About
A small, senior studio in Brighton.
amillionmonkeys designs, builds and looks after web and app products. Phil Smith leads every project, from the first call to launch day. A small bench of trusted freelancers joins when a job needs them, and AI agents do a lot of the typing.
Who leads it
Phil Smith.
Phil has been building software for nearly 20 years, for the BBC, Bupa, Airbnb and a long list of start-ups, charities and the agencies behind them. He runs amillionmonkeys from Brighton.
What that time buys you isn't typing speed. It's knowing which feature can wait, which shortcut will cost you later, and when the sensible answer is to build less. That judgement is the part AI can't do, and it's the part we're selling.
The freelancers we bring in already know how we build, so there's always someone who can step in. If Phil were under a bus tomorrow, your code, your accounts and a written handover would all be where you could find them. More on how that works.
How we work
What working with us is like.
You talk to the person building it
No project managers, no account handlers, no game of telephone. When you email us, Phil replies. When you have a question about the build, the person who made that decision explains it. Things get lost less.
No surprises on the invoice
We're not the cheapest, and if you want a twenty-page proposal and to be taken for lunch, you're going to be disappointed. But our prices are published, you'll know what your build costs before we start, and we'll tell you straight away if something is going to take longer than expected.
Every project gets the same attention
We've built things for the BBC, Bupa and Airbnb, and for start-ups with their first bit of funding. They all get the same care. We cap how many builds run at once, so nobody's project is squeezed by someone else's deadline.
Do we use AI?
We'd be daft not to.
AI is part of how we build everything. Which tools changes every few months (it's mostly Claude at the moment), and we keep swapping as they improve. The repetitive work that used to eat whole days, like scaffolding, boilerplate, test data and standard integrations, is now done by AI agents working to our instructions.
That doesn't make us cheap. It means a small team can take on the scope that used to need an agency: a website, two apps, a browser extension and a staff admin for Purpl, or a warehouse system running every pallet for John George.
The decisions stay with people. Every change is reviewed and tested to the same standard, whoever or whatever wrote it. If it isn't good enough, it gets rewritten. AI doesn't ship code. We do.
Next step
Tell us what you're trying to build.
Book a 20-minute call with Phil. If it's a fit, the next step is Shape: a plan before a price. If it isn't, you'll get an honest “that's not for us” and a pointer to someone better suited.