A support desk for the team still living in the shared inbox.
Solves is a UK-first, email-first support desk for small teams that have outgrown a shared inbox. We are a small, founder-led UK team at pilot stage, building one thing well: turning support email into owned, timed, multi-brand work, without pretending to be a contact centre or an enterprise suite.
Pilot stage, not generally available yet. We say so plainly.
Why we built Solves
It starts with a shared inbox that has stopped coping
Almost every small UK business answers customers from a shared address: support@, info@, accounts@. It works for a while. Then the team grows, the volume grows, and the shared inbox quietly turns from a tool into a liability.
You know the pattern. Two people reply to the same customer because there is no ownership. A message slips below the fold and nobody answers for three days. A reply meant as an internal aside about a refund goes to the customer by mistake. Nobody can say who is dealing with what, how long a customer has been waiting, or whether you are keeping the response times you promised. The usual fix, a big helpdesk, often makes it worse for a small team: per-agent pricing that punishes the colleague who helps out on a busy Monday, and a dozen channels you will never staff.
We built Solves for the gap in between: more than a shared inbox, far less than a contact-centre suite. It gives a small team owned tickets, clear assignment, states from New through to Closed, priority, tags, public replies, hard-separated private notes, saved replies and SLA timers, so support becomes work you can see and trust, not a pile of unread mail.
Why UK-first
Built for the way UK teams actually work
Most support tools are built for a US default and translated outwards. Solves is UK-first on purpose, because the small details are exactly where imported tools grate.
Pricing is in pounds, ex VAT, with VAT visible on the invoice, so finance is not converting dollars and second-guessing the tax line. First-response and resolution SLA timers, with per-brand or organisation targets and a breaching view that surfaces overdue tickets, keep response times something you can see and trust. The whole product, every label and every line of copy, is written in British English, because colour, organise, licence and enquiry are how your customers write too.
None of this is decoration. It is the difference between a tool that feels made for you and one you are constantly adapting to. We would rather get the unglamorous UK details right than ship a generic product with a Union Jack on the pricing page.
Why email-first
One job, done properly, instead of ten done thinly
Solves is email-first and deliberately narrow. We do not do live chat, phone, WhatsApp or social inboxes, and we are not building towards an omnichannel contact centre.
That is a choice, not a gap we are racing to fill. Small teams that have outgrown a shared inbox almost always have an email problem first: too much of it, no ownership, no clock, no history. Stacking on more live channels before the email is under control just spreads a small team thinner across queues they cannot staff. So we focus on the channel that is actually overflowing and make it good.
Being narrow lets us be sharp. Multi-brand is core, not a top-tier add-on: run several customer-facing brands from one login and one unified queue, each with its own mailbox, signature and saved replies, and a hard guard against replying as the wrong brand. Mailbox setup is guided and forwarding-first, and moving in from Freshdesk has a preview-before-commit import.
What we stand for
The principles we hold ourselves to
A few rules that shape every decision, including the awkward ones.
Truthful copy
We describe what is shipped, not what is planned. Features that are coming are labelled as coming. If we cannot stand behind a number, we do not print it.
Encrypted at rest
All customer support content is encrypted before it reaches the database with per-organisation keys, using XChaCha20-Poly1305, and access is limited to authorised users.
Metadata-only logs
We log timings, errors and route families to spot problems early, but never message bodies, email addresses, secrets or payloads. Privacy is built into the logging.
Deliberately narrow
Email-first, with no chat, phone or social. One job done properly for a small team beats ten jobs done thinly across channels nobody staffs.
Accessible by design
We build towards the WCAG 2.2 AA target, with server-rendered pages and progressive enhancement, so the desk works for the whole team.
UK to the core
GBP ex VAT, British English, UK data residency. Designed for UK small and medium businesses, not retro-fitted for them.
Pilot stage, said plainly
Solves is not generally available yet. The core is shipped and in real use, and we are running an early-adopter pilot to harden it before we call it production-ready. If that honesty is the kind of supplier you want, you are exactly who we are building for.
The pilot
Building with early adopters, not at them
We are at the stage where the people who join shape the product. The early-adopter pilot is a real partnership, not a marketing label.
The first twenty paid customers get the Team plan at GBP 49 a month for six months, then GBP 79, in exchange for a testimonial or honest feedback. That includes setup help, saved-reply migration and guided mailbox setup, so the move off your shared inbox or your old helpdesk is supported rather than left to you. In return, you tell us what is missing, awkward or wrong, and we fix it while the product is still small enough to turn quickly. It is a fair trade: a pilot price and a direct line to the people building it, in exchange for the real-world use that turns a good core into something we can confidently call production-ready.
FAQ
Honest answers about Solves
Who is behind Solves?
Solves is built by a small, founder-led UK team. We are at pilot stage, working closely with early adopters rather than chasing scale. We deliberately do not publish headcount, funding or customer counts we cannot stand behind, because the house rule is that the copy stays truthful: real people in the UK, building support software they would want to use, and shipping only what works.
Where is Solves data held?
Customer support content is encrypted at rest with per-organisation keys before it touches the database, using XChaCha20-Poly1305, and access is restricted to authorised users only. Our logs carry metadata for diagnosing problems, never message bodies, email addresses or payloads. If you need specific details about hosting and data location for your due diligence, the security page covers what we can share at pilot stage.
Is Solves production-ready?
Not yet, and we will not pretend otherwise. Solves is at pilot stage. The core is shipped and usable: owned email tickets, ownership and assignment, states and priority, public replies, private notes, saved replies, first-response and resolution SLA timers with a breaching view that surfaces overdue tickets, multi-brand, guided mailbox setup and a Freshdesk import. We are running an early-adopter pilot with a small number of paid customers to harden it in real use before we call it generally available.
How does Solves make money?
Solves is a paid product on GBP team-band pricing, ex VAT, with annual plans priced as twelve months for ten. Starter is GBP 29 for 3 users, 1 brand, 1 mailbox and 1,000 tickets a month, plus an early-adopter pilot price for the first paid customers. Solves is not funded by reselling your data. You pay for the plan band that fits your team, and that is the whole model.
What is still on the roadmap?
A handful of features, such as CSAT, a customer portal, a knowledge base and a developer API, are planned and described as coming, never as something you can use today. The shipped core is owned email tickets, ownership and assignment, states and priority, public replies, private notes, saved replies, SLA timers, multi-brand, guided mailbox setup and a Freshdesk import.
Help us build the support desk small UK teams deserve
Join the early-adopter pilot, or read exactly how we protect your data first. No pressure, no contact-centre upsell.