Nelson · Motueka · Nelson-Tasman
Custom software & business-aware websites for Nelson businesses.
Nelson-Tasman moved around NZD $2.0b of goods and services exports in 2023, led by a "big five" of seafood, horticulture, forestry, farming and tourism — yet its web market is dominated by marketing-first WordPress shops. Tally Digital builds the layer they can't: custom web apps, real API and system integrations, and shipped AI, hand-coded by one senior New Zealand engineer. The region's exporters run harvest, quota, traceability and cold-chain logistics on spreadsheets and dated desktop tools, and its wineries and breweries lack proper DTC e-commerce — the middle layer, too complex for a template shop but too small for an Auckland enterprise firm. That gap is exactly where a boutique studio earns its keep: dashboards, integrations, booking engines and back-office automation for the Nelson and Tasman firms that have outgrown a brochure site.
NZ-based · NZD · GST-registered · you own the code
Who it’s for
Built for the businesses that run Nelson.
Seafood, aquaculture & the blue economy
Nelson's blue economy — Sealord, NZ King Salmon, Talley's and Port Nelson, the largest seafood processing port in Australasia — contributes roughly $332m GDP and 3,700 jobs. That scale needs traceability, quota and harvest tracking, cold-chain and export-portal integrations no template shop can build.
Horticulture, packhouses & apple exporters
As NZ's second-largest apple region — around 28% of the national crop — Nelson-Tasman growers like Golden Bay Fruit, Fairfield Orchards and NZ Apple Products run seasonal labour, cool-store and grading logistics that reward custom dashboards, harvest scheduling and API integrations with export and packhouse systems.
Wineries, breweries & craft beverage
Nelson is NZ's craft-beer capital — home to Eddyline, Hop Federation, Sprig + Fern and Founders — plus roughly 25 boutique wineries. These operators need proper DTC and subscription e-commerce on Shopify, wine-club CRM and email automation, not another manual enquiry form.
Tourism & booking-led operators
Tourism over-indexes here, with 58% more visitor-nights per capita than the national average across the Nelson Regional Development Agency's operators and the wider nelsontasman.nz network. Tours, activities and cellar doors need real-time booking engines with integrated payments, replacing manual enquiry-form workflows.
Construction, timber & the trades
Construction is a named growth driver — roughly 25,000 new homes needed over 30 years and an engineered-timber showcase at Nelson Airport. Builders, mass-timber manufacturers and trade suppliers feeding Port Nelson need job-management, quoting, client portals and Xero-integrated back offices, not brochure tradie sites.
Forestry, farming & primary-sector ops
Forestry and farming round out the region's big five, feeding Port Nelson's wood-processing chain and export flows. These operators lean on legacy desktop tools and spreadsheets for logistics and reporting — ripe for cloud web apps, structured data capture and the integrations that modernise a primary-sector back office.
What we solve
The problems that cost you the most are the ones a template can’t reach.
Spreadsheets running the export line
Seafood processors and packhouses track harvest, quota, traceability and cold-chain logistics in spreadsheets and legacy desktop tools. It's the classic case for a custom web app and real API integrations — not another brochure site bolted onto the same manual workflow.
No real DTC e-commerce
Nelson's wineries and breweries have export and cellar-door revenue but lack proper direct-to-consumer and subscription stores. No wine-club CRM, no beer-subscription checkout, no email automation — just a Shopify build waiting to happen and margin left on the table.
Manual enquiry-form bookings
Tourism and activity operators lean on manual enquiry forms and email tag instead of real-time booking engines with integrated payments. That's lost conversions and admin hours — a booking system tied to your calendar and payment flow fixes both.
Near-zero AI readiness
Across the region there's almost no automation of quoting, customer support or reporting, and legacy incumbents still ship Delphi and Windows desktop apps. That leaves a wide modern-web, cloud and AI gap where practical automation pays back quickly.
The difference
You talk to the person who writes the code.
Most local options are marketing agencies that outsource the build, or template resellers who hand you a page and disappear after the invoice. Neither can build the software layer a growing Nelson business actually needs.
Tally Digital is a single senior engineer. Every project is hand-coded on a modern stack, every integration is real, and the code is yours to keep. No junior hand-off, no page-builder lock-in, no “who supports this now?”.
- Custom software, not templates
- Real API & booking integrations
- Modern stack — Next.js, Sanity, Supabase, Shopify
- You own the code and the accounts
What we build
Websites that do a job — plus the software behind them.
Proof
Real software, shipped for New Zealand businesses.
Inventory platforms, member portals and custom builds for NZ clients — the same senior engineering that goes into every Nelson project.
How it works
A clear path from brief to launch.
Brief
We map the real problem and how your systems work today — not just a page count.
Architect
A plan you can read: what gets built, which integrations, what you own at the end.
Build
Hand-coded on a modern stack (Next.js, Sanity, Supabase, Shopify) — no page-builder debt.
Launch & support
Shipped, documented and handed over. You talk to the person who wrote the code.
FAQ
Questions, answered.
- Do you work with Nelson and wider Nelson-Tasman businesses?
- Yes. Tally Digital is a New Zealand software studio and works with Nelson, Motueka and the wider Nelson-Tasman region remotely and on-site as needed. Same process wherever you are: clear scope, direct communication with the engineer who writes the code, and software you own outright — from seafood exporters to cellar doors.
- Can you build DTC or wine-club e-commerce for a Nelson winery or brewery?
- Yes. For the region's wineries and craft breweries I build proper direct-to-consumer stores on Shopify — subscription and wine-club flows, memberships, CRM and email automation, plus custom Shopify apps where the platform stops short. The goal is recurring DTC revenue, not a static product page with an enquiry form.
- Can you integrate a new build with Xero and our existing systems?
- Integrations are core to what I do. I connect websites and custom apps to Xero, payment providers, booking calendars, and packhouse, grading or export systems via their APIs, so quotes, invoices and orders sync automatically. No more re-keying data between a website and the tools your Nelson operation already runs on.
- What's the difference between a web designer and a developer here?
- Most Nelson studios are design and marketing-first, shipping WordPress brochure sites. I'm a senior engineer: I write the code behind custom web apps, dashboards, integrations and booking engines. If your need is genuinely a business tool rather than a static site, that's a developer's job, and it's the work I take on.
- How do you handle cost and scope for a custom build?
- Every project starts with a clear scope and a fixed price before any code is written, so there are no open-ended hourly surprises. You send the bottleneck, I map the smallest build that solves it, and you get a plan you can sign off on. You own the code and can take it anywhere afterwards.
Tell me what your business has outgrown.
Got a Nelson or Nelson-Tasman operation stuck between a template site and an Auckland enterprise quote? Send me the bottleneck — the harvest spreadsheet, the missing wine-club store, the manual booking inbox — and I'll come back with a clear plan and a fixed price.