Web and app development studio
We forge websites, apps and the tools that run them.
The Smithy is a small studio building websites and apps for growing businesses: agency-quality work, delivered quickly, at a price that makes sense. Every site we build runs on our own platform: Hearth for content, Bellow for email and Ember for leads.
Services
What we build
We work with small and medium-sized businesses: local shops, restaurants and breweries, retailers, nonprofits and growing startups that want agency-quality work without the agency price tag.
Websites
Marketing sites on Hearth that are fast, accessible, easy to find in search, and easy for you to update.
Web applications
Full-stack apps, dashboards and customer portals, from first prototype to production.
Native apps
iOS and Android apps built with React Native, sharing code and data with your web app.
APIs and integrations
APIs, point of sale, payments, marketing tools and CRMs, connected so your data goes where it should.
Smart features
Assistants, search and content tools built into your product, where they genuinely save time.
Design and consulting
UX and UI design, technology planning and a straight answer on what's worth building.
Our products
Our own tools, built into every project
We built the platform our clients' sites run on. That means software we maintain ourselves, no plugin sprawl, and one team to call when something needs to change.
Hearth
Your website, built for you and easy to update. Edit pages from ready-made blocks, schedule what goes live, and run events, forms, donations and tickets from one place.
Visit Hearth →
Bellow
Email that arrives, sent from your own domain. Form alerts, receipts and confirmations from every Smithy site go out through Bellow, on Amazon SES.
Visit Bellow →
Ember
The CRM for every lead and every client. Forms that drop into any site, a simple pipeline, and an API that connects it to the rest of your tools.
Visit Ember →Our work
Client work
Sites and apps we build and run today, some on our own, some with trusted partners.
A collaboration between MedVR and the Mass General Brigham MXR Lab bringing healthcare professionals expert-led webinars on extended reality in medicine, from surgical training and rehabilitation to mental health and pain management. The site handles free registration, live talk details and an archive of on-demand recordings, with content managed in Hearth.
- Next.js
- Hearth
- Tailwind CSS
Know your next step, every level. Forever Companion is a personal leveling plan for WoW Forever: tell it your class, race and what you care about, and it lays out every step from level 1 to 60, tracking dungeon quests, class quests, professions and XP as you play. Free, no ads and no account required.
- Next.js
- Supabase
- Netlify
Earlier work
Highlights from our founder's agency and freelance years.
PartyCity.com
Front-end lead, at Hill Holliday
Party City awarded Hill Holliday the opportunity to completely overhaul its e-commerce experience. From customer interviews through deployment, our founder helped plan the UX and UI and ultimately led front-end development.
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Custom CSS / JS Widgets
- ISML Custom Templates
GenCon DB
GenCon DB wanted an appealing, easy-to-manage custom website rather than a template builder. We partnered with designers on the UX and UI and built a simple custom CMS behind a dynamic, eye-catching front end.
- Next.js
- Craft CMS
Kodiak Boots Microsite
An engaging microsite, living on the main Kodiak website, to launch a new sustainable, eco-friendly hiking boot.
- Custom HTML / CSS
- JavaScript Animations
Process
How we work
Agency-quality process without the agency overhead: direct communication and honest timelines, from first call to launch day and well after.
Discover
We start with your goals, your audience and what success looks like, then come back with a clear scope, timeline and price. No surprises later.
Build
We work in short cycles, with modern tooling (AI included) doing the routine work, and share working previews along the way, so you see real progress every check-in and can provide feedback before anything is set in stone.
Launch
Hosting, domains, analytics, SEO and performance checks, handled. You get a site you can update yourself in Hearth and a walkthrough of how it all works.
Support
Launch isn't the end. We stay on for fixes, improvements and new features as your business grows, and you always talk to the people doing the work.
About
Founded by builders...
The Smithy was founded by Max McClaskie, a developer and creative technologist who learned the craft of building digital experiences in the world of advertising. That background means we think about the entire customer journey, not just the code.
Today we are focused on being a modern development studio that pairs innovative tooling with meaningful insights in order to bring to life our client's ideas. Whether it is a simple marketing site, marketing automation, or AI integration, our goal is to make digital innovation accessible and cost effective for businesses of any size.