The request usually arrives as a need for something digital. Underneath it sit three quite different projects with different costs, timelines and owners, and the most useful thing we can do on a first call is work out which one is being described.
A website is for the people who do not know you yet. Its job is to explain what you do, make you credible, and give someone a way to start a conversation. It is the cheapest of the three, it is measured in weeks, and for a great many businesses it is honestly the whole answer.
A system is for the people already inside the company. It is where stock, invoices, customers, purchasing and payroll stop living in parallel files and start agreeing with each other. Nobody outside the business ever sees it, and it is usually where the money is quietly going.
An app earns its cost when the relationship repeats: a customer who orders, books, tracks or pays every week, or a field team working away from a desk. If the interaction happens twice a year, a good mobile site does the same job for a fraction of the price, and nothing has to be installed.
Most of what we are called in to correct is a category error rather than a technical one - an app built where a website was needed, or a website polished while the warehouse still ran on paper. We would rather spend the first call sorting that out, including when the answer is the cheap one.