Slate answers the phone when you cannot.
You are up a ladder, under a sink, or driving. Slate texts them back in four seconds in your firm’s name, puts the job on your board, and holds the quote, the invoice and the chasing until you are down.
Free for 14 days, then £249 a month. No contract, the date your 14 days end is shown when you start and never moves, and if you are not happy within a fortnight of your first payment, every penny comes back.
- Keep your own number
- No contract
- Built in London
Job sheet
Your firm · Plumbing & heating
No.
0184
- 09:41:00
Missed call
07700 900 812 · you were up a ladder
- 09:41:04
Texted back from your number
Your firm’s name first, so it makes sense
- 09:43:26
“Boiler’s lost pressure again. Can you come Thursday?”
- 09:43:27
On your board as a new job
Name, number, and the reply, waiting for you
Answered in
4 sec
rang him back at dinner. Thurs 8am, booked.
You already know what is wrong. You have not had a spare evening to fix it.
Right now
With Slate
The quote you promised Tuesday, still not sent on Thursday
Priced from the van in ninety seconds. Out as a proper document with the VAT right and a link to pay the deposit.
The bloke who rang while you were in a loft, gone to the next firm
Texted back in four seconds, with your firm’s name first so it makes sense. He waits.
That job in March you are fairly sure you never invoiced
Found and listed for you, with the job attached and how long it has been sitting there.
Sunday night at the kitchen table with a pile of paperwork
Already done, off your phone, as the week went. Sunday is Sunday.
Money owed for six weeks that you have not got round to chasing
One tap, or a reminder you set on Monday that goes out Thursday if nobody pays.
Meaning to ask for a review, three weeks after the job finished
One link the day you finish. Their words are yours before they go anywhere near Google.
Not one of those is a software problem. They are all the same problem: the office end of the job happens at the exact moment your hands are full.
Most will not leave a voicemail.
They ring the next firm on the list. You never hear about it, which is exactly why it has been happening for years. Here is what goes out instead, four seconds after the call drops, whether you are up a ladder, under a sink or on the M6.
- 1
Your firm’s name first
An unknown number with no name on it gets ignored. This one says who it is in the first three words.
- 2
It explains the second number
They rang one number and are being texted from another. Saying so out loud costs six words and removes the only real objection to the whole thing.
- 3
It tells them what happens next
That they can reply to this, and that you will ring back off the number they rang. Then it stops. One text, not a conversation.
Hollis Plumbing
Your Slate number
Today 09:41
Hollis Plumbing here. Sorry I missed your call, I’m on a job.
1This is our text line, so reply here if it’s easier. Otherwise I’ll ring you straight back from the number you rang.
23Delivered
Your day does not change. Everything around it does.
You still do the work and you still get home late. The difference is what happened while your hands were full.
Time
You
Slate
Loading the van in the dark.
Two enquiries came in overnight. Both on your board with their numbers on them.
Halfway into a loft. Phone goes in your pocket.
He gets a text four seconds later with your firm’s name on it. He waits instead of ringing the next one.
Sandwich in the van.
You price yesterday’s bathroom on your phone. Quote out with a pay link on it.
Second fix.
Deposit lands by card and Slate tells you. The other quote you sent that customer closes itself off.
Loading up. Knackered.
Invoice out from the same card before you pull off the drive.
Sofa.
Nothing needs you. Two chases are set for Thursday if nobody has paid by then.
Your customer never sees Slate. They see you, doing it properly.
Nothing that goes out carries our name. It carries yours. Your logo, your address, your VAT number, your bank details.
The text
In your firm’s name, in your words. You can change every line of it, and there is a different one for out of hours.
Hollis Plumbing
Your Slate number
Today 09:41
Hollis Plumbing here. Sorry I missed your call, I'm on a job. Reply here if it's easier.
Delivered
The quote, and the invoice
A real document. Numbered so it cannot skip, VAT worked out and frozen on it, and two ways to pay printed on the bottom.
Quote
No.
QUO-0184
Or by bank transfer: sort code and account number printed underneath.
The review page
One link the day you finish. The stars and the words land on your page first, so you keep them even when they never get as far as Google.
How did we do, Margaret?
Bathroom refit · finished Tuesday
Tell them what we did…
Send it
Then we'll take you to Google to post it publicly.
One job, from the first ring to the review.
Not a list of features. The same job moving through Slate, in the order it happens on a real week.
It lands
A missed call, a form, or you put it in yourself in thirty seconds. Either way there is a card with their name and number on it, and it stays there until it is paid or you kill it.
You price it
Write the price on your phone. Out goes a quote with your logo, your VAT handled properly, a document number that does not skip, and a link to pay the deposit by card.
They say yes
The deposit lands and you are told at once. Anything else you had quoted that customer is closed off, so it stops showing as money you are waiting on. Give it a day and it goes in the diary.
You do the work
Materials, a day rate off your own cost book, a subbie. Put them against the job as you go. You can see the margin before the job is finished, not at the end of the year.
You get paid
The invoice goes from the same card. Card or bank transfer, both printed on it. When it clears, the job is marked paid and the chasing stops on its own.
They tell people
One link after the job. The stars and the words land on your own page first, then Slate sends them on to Google or Checkatrade to post it publicly.
Your board
Five columns. A job can only be in one.
No folders, no tags, no statuses to invent. A card sits where the work actually is and moves itself as the quote, the date, the invoice and the money come in. What you are owed is added up along the top, and it is the same figure on every screen.
Every card is a job. Tap it and everything about it is behind it.
The money you have already earned and never asked for.
Every firm has some. A job finished in March that never got invoiced. Three quotes nobody chased. A deposit never taken on work that starts Monday. None of it feels like a problem on the day, which is exactly why it has been running for years.
Slate reads your own jobs and puts it in one list, longest-waiting first, with the job attached to every line. Nothing is estimated: every figure is a document you can open.
- Work finished and never invoiced
- Quotes going cold, and which were never chased
- Jobs in the diary with nothing taken up front
- What you are owed, split by how long it has been owed
- Enquiries nobody has answered yet
Out there right now
£4,7508 jobs, one firm's first month
Asked for, not paid
£3,133Never asked for
£1,617An example, drawn to scale. Your figures are your own.
Every trade owner knows he misses calls. Almost none have multiplied it by fifty-two.
We are not going to tell you what it costs you. You know your own numbers better than we do. Three taps, and read your own handwriting.
Calls you miss in a week
Be honest. Count the ones you rang back two hours later.
What an average job is worth
Your money, not your turnover.
Of those, how many book someone else?
They rang because they wanted it done. If they don’t want you now, they’ve booked the next name.
Walking out of the door
£39,000
a year, in 87 jobs that went to someone else.
It pays for itself if it keeps 1 job a month of the 22 calls you miss.
Your own figures say it pays for itself many times over.
The starting figures are a guess: put in yours. Nothing is sent anywhere.
One to ten of you, doing the work yourselves.
This is you
You are on the tools most days. The quoting and the invoicing happen in the evening, or at the weekend, or late. You know there is money out there you have not chased and you would rather not think about how much.
This is not you
You have an office manager who already does all of this, a contracts team, or fifty vans. Slate is built for a firm where the person who does the work is the person who sends the invoice. Above that line, you need something heavier and we will say so on the call.
Try it for a fortnight. Then one price, less than one job.
Let Slate answer the calls you miss for two weeks and see what it caught. A month costs less than a week of a part-time receptionist on the minimum wage. No contract, and nothing is ever added to the price: no credit to top up, no charge per message.
Slate · one plan
Everything, for one price
Your 14 days start the day you do, and the date they end is shown before you start and never moves. The carrier usually approves a new business within a working day, up to three if they are busy.
Start your 14 daysA card is needed to start, and nothing is taken until day 15. We remind you a week before and again the day before. Stop it any time from Settings.
Not happy? Every penny back
14 days free. Then if you are not happy within a fortnight of your first payment, you get every penny back.
Just message us. No reason needed. You set the bar.
No contract, ever
Everything in it
- A missed call texted back in seconds, from your own Slate number
- Every enquiry on one board, from the first call to paid
- Quotes and invoices with your logo, your VAT and your numbering
- Card payments, and your bank details on every document
- A diary that fills itself in from the jobs you book
- One link after the job that turns into a public review
- The jobs you finished and never invoiced, found for you
- Your real profit, after what the work actually cost you
- Which postcodes pay, and which ones waste your diesel
- 2 of you on the same board
Add on
Your crew
£50a month
2 of you are included, which is most firms: you, and whoever does the invoices. If you have lads on the tools as well, this puts every one of them on the same board with no limit. Monthly or yearly, whichever way you pay for Slate, on the same card. Add it or stop it whenever you like.
On top of the price
A missed-call text back
The one text Slate sends from your Slate number when you cannot pick up. Up to 1,500 a month.
An email Slate sends for you
Sent on your business name, as often as you need.
Nothing is ever added to the plan: no credit to top up and no charge per message. Texts you send yourself go from your own phone on your own tariff. Card payments are taken by Stripe at their rate, straight into your bank. Slate takes nothing out of your money.
The things you are actually thinking.
Do I have to change my number?
You keep your number, your handset, your dialler and your WhatsApp. Nothing is installed and nothing is dialled. Slate gives you a number to advertise instead of your mobile: a call to it rings your phone exactly as it does now, and the ones you cannot take get a text back within seconds. Your own number keeps working as it always has.
Will it text my customers behind my back?
One text, to somebody who has just rung you and got no answer, telling them who you are. That is the only thing Slate sends on its own, and there is a switch to turn it off. Everything else waits for your thumb.
Is this another lead seller?
No. We do not sell you leads and we do not sell your name to anybody who does. Slate works on the enquiries you already get. The ones going cold in your call log right now.
I send quotes on WhatsApp. Why change?
Because a WhatsApp quote is not a document. No number, no VAT breakdown, no way to pay it, and nothing to point at when somebody says they never got it. You can still text from your own phone in Slate. The quote just arrives as a proper piece of paper.
What about my VAT?
Handled on the document, not by you. Net, VAT and total are worked out when the quote or invoice is made and frozen on it: the rate, the treatment and your VAT number. Change your rate next year and last year’s invoices still say what they said. Reduced rate, zero rated and the CIS reverse charge are all there.
Who holds the money?
You do. Card payments are taken by Stripe and paid into your bank on their normal schedule. Bank transfers go straight to you. Slate never touches your customers’ money and takes nothing out of it.
What if I am not very good with computers?
Setting up is a few questions on your phone, and then Slate walks you through one real job from the first call to getting paid. Every job then tells you its next step. If you would rather do it with a person, leave your number below and we will set it up with you on the phone. If you can send a text and take a photo, you can run this.
What if I am not happy with it?
Then you do not pay for it. You get 14 days free from the day you start. Then, for a fortnight after your first payment, if you are not happy for any reason, message us from inside Slate and we refund it in full, usually the same day, a year paid up front included. You do not have to give a reason. You set the bar.
What if I stop?
No contract, and you cancel from inside the app. Your jobs, quotes, invoices and customers export to a spreadsheet whenever you want them, including on the way out. Nothing is held hostage.
We are building this with the first twenty-five firms.
We are not going to pretend there are five hundred of you. There are not. Slate is new, it is built in London, and the people who wrote it answer the phone. If you join now you get our mobile numbers and your name on the things we build next, and the founding rate for as long as you stay.
That is the honest trade. You are early, so you will find the odd rough edge, and you will get it fixed the same week by the person who made it.
London
How you start
- 01
Start your free days
Your firm, your trade and your logo, on your phone in a few minutes. A card to start, and nothing is charged until the trial ends.
- 02
Your Slate number goes live
Usually within a day or two, once the carrier has approved it. We ring you when it is, to check calls reach your phone properly.
- 03
You give it out
Your Google listing, the directories, the van. It rings your phone as normal, and from that moment a missed call gets answered whether you are free or not.