Web developer in Tokyo

Most sites I am asked to look at in Tokyo are not badly built. They are badly prioritised — enormous effort on the parts nobody reads and none on the parts that decide whether someone gets in touch. The fix is rarely more work; it is the same work pointed somewhere else.

One thing worth knowing about building for Japan

Convenience-store payment is still widely used in Japan, and it is asynchronous — the customer pays days later at a konbini. Like Multibanco in Portugal, that means an order state the storefront has to model honestly.

Why Tokyo sites are built to be edited by you

A site you cannot update is a site that decays. Prices go stale, staff leave, the opening hours are wrong for six months. So the parts of a Tokyo build that change often — text, images, prices, opening hours, team members — are editable by you without touching code or paying me.

That is a design decision with a cost: it takes longer to build an editable block than a hard-coded one. It is worth it because the alternative is a maintenance dependency that benefits me and not you, and a developer whose income depends on you being unable to change your own opening hours is not aligned with your interests.

Healthcare and clinics in Tokyo

Clinics carry a compliance weight most businesses do not. Appointment forms collect health information, which is a special category under Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), and it cannot be emailed to a generic inbox or written to a plain-text log. That constraint has to shape the build rather than be bolted onto it afterwards.

Beyond compliance the deciding factor is reassurance: practitioner names, registrations a patient can verify, honest pricing, and what actually happens at a first appointment. Anxiety is why people delay booking, and a site that reduces it outperforms one that merely looks modern.

The contact form that silently fails

The most expensive bug on a small business website makes no noise at all. A form posts, shows a thank-you message, and the email never arrives — usually because the host's mail function is unauthenticated and the receiving server drops it without a bounce. The business concludes demand fell.

The fix is authenticated SMTP with SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured on the sending domain, plus a database write so a submission survives even when delivery fails. If you are unsure whether your Tokyo site has this problem, submit your own form from a phone on mobile data and see what actually arrives.

Hiring a developer who is not in Tokyo

A Japanese business hiring outside Japan is usually doing it for price, and price is the least interesting reason. The more durable one is availability: a one-person supplier answers you directly rather than through an account manager who has to check. That is an advantage on a small project and a genuine liability on a large one, which is why I turn down projects that need a team.

What I am not claiming about Tokyo

A location page is the easiest place on a website to imply something untrue, so here is the other side of it plainly:

• I have no office, postal address or phone number in Tokyo
• I cannot meet you in person, and if that is a requirement you should hire locally
• I am not claiming existing clients in Tokyo specifically — my live work is listed on the work page and you can check it
• Nothing on this page is a guarantee of search rankings, which no developer can honestly offer

Tokyo web development — common questions

What currency will I be invoiced in?

JPY. Quotes, milestones and the final invoice are all written in JPY so you are never comparing a converted figure against a local supplier's. Regarding tax: consumption tax at 10%.

How much does a website cost in Tokyo?

A business website starts from ¥12,000 and goes live in about three days. An e-commerce build starts from ¥23,000 in around seven days, and a custom application from ¥31,000 in ten. Those are starting figures — the exact number is fixed in writing once scope is agreed, and it does not move after that.

How do you handle our customers' data under Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI)?

Your customer data is governed by the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), and sending it to a developer in Pakistan is a restricted transfer. That is resolved by the APPI requires consent or equivalent safeguards, recorded in the DPA, published on this site and pre-signed before you send an enquiry — not drafted after you ask about it.

Who owns the website when it is finished?

You do, completely. The domain is registered in your name, hosting sits in your account, the code lives in a repository you control, and any payment provider account is opened in your business name. Credentials are handed to you as they are created rather than at the end, so you are never locked out of your own site.

How long does a Tokyo project actually take?

Three days for a business site, seven for a store, ten for a custom application. That holds because the process is fixed rather than improvised and because your content exists on day one. What stretches a build is almost never the code — it is waiting for copy, logos and photographs, so those are requested before the clock starts.

What payment methods can my Tokyo checkout accept?

For Japan: Stripe, PayPay, konbini payment, and JCB card support. The right combination depends on your average basket and your customers, and picking wrong is expensive — the payment method a buyer expects but cannot find is one of the most common reasons a checkout is abandoned at the final step.

Can you fix my existing site rather than rebuild it?

Often, yes, and it is usually the cheaper answer. Speed problems, a broken mobile layout, a form that silently fails or missing structured data are all fixable on the site you already have. I will tell you which of the two you need after looking, and a rebuild only gets recommended when the fix would cost more than starting again.

Where this page sits

This page covers Tokyo. Every other town in Japan is listed on the Japan coverage page, and the full worldwide list is at all locations.

Before you enquire: pricing is published rather than quoted on request, how I work covers the process end to end, the work page lists live client sites you can open, and vendor information answers the procurement questions.