
- **Desktop apps**: Software that lives on a Mac or a Windows machine, for the work that does not belong in a browser tab. Installable, signed, and updating itself without anybody being asked.
- **Backend and infrastructure**: The part nobody sees and everybody feels. The machines it runs on, the database under it, getting new versions out safely, backups, and the watching that wakes somebody before your customers notice.
- **AI integration**: Putting a model to work inside your product, on your own data, where it saves somebody an hour a day. Not a chat bubble stuck in the corner of a page.
- **AI optimisation**: People ask an assistant before they ask a search engine, and it answers from whatever it can read about you. We make sure that is yours, current, and complete.
- **Moving onto something newer**: The system that still works but cannot be changed any more, and the one person who understands it is leaving. We move it, a piece at a time, without the week of downtime everybody is afraid of.

## How it actually goes

Four steps. You see the real thing working in the second one.

1. **Bring us the idea**: You come with a rough idea. We ask the awkward questions, work out what it should be, and price it before anyone starts.
2. **Build it in the open**: You get a working version in the first weeks and watch it take shape, instead of waiting for a reveal.
3. **Launch**: It goes live, we keep an eye on it, and anything that goes wrong can be undone.
4. **Keep it running**: Handed to your team with everything written down, or kept running by us. Both are normal here.

## What it costs

You get the number before anyone starts, and it is the number, not an estimate that moves later. These are the floors: where a project lands depends on what it turns out to be.

- **Website**, From CHF 5,000: Pages that tell people who you are and what you sell. Somebody reads it and gets in touch.
- **Web app**, From CHF 10,000: Where people sign in and do something. Accounts, payments, bookings, anything that has to remember what happened.
- **Something else**, Let us talk: Consulting, infrastructure, a rescue, or a pair of hands in your team for a few months. If it fits neither box, it gets its own number.

Not sure which one yours is? That is the normal state of affairs, and working it out is the first thing we do. Tell us roughly what you have in mind and you get back which box it falls in and what it costs, before anything is agreed.

## What we have built

One of them is ours. We designed it, we built it, and we are the ones who keep it running.

- **Kywi** (Our own product, Live since August 2026): A marketplace we planned, designed, built and still run. https://www.kywi.ch/?utm_source=rapture.sh&utm_medium=referral

## Answers to your questions

**How long does it take?** A website is usually three to six weeks from the go-ahead. Anything people sign into depends on what it has to do, and we give you a date with the price, before anything starts. If a date matters more than a feature, say so early and we will build around it.

**How does paying work?** We talk first, and nothing is signed until we both know what the thing is. Then you get a contract with a fixed price in it. Half is paid before we start, we build, and the rest is due once the work is finished and in your hands. No hourly bills arriving every month, and nothing to pay while you are still deciding.

**What does hosting cost?** It depends on the project, and it is a monthly amount you know before we start. It covers keeping the thing online and working: the servers it runs on, the updates, the backups, and somebody watching it. For as long as it is paid, your project keeps running. The day you want to take it somewhere else, you can.

**Who looks after the domain and the email?** We can, or you can. If you already have a domain we move it across without the site going dark. If you do not, we buy the one you want, point it at the site, set up the certificate so it loads securely, and get mail on your own name working. The domain is registered to you, never to us.

**Can you work with what we already have?** Usually, yes. We take over projects somebody else built, work alongside an in-house team, and pick up where another agency stopped. We will tell you honestly if starting again is cheaper than repairing, including when that answer costs us the bigger job.

**What do you need from us?** Someone who can make decisions and about an hour a week. Not a brief, not a specification, not a committee. If you have a document already, good; if you have an idea and a problem, that is enough to start.

**What if it costs more than the estimate?** It does not. We agree a fixed price for an agreed scope, and if we get our own estimate wrong, that is ours to absorb. If you change what you want halfway through, we price that change and you decide before we build it.

## Pages

- [Rapture - Software engineering studio in Zürich](https://rapture.sh/en.md): Independent software engineering studio in Zürich. We build software for other companies, and products of our own.
- [Services](https://rapture.sh/en/services.md): Websites, web apps, marketplaces, mobile and desktop apps, infrastructure, AI integration and consulting, from an independent studio in Zürich that runs what it builds.
- [Projects](https://rapture.sh/en/projects.md): What Rapture has built and still runs, starting with Kywi, the Swiss marketplace for activities and experiences.
- [About](https://rapture.sh/en/about.md): Rapture is an independent software studio in Zürich. We design and build web software for other companies, and keep it running after launch.
- [Contact: tell us what you are building](https://rapture.sh/en/contact.md): No form. A few lines about what you have in mind is enough, and you get an answer from a person.
- [Brand](https://rapture.sh/en/brand.md): The Rapture wordmark, the R, the colour palette and the typefaces, with the files and the rules for using them.
- [Privacy](https://rapture.sh/en/privacy.md): What Rapture collects, which is close to nothing. Analytics without cookies, no profiles, no advertising networks.
- [Terms](https://rapture.sh/en/terms.md): The terms covering use of rapture.sh: what the site is, what belongs to whom, and which law applies.
- [Cookies](https://rapture.sh/en/cookies.md): Rapture sets no cookies. Analytics run without them, which is why there is no consent banner on this site.
- [Kywi, the Swiss marketplace for activities](https://rapture.sh/en/projects/kywi.md): Kywi is a Swiss marketplace for activities. Rapture decided what it should be, designed it, built the booking and payment system behind it, and runs it.

## Elsewhere

- [Contact](https://rapture.sh/en/contact): hello@rapture.sh
- [Sitemap](https://rapture.sh/sitemap.xml)
- [kywi](https://www.kywi.ch/?utm_source=rapture.sh&utm_medium=referral)