Software & Apps
The tools your business runs on, built around how you actually work.
Some problems a website cannot solve. When the quoting is done by hand, the bookings live in a diary, and there is a spreadsheet three people edit and nobody trusts, what you need is software shaped around how the business actually runs. We start with a paid discovery, so you see the whole picture before you commit to building anything.
The job that was eating a day a week, gone.
Fewer mistakes, faster turnaround, and your time back.
The problem
Sound familiar?
This is usually a firm that has outgrown how it started, but is nowhere near the size where off-the-shelf software makes sense. It tends to look like this:
Quotes typed out by hand, one at a time, from the same starting point.
Bookings taken by phone and written into a diary.
A spreadsheet that three people edit and nobody quite trusts.
The same information re-entered into two systems that do not talk to each other.
What we do
Internal tools, portals and automations, discovery first.
Discovery and a technical spec
Before anything is built, a written document that says exactly what it does, what it doesn't, and what it costs. Paid, and worth it on its own, because it is the thing that stops software projects going wrong.
Internal tools
Whatever the spreadsheet is currently pretending to be. Job tracking, quoting, scheduling, records.
Client-facing tools
Booking, portals, calculators, applications, anything a customer touches and judges you on.
Automation
The jobs currently done by someone copying information from one place to another, done by the system instead.
Integrations
Making the systems you already pay for talk to each other, rather than replacing them.
Hosting and maintenance
The same as the website side. It gets built, it gets hosted, it stays working, and someone answers when it doesn't.
How we work
Research, strategy, build, optimise.
Research
We start with your business, your customers and who you are actually competing against, before anyone opens a design tool.
Strategy
You get the scope, the page list and the plan in writing, agreed before the work starts, so nothing gets discovered halfway through.
Build
Built in code on modern infrastructure, mobile first, with the technical foundations done properly at build time rather than retrofitted.
Optimise
Live is the start, not the finish. It gets measured, maintained and improved every month instead of slowly rotting.
The honest bit
What we won't build
Most of what we build is small. One process, done properly, that was eating a day a week. Here is where we say no:
Ongoing feature development with no plan behind it. New products and new platforms get scoped and quoted as their own piece of work.
A replacement for established industry software where an off-the-shelf tool genuinely does the job better. If that is the honest answer, that is the answer you get.
Afterwards
It's a plan, not a project.
Most of what we do is ongoing. Rather than picking a package off a shelf, we put a retainer together around your business: the site hosted, monitored and improved every month, and the search, content and creative work carrying on instead of stopping the day you go live.
You pay for what you actually need, and nothing you don't. There's a minimum term, because we fund real work up front, and it's stated clearly before you sign. Nothing about leaving is designed to be difficult.
You own your business, not a hostage situation.
Your domain, your content, your code, your accounts, from day one. If you ever leave, you take all of it with you.
The full version →Proof
Live builds, not mockups.
Tend
A shift-scheduling tool for independent hospitality where labour cost is a live number you see while you plan. A Charged Studio product design project, resolved into a production-grade interface.
Chair
A booking and retention tool for independent salons and clinics, where an empty chair is revenue you can't get back. A Charged Studio product design project.
Why it matters
Every hour spent on manual admin is an hour not spent on the work that grows the business. Multiply it across a team and across a year and it stops being an annoyance and starts being a cost.
The right tool pays for itself: fewer mistakes, faster turnaround, happier customers, and your time back.
Questions
Common questions
How long does it take?
Honestly, it depends entirely on what you are building, which is the reason discovery comes first. By the end of it you have a written spec with a real scope and a real timeline in it, before you have committed to building anything.
What if you disappear?
It is built on standard technology, in a repository you own, hosted in an account in your name. Another developer can pick it up and carry on. Nothing about it is locked to us, and that is deliberate.
How do I know what it will cost?
That is exactly what the discovery phase is for. You are never asked to sign off an open-ended build. You get a written spec with a real number attached, and then you decide.
Can you integrate with the tools we already use?
Usually, yes. We build to fit around your existing setup wherever possible, rather than forcing you into a rip-and-replace you did not ask for.
Most software projects start with a site that already works.
See Websites →Ready to grow your business?
Tell us what you need, or grab a free audit of your current site. We'll get back to you within one working day.