It's Friday at 4pm. You're wrapping up a project. Then the email lands:
"Hey, something's wrong with the site. Can you take a look?"
Which site. What's wrong. On what device. In what browser. You don't know any of this. You reply asking. They respond Monday. You go back and forth twice. By Tuesday you've spent 45 minutes on a bug that took 12 minutes to fix — once you finally understood what it was.
If you're freelancing, this is especially painful. There's no junior developer to hand it off to. No project manager to chase the client. No team standup where someone else flags it. Every bug lands on you, and every clarification email eats directly into time you could have spent on billable work.
The solution isn't to get better at handling email chaos. It's to stop the chaos arriving in the first place.
The Freelancer Bug Problem
Agencies at least have the option of assigning someone to manage client communication. As a solo developer, you're the designer, the developer, the account manager, and the support desk rolled into one. When a bug comes in through email, you have to context-switch from whatever you're working on, read the (usually vague) description, figure out if you can reproduce it, and — more often than not — start a reply chain asking for the information the client should have included in the first place.
This isn't just annoying. It compounds:
- Three clients, ten bugs a month each means thirty potential clarification threads running in parallel
- Each back-and-forth adds a day or two to the resolution time — time the client is spending frustrated
- Email has no status tracking — clients email again to ask if you've seen their report, because they have no other way to know
- Bugs blur together in your inbox — which one was for which client? Which are urgent? Which did you already fix?
The email inbox was not designed to be a bug tracker. You're not failing at the system — the system is wrong.
What a Proper System Looks Like for a Solo Developer
You don't need something complex. You need three things:
- A way for clients to submit bugs without emailing you — with enough context that you can actually reproduce the issue
- A single place to see all open issues — across all your client sites, sorted by what matters
- Clients who can check the status themselves — without pinging you to ask "any update?"
That's it. The whole system. You don't need a project manager or a support team to run it. You need a tool built for this specific workflow.
How Lantern Works for Freelancers
Lantern gives each of your clients their own portal — a unique URL where they can submit bugs and track their status. No account needed on the client's end. You share the link once; they use it whenever something breaks.
The widget goes inside their site. If your client uses WordPress or Umbraco, Lantern's plugin or NuGet package adds a floating bug report button directly inside their admin area — visible only when they're logged in, invisible to their visitors. Your client notices a bug in their WordPress dashboard, clicks the button, and reports it right there. No new tab, no remembering a link, no friction.
Clients record a Loom video instead of typing a description. This is the part that changes everything. Instead of "the contact form doesn't work," you get a 30-second screen recording showing exactly what happens, on exactly which page, in exactly which browser. Browser, OS, URL, and screen size are captured automatically — you don't have to ask.
You see everything in one place. One dashboard, all your clients, all open issues. Filter by client, urgency, or status. See what's been open for two weeks. Nothing falls through the cracks because you forgot which email thread contained which bug.
Clients see status without emailing you. When you update an issue to "In Progress" or "Fixed," your client can see it in their portal. They don't have to email asking for an update — they check, see it's being handled, and leave you alone until it's resolved.
The Pricing, Honestly
The Individual plan is £12.50/month. It covers up to 5 clients and unlimited issues. There's a 14-day free trial and no credit card required to start.
For context: if the average bug takes you 30 minutes of clarification email before you can touch it, and you're handling 20 bugs a month across your client sites, that's 10 hours of non-billable admin. At any reasonable freelance rate, £12.50/month pays for itself in the first bug.
If you're managing more than 5 clients, the Team plan is £30/month for unlimited clients — same flat rate whether you have 6 clients or 20.
The Professional Side Effect
There's a benefit beyond the time saving: clients notice.
When you onboard a new client and send them a Lantern portal link instead of your personal email address, you look more organised. When they can see the status of their issues without chasing you, they feel more looked after. When bugs get fixed faster because you have all the context upfront, they're happier.
For freelancers, client retention is everything. A tool that makes you look professional and responsive is worth more than its monthly cost.
Start your free trial — no credit card needed →
Takes about five minutes to set up. Your clients don't need to do anything until you share their portal link.
Managing more than 5 clients? The Team plan is £30/month and covers unlimited clients, unlimited issues, and Jira integration if you need to connect your dev workflow.
Simple bug tracking for agencies. No credit card required.