Hire a freelance Laravel developer – TALL stack expert. 100% remote.

Hi, I’m James, a full-stack Laravel developer for hire. I can make you a custom web app that solves your businesses problems.

James Hunt. Laravel Developer using TALL stack.

I have over two decades of PHP experience (since 2001) and a strong focus on building custom Laravel web applications that solve real business problems. Whether you need a SaaS backend, a membership system, a booking platform, or internal business tools, I design and develop solutions that are scalable, secure, and maintainable.

Laravel is the most popular PHP backend framework – ideal for building powerful, extensible apps without relying on restrictive third-party plugins. I use Laravel to build custom SaaS applications with tailored functionality, integrate with APIs, payment providers, and external services, and ultimately create modern, interactive UIs to be used and enjoyed.

Why businesses hire me for Laravel development

Businesses hire me as a Laravel developer because:

I’m a specialist in Laravel, who understands how to delivery production-ready apps.
My main expertise is using the TALL stack – Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, Laravel Livewire and Laravel.
I also sometimes use the VILT stack – Vue, Inertia, Laravel and Tailwind.
I am remote-first developer from the UK who can work with clients globally.
I prioritise clean architecture, testable code, and long-run maintainability.

The TALL stack advantage

I typically develop Laravel apps using the TALL stack:

Tailwind CSS – Utility-first CSS framework for clean, responsive UIs.
Alpine.js – Lightweight interactivity without heavy JavaScript frameworks.
Laravel Livewire – Real-time, reactive components built in PHP.
Laravel – MVC architecture for robust backend development.

This approach speeds up development, ensures design consistency, and keeps the technology stack modern yet efficient.

Setting expectations of time and cost for your project

Developing a Laravel app can take weeks, months, even years of work. Plus after it’s launched, there are bug fixes, new features, ongoing maintenance, security issues, backups, package updates and server costs.

So developing a Laravel app is not a short race, it’s a marathon. And this requires commitment from a business and buy-in from the top of your management structure.

Not many Laravel apps take less than 2-3 weeks of development time. When combined with fact finding (to solve the issues you need to solve), solution analysis, project management, UI designs, testing, and deployment, then 4-6 weeks is more accurate for even the most basic of apps.

As such, developing a Laravel app with me will likely cost at least £10,000 GBP / $15,000 USD.

Transformative software that empowers an organisation, or creates new business on a mass scale can take months of development time, and it’s not usual for these projects to require 50-100 hours of work per month for several months plus the same again on improvements and updates post launch.

I want to make this clear at this point, and any developer who does not explain how an app works for the long term is misleading you or simply does not care.

Fixing an existing Laravel app

I rarely do small fixes on Laravel apps where I have not written the code myself. Working on another developers code is often not fun, leads to problems with time estimations, and can require many other steps before beginning or finishing (setting up a local environment, learning the code, testing the code, setting up deploy process).

I can implement small fixes in an existing app, but they likely will not take a small amount of time, and are best as part of a full code rewrite or as part of a decision to use me permanently as your developer resource.

I am a 100% remote developer; preferring async comms

I have not been in an office since 2015 and don’t have plans to change that. I work remotely out of choice, it allows me to focus my time on precisely the tasks I need to do without distractions. I like to get “in the zone” so I do not answer Slack, the phone or emails during this time, I want to give 100% of my attention to clients problems.

I like communications to be meaningful and thought about – so I’d rather compose an email reply, put together a presentation of progress, or have a conference call once a week with a clear agenda, rather than getting Slack messages every few hours or needless calls with a project manager to chase a deadline thats already been communicated. I have never had an issue with clients through working remotely, working in a different time zone or working asynchronously, and I’ve worked with clients from London to Lisbon to Los Angeles to Lahore (OK, maybe not Lahore but hopefully you get my point!).

How I will work on your Laravel app

Laravel is great for making web apps, it’s not always great for marketing or sales sites (but WordPress may be). I will tell you if Laravel is not a fit for your business.
I will work closely with you to find the best solution for each unique problem you are looking to solve. This may require some conference calls, some Q&A, explainer slides etc. Maybe shadowing a staff member.
Based on your project specification and my notes, I will create user stories to explore the needs, capabilities and functionality of your app (inline with Agile methodology).
Each user story then becomes a task to solve and develop within the project.
I will produce wireframes and mockups so basics of the app can be explored and you can start to get a feel for layout and basic functions and make sure it makes sense.
Development will be done locally on my computer, probably using Laravel Sail / Docker containers. Everything will be version controlled using Git, and also committed against a task so progress can be monitored, features branched or rolled back.
I will develop both the frontend UI as well as the backend structure and code. Depending on your apps requirements, I will start with a mobile-first approach so that the mobile code is as lean as possible.
Tests will be written as elements are developed so that testing can be automated as new features and functionality are added to your app.
For deployment, I recommend the usage of Laravel Forge which helps manage deployments easily to staging or production websites, or to use Laravel Cloud for hosting and deployments.

My Laravel skills:

Some of the aspects of the Laravel ecosystem I have worked on:

Styling – Tailwind, or CSS/SASS from scratch, Vite, Mix, Gulp, BrowserSync
Dynamic – Alpine.JS, Livewire, jQuery, Vanilla JS, Vue.JS, Inertia
Formatting – PHP Coding Standards, Larastan/PHP Stan, Pint
Mail – SMTP, Mailgun, SendGrid, MailHog for testing
Search – Laravel Scout, MeiliSearch, ElasticSearch
Databases – PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, SQLite
Payments – Laravel Cashier, Stripe, Paddle, any 3rd party payment providers
Deployment – Laravel Cloud, Laravel Forge, AWS, Docker, VPCs, CircleCI, nginx, Apache
Testing – PHPUnit, Pest
Telemetry – Nightwatch, OpenTelemetry
Storage – Local, AWS S3, Cloudinary

Hire me as your Laravel developer

Want to work with me? Contact me below with an outline of your project and I can give you my availability, day rate and tell you how I can help.

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If you need help with a plugin I made, please go to my dedicated support area for plugins or follow the support details given in the plugin.

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Your project might not be the right fit for me.

Page builders like Elementor, Divi, and WPBakery add unnecessary bloat, slow down websites, and make development harder. I don’t take on small fixes or updates for sites built with them. If you’re open to a full redevelopment (without a page builder), I’d be happy to talk. Otherwise, thanks for considering me and best of luck with your project.

For small fixes, updating content, installing themes/plugins, etc, I often recommend WP Buffs. This is an all-in-one fixed fee service, so is great for small jobs, especially when using page builders.

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Websites and apps can have almost unlimited features and complexity. Knowing your budget helps me shape a realistic plan for what can be built, how quickly, and to what standard. I’m an enterprise-level developer — I’m not the cheapest option, but I focus on delivering long-term, high-quality solutions. Your budget won’t change my rate, but it will help me design the best approach for your goals.

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