Helena ran technology for a Series A fintech with a rebuild to commission. Two of the three studios who pitched “senior” planned to staff her build with juniors the day after signing. She’d been burned once before, and the year-two refactor cost her £180K she didn’t have. She chose the studio that put the names on the commits.
Studio Client reviews UK · senior-only software studio
Client reviews you can verify on the diligence call, not the marketing site.
Forty-seven written client reviews since 2019, averaging 4.9 out of 5. Two went public the day an acquirer asked who built the codebase. We don’t pay for testimonials, we don’t edit them, and we hand you the founder’s direct line on request. The reviews below sit behind the numbers your CFO and your VC will quote back at you. Read them, then send the email.
47written reviews since 2019
4.9average review score out of 5
2public after acquirer diligence
(What the reviews tell you)
You don’t need a brand-trust pitch. You need to talk to the founder who shipped after we did.
Logos prove nothing. A direct line to the CEO who lived through your exact build proves everything. Forty-seven UK founders, CTOs, and engineering leads have written us a review since 2019, and we’ll connect you to two in your sector before you sign a thing.
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The review behind one of the numbersacquirer diligence · pre-LOI codebase walk · signed by lunch
Helena had three quotes. All three said “senior”. Only one still earns a five-star review three years on.
Three years later her acquirer’s CTO walked the codebase pre-LOI and signed full-team retention by lunchtime. The ADR pack we’d handed her was the thing that closed the deal at ask. Her review is one of the two that went public: “The reviews you should trust are the ones written after the diligence call, not before the contract.”
That’s the only kind of client review we publish. Written after handover. Anonymised on request, never edited, never paid for. This page is for the founder reading reviews and trying to tell the real ones from the curated ones.
The numbers behind the reviews
The receipts your CFO and VC
The receipts your CFO and VC
quote back at you, in numbers
A five-star average means nothing without the production figures underneath it. These are the numbers that survive Series B diligence: not what we say, but what every reviewer can verify on a call.
Reviews
4.9 / 5
Average across 47 written reviews
0
Reviews paid for or edited
Scale
£540M+
GMV through code we shipped
320M+
API calls a year, 2025
Outcomes
2 + 3
IPOs and M&A exits
28 mo
Median retainer tenure
Selected client reviews · 2024–2025
Direct quotes. Founder names on request.
Six written reviews from the last two years, anonymised here, named in the introduction call. Every one passed through an acquirer, a raise, or a production cutover before it was written.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“The acquirer’s CTO walked our codebase pre-LOI and signed full-team retention by lunchtime. The ADR pack Empyreal handed us was the thing that closed the deal at ask.”
Series A CEO · UK B2B SaaS · acquired Q3 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“Two senior engineers paired daily for fourteen weeks. Zero downtime on the cutover. Six months later we still call them when something gets weird. That’s the relationship.”
VP Engineering · UK Fintech · Series A £12M, 2024
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“The 5-day audit found four critical issues we’d been carrying for nine months. Honest delivery, fixed-price quote, no pressure on the rebuild. Refreshing.”
CTO · UK Marketplace · audit Q2 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“I shipped my MVP with Lovable. Empyreal’s audit list landed on day six with sample fix code per finding. Slept properly for the first time in a month.”
Solo Founder · UK Vertical SaaS · Lovable audit 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“They told us not to rebuild when the easier answer was a four-week refactor. That kind of honesty wins repeat work, and they got our next project too.”
Founder · UK Healthtech · NHS DSPT 2024 + 2025
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“Senior-only, fixed-price, ADR pack at handover. The whole engagement felt like hiring a small senior team without the four-month hiring cycle.”
CEO · UK Edtech, MAT supplier · 2025 build sprint
What clients say after the diligence call
Twelve clients now in year four or beyond. The CEOs and CTOs who shortlisted us against bigger names, and what they wrote once the architecture had to defend itself.
100%
would refer us
Three studios pitched senior. Empyreal was the only one who let me meet the engineers before I signed. The same four shipped it.
No paid reviews. No edits. No filter. A direct founder line on request.
Most agencies curate their testimonials into mush. Here’s exactly how every client review on this page gets written, published, and verified, so you can trust the 4.9 isn’t a marketing number.
- 01
“Most reviews are written by the agency and approved by the client.”
We email three questions, and publish the answers verbatim. Was the timeline honest, was the price honest, would you sign with us again? We don’t edit the copy. We anonymise on request. We never pay for or incentivise a review.
- 02
“You can never actually talk to the names behind the logos.”
You talk to the founder who wrote the review, first. Email Mohit and we’ll route you to two founders in your sector. They’ll tell you what we’re actually like to work with. We don’t hide behind a wall of logos.
- 03
“A 4.9 average looks suspiciously perfect.”
It isn’t curated, it’s what founders write. Forty-seven reviews, 4.9 of 5, zero paid for or edited. Two went public the day an acquirer asked who built the codebase. The receipts behind every number are auditable on a call.
Where the reviews come from.
Forty-seven reviews spread across six clusters. Open the one closest to your build, and ask for an introduction to a founder who’s already shipped it.
Eleven reviews from UK SaaS and B2B founders and CTOs since 2019. Median ARR at review: £2.4M. Multi-tenant builds, billing, and the diligence packs behind two exits.
Eight reviews from FCA-aware fintechs. Three reviewers acquired or raised Series B in 2025. Settlement engines, KYC boundaries, and audit trails that defend at the next FCA visit.
Six reviews from NHS-aware healthtechs. DSPT and DCB0129 work documented. One reviewer’s headline: we told them not to rebuild when a four-week refactor was the honest answer.
Five reviews from KCSIE-aware edtechs serving UK schools and Multi-Academy Trusts. Senior-only build sprints with the ADR pack at handover that procurement teams ask for.
Nine reviews from solo founders who shipped MVPs with Lovable, Cursor, Bolt, v0, Claude Code, and ChatGPT. The audit list lands on day six with sample fix code per finding.
Eight reviews across WordPress, Drupal, Laravel, and MySQL migrations plus SOC 2 and ISO 27001 work. Zero downtime on the cutover is the line that shows up most often.
The receipts behind the reviews. Procurement, security, and the walk-away clause.
A five-star review is the founder’s word. This is the paperwork that backs it up. Three things every engagement gives your CFO, CTO, and DPO, before they ever have to ask.
SOC 2 Type II achieved, with the evidence pipeline wired from day one.
Empyreal-internal SOC 2 Type II achieved December 2025. We turn your enterprise security questionnaire from a scramble into a paste.
- SOC 2 Type II + pen-test report held
- UK + EU GDPR-aware DPA + SCCs on file
- 30-day DSAR runbook, erasure at the schema
- SIG-Lite + CAIQ procurement pack pre-filled
A 30-day walk-away that works in both directions.
You keep everything. IP assigns on every commit, so there’s never a moment your code isn’t yours. No lock-in, no hostage codebase.
- IP assigns on every commit
- 30-day walk-away both ways
- Two handovers in seven years, both inside 48 hours
- 12-month no-poach for referrer agencies on request
The seniors who sign your scope are the seniors who maintain it.
No analyst chain, no bench filler, no offshore handoff. The same team, project to project, with 96% retention to prove the model holds.
- Two senior engineers paired daily
- Mohit reviews every PR on the spine
- One ADR per spine decision, written the same day
- 200+ engagements signed off personally since 2019
What founders actually ask about the reviews
Pain-first, soft-second. The questions that come up when you’re weighing client reviews against three studios this week.
Because we’ll let you check it yourself. None of the 47 client reviews were paid for, incentivised, or edited. We email three questions after handover and publish the answers verbatim, anonymised only on request. If a 4.9 still feels too clean, ask Mohit for two founder introductions in your sector and put the number to them directly.
Yes, and it’s the whole point of this page. Email Mohit a 5-line brief with your sector, size, and raise stage, and we’ll line up two founder introductions inside 48 hours. They wrote the review, they lived the build, and they’ll tell you what we’re actually like to work with. We don’t hide behind a wall of logos.
Most founders prefer to stay anonymous while their company is still trading or mid-raise, and we respect that by default. Two reviews went public the day an acquirer asked who built the codebase, because at that point the names helped the deal. The other 45 are real, written, and available to verify through a direct introduction.
It already has, repeatedly. Two clients reached IPO with code we wrote. Three exited via M&A with full-team acquirer-CTO retention. Every spine decision ships as a written ADR, so the diligence reviewer inherits the why, not just the what. Several of the client reviews on this page were written the week that diligence call ended.
We don’t filter for wins. Where a build slipped, we absorbed the gap at our cost or revised scope with the founder in writing, and the review says so. The 30-day walk-away works in both directions, and we’ve walked away from work we couldn’t make right. Ask for an introduction and you can hear the unedited version.
A UK and EU GDPR-aware Data Processing Agreement on file, with Standard Contractual Clauses for cross-border and a versioned sub-processor list. A 30-day DSAR runbook, right-to-erasure handled at the schema, and an ICO audit-defendable trail. Our internal SOC 2 Type II was achieved in December 2025, with the Vanta evidence pipeline wired for clients from day one.
No. You’re engaging Empyreal Infotech Limited on a fixed-scope statement of work, not a disguised employee on a day-rate. Deliverables, milestones, and a fixed price, all defined off the audit. Your finance team gets a clean B2B services contract, not an IR35 headache.
Nine of the client reviews on this page come from solo founders who shipped with Lovable, Cursor, Bolt, v0, Claude Code, or ChatGPT. The common line: the audit list lands on day six with sample fix code per finding, and they slept properly for the first time in a month. A 5-day fixed-price audit gives you the severity-ranked fix list before you scale or raise.
In context
See it in context.
A look at the kind of client reviews surface we hand over — real screens, real data, documented and yours from day one.
Forty-seven reviews. Forty-seven direct lines we’ll happily connect you to.
Send a 5-line brief: your current estate, your deadline, and who you’d like to talk to by sector, size, and raise stage. We’ll line up two founder introductions inside 48 hours, plus a real reply from Mohit with the next audit slot.
What happens after the email lands
- < 24h
A personal reply.
Yes, no, or the deciding question. Straight to your inbox, from Mohit.
- < 48h
Two introductions.
Two founders in your sector who wrote a review and lived the build.
- Day 5
The audit brief lands.
A 30-page brief, six ADRs, and a single fixed quote for the build.