Start Your Project.
Software, systems, websites. Tell us what you need. Get a straight answer.

No discovery call funnel. No three-week silence. A yes or a no, in writing, within two working days.

Most agencies make you sit through a sales call before they’ll tell you anything. We’d rather read what you actually need: a booking system, an internal tool, an integration between two things that refuse to talk to each other, a new site, or something nobody’s built yet. Then you get a real answer. Fill this in, and you’ll know where you stand before anyone books a meeting.

  • 📍 Claypole, Lincolnshire
  • ⚡ Answer Within 2 Working Days
  • 💷 Fixed Price Before Work Starts
  • 👁 Track It From One Private Link
  • 🚫 No Obligation
Send Your Brief Rather Talk First?

Why We Ask You to Write It Down

You’ve probably had the other version. You fill in a contact form, get pushed into a thirty-minute call, and spend most of it explaining your business to someone who’s already decided what they’re going to sell you. Then you wait. Sometimes nothing comes back at all.

Writing it down is faster for both of us. We can think about it properly instead of improvising on a call, and you get a considered answer rather than a rehearsed one. If we’re not right for the job, we’ll say so quickly rather than stringing you along.

Dearthwood is a Claypole-based software studio. We build web applications, booking and management systems, customer portals, bespoke plugins, API integrations and data migrations, alongside websites and online stores. We work with businesses across Newark, Grantham, Lincoln, Sleaford, Nottinghamshire and remotely across the UK. You deal directly with the person who builds the thing. The brief you send goes straight to them, not into a sales pipeline.

Everything is quoted individually before work starts. Website pricing happens to be published on our web design page if that’s what you’re after, and our case studies show how real projects, custom systems and sites both, actually went before you commit to anything.

What You Can Brief Us On

If it runs in a browser, talks to an API, or replaces a spreadsheet somebody dreads opening, it belongs here. Websites are one of the things we build, not the only one.

  • Bespoke Software & Systems

    Booking engines, quoting tools, job and stock tracking, customer portals, internal dashboards. Systems built around how your operation actually works rather than how an off-the-shelf product wishes it did.

  • Integrations & APIs

    Getting two systems to talk to each other: accounting, CRM, EPOS, couriers, payment providers, mapping and routing. Including bespoke WordPress plugins and WooCommerce extensions where nothing existing does the job.

  • Websites & Online Stores

    Brochure sites, multi-page business sites and full WooCommerce stores with product management, payments and shipping. Fixed price, agreed before work starts.

  • Migrations & Rescues

    Moving platforms, moving hosts, or picking up something a previous developer left half-finished. We’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth saving or whether rebuilding costs you less in the long run.

  • Something Else Entirely

    If you’re not sure what category it falls into, that’s fine. Describe the problem rather than the solution. Working out what should actually be built is part of the job, and it’s the part we’re paid to be good at.

Anything with a public-facing site attached to it gets the search foundations done as part of the build: page titles and meta descriptions, clean URLs, canonicals, sitemap, schema markup, image optimisation and Core Web Vitals. It’s included in the work rather than sold on top of it.

What Happens After You Hit Send

Four steps. No mystery, no waiting by the phone.

  • Step 01

    We Read It Properly

    Not skimmed, not filtered by a chatbot. If something’s unclear we’ll ask rather than guess. Every brief gets read by the person who’d be doing the work.

  • Step 02

    You Get a Yes or a No

    In writing, within two working days, with the reasoning. If we’re not the right fit we’ll tell you straight and point you somewhere better where we can. You won’t be left wondering.

  • Step 03

    Your Private Link Arrives

    You get a private link by email, and that link is the whole thing. Your project, the agreed price, the stages and every message between us live in one place instead of scattered across an email thread. No account to create, no password to remember, nothing to log into.

  • Step 04

    Work Starts, In Full View

    If it’s a yes, your staging environment is live within 24 hours (a real site or a real working build, not screenshots) and you can watch every change as it happens. Deposit and balance are shown up front. Nothing is charged before you’ve agreed to it.

Tell Us About Your Project

Plain English is fine. You don’t need a spec, and you don’t need to know what the solution looks like; that’s our job. Describe the problem, what it’s costing you now, and what “done” would look like. The more you put here, the faster we can answer.

Tell us what you need and roughly what you've budgeted. We read every one and come back to you with a straight yes or no. We won't leave you wondering.

Before You Send It

The questions we get asked most. Straight answers, no waffle.

What sort of projects can I send?

Anything we build. Booking and management systems, quoting and job tracking, customer portals, internal tools, web applications, API integrations between systems that don’t talk to each other, bespoke plugins, platform migrations, and websites and online stores. If something already exists and needs extending, fixing or moving, that counts too. Describe the problem in your own words and we’ll work out what it should be built as.

What will you build it in?

Whatever the job actually calls for. Standalone systems and bespoke software built from scratch when off-the-shelf products can’t do it, plugins and extensions where an existing platform is most of the way there, and WordPress where that’s genuinely the right tool rather than the default one. We’ve also worked alongside other developers on platforms we didn’t build. You don’t need to pick the technology in your brief. Tell us what it has to do and we’ll tell you what we’d build it with and why.

How long will it take?

It depends entirely on what it is, and anyone who gives you a number before reading the brief is guessing. A defined piece of work with a clear scope can be a couple of weeks. Anything with real operational logic, data to migrate or other systems to talk to is driven by those, not by a calendar. You get a realistic timeline alongside your price, before you commit to anything, and you’re not waiting until the end to see it; the work is visible from day one.

Do I own what you build?

Yes, completely. On handover you get the full code, the database, the credentials and a walkthrough of how it works. You can host it where you like, hand it to another developer, or run it yourself. Some agencies lock you into their hosting or use proprietary builders that trap your project. We don’t.

Does this cost anything?

No. Sending a brief is free and creates no obligation whatsoever, and neither is the link we send you to track it. You won’t get chased by a salesperson either; there isn’t one.

Do I have to create an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no password and nothing to log into. We email you a private link, and that link opens your project: the brief, our decision, the price, the stages and every message between us, in one place rather than buried in an email thread you’ll have to search for in three weeks. Keep the link to yourself — anyone who has it can open the project.

What if you say no?

You get a straight answer and the reason behind it. Nothing has been started and nothing is chargeable. Most declines are about fit or timing rather than anything being wrong with your idea, and if the scope or budget changes later you’re welcome to come back and we’ll look again properly.

Why do you ask for a budget?

Because it’s the fastest way to be useful to you. Everything we build is bespoke, tested and supported after launch, and that takes real time. Almost everything is scoped and priced individually, because a booking system, a two-way integration and a brochure site are three completely different amounts of work. If you’re below what you think it’ll cost, say so anyway and we’ll tell you honestly whether the scope can come down to fit or whether you’d genuinely be better off with something off the shelf. A rough figure is fine; we won’t hold you to a number you gave before anything was scoped.

What should I actually put in the brief?

What it’s for, who uses it, and what it has to do to be worth building. Mention anything that already exists: a current site or system, software it needs to talk to, data that has to come across, a process someone currently does by hand. If you have a date in mind, say so; if it’s flexible, say that instead. You don’t need wireframes, a spec or technical language. If you have them, just mention it and we’ll ask once we’re talking.

I’d rather just talk to someone.

That’s fine. Call 01400 595 093 or use the contact page. But a written brief usually gets you a faster and better answer, because we can think about it properly before replying rather than improvising down the phone.