A reply isn't the same as getting what you asked for.
Obtainr is a document-chasing tool for UK firms. It chases documents for you from your own Gmail or Outlook account, reads what comes back, and checks it against exactly what you requested.
Wrong document? Something missing? It follows up automatically — in your name, on the same thread. You step back in when it's complete.
14 days free · cancel any time
Two things outstanding on 14 Elm Road
Hi James — thanks for sending the passport, that's fine.
Still outstanding before we can proceed:
- Proof of address dated within 3 months
- The third bank statement (April)
Easiest is to photograph them on your phone and send them straight back — no login needed.
Sarah Whitfield
Harlow Legal LLP
An example chase, as it lands. Sent from your mailbox, in your name — and the button carries your firm's colours, not ours.
The file isn't stalled. It's waiting on one document.
You've asked the client for their certified ID. They've sent a photo of a driving licence, cropped at the corner. You asked for three months of bank statements. They've sent one, as a screenshot. You asked the other side for the TA10 and they've replied “will chase” — which is not the TA10.
None of this is a hard problem. It's just a problem that needs someone to notice, read, decide it isn't good enough, and write another email — politely, again, without souring a relationship you still need.
So it sits in a pile. And the pile is why the average transaction takes as long as it does, why your people spend their afternoons on admin they're not charging for, and why the client rings you to ask what's happening.
Obtainr does the noticing and the writing. You keep the relationship, and the mailbox it's all sent from.
Four steps, then it runs
Say what you need, and from whom
Plain language: “Get certified photo ID and three months of bank statements from Sarah Whitfield.” Obtainr asks a couple of questions back — which address, what counts as certified, what date range — until the request and the requirements are pinned down. Those requirements are the thing it checks against later.
Decide how much rope it gets
Fully automatic, so it sends and then sends again whenever a reply falls short. Or approval mode, where every message waits for you — edit it, then let Obtainr send it or send it yourself from your own mail client. You can change your mind per chase, including part-way through one.
It sends from your mailbox
Connect Gmail or Outlook once, with OAuth. The email goes out from your address, in your name, and lands in the recipient's inbox looking like an email from a person — because it is one, from you. Inside is a secure upload link. No account, no password, nothing to register for.
The reply comes back, and gets read
Replies arrive in your normal inbox, on the normal thread. Obtainr reads each one against the requirements from step one and tells you exactly what's still outstanding. If the statements only cover two months, it drafts and sends the next chase — same thread, same tone — up to a turn limit you set, two by default.
What other reminder tools don't do
It checks the reply against what you asked for
Most reminder tools count a reply as a result. Obtainr doesn't. Every response is read against the requirements you set when you started the chase, and you get told what's still missing — the third statement, the certifier's name, the signed page.
It comes from you, not from a robot
Obtainr sends through your own Gmail or Outlook over OAuth. Your address, your signature, your thread. Nothing is relayed through us, no “sent on behalf of” header, no branded template. Your name stays on the relationship, which matters when you have to ask twice.
It works on people who aren't your clients
A chase is an ordinary email from your ordinary address, so it reaches anyone with an email address — the other side's solicitor, a managing agent, a referee, a subcontractor on four other sites. None of them needs to have heard of Obtainr, or of your systems, for it to work on them.
You choose how much it does without you
Two modes, switchable per chase: fully automatic, or hold-for-approval when every word matters — and in approval mode each message is yours to edit, and yours to send by hand if you'd rather. There's a hard turn limit either way, so it can't run away with itself.
Every chase carries its own upload page
The link in the chase email opens a page that exists for that one request and nothing else. It's the part recipients actually touch, so it's the part worth getting right: most people tap it on a phone, photograph what was asked for, and are finished inside a minute.
Built from what you asked for
The page is generated for that one chase, from that chase's requirements. It names the items individually — the certified ID, the third statement, the signed page — so nobody has to work out what's still wanted from a paragraph of prose. Fields that need typing are typed: a date as a date, a reference in the shape you specified, checked as it's entered rather than a fortnight later.
Under your name, not ours
Your firm's name, logo and colours, on every plan — so a client who clicks through from an email you sent arrives somewhere that plainly belongs to you. The only thing of ours on the page is one muted line at the very bottom reading “Chased with Obtainr”, and Team and Firm plans can remove that too.
Secure, and it closes itself
A single-use link per chase, so no recipient can ever see another's documents. It opens on a phone with no account, no password and no app — which is the whole journey for most people: tap, photograph, done. The link stops working when the chase completes or after 30 days, whichever comes first, so nothing is left open behind you.
They don't have to use it. Anyone who would rather hit reply and attach the files can, and the attachments are read exactly as an upload is — the same check, against the same requirements. That matters more than it sounds: it means no answer is lost because somebody did the “wrong” thing, and nobody gets chased a second time for a document they already sent.
One setup, thirty separate chases
A new intake of employees, five directors, a block of tenants. You set one chase up the way you always would, then add the rest of the people to it — paste their names and email addresses. The requirements are described once.
The group is one row in your chase list, which opens to show each person. Underneath, nothing is shared: everyone gets their own email thread and their own upload link, because a shared link would let one recipient see another's documents. Each chase finishes on its own — there's no combined “batch complete”, and in practice you act on the two who haven't replied rather than on the group.
It's charged the way it's set up: ten people is ten chases, the same as ten chases created one at a time. Obtainr checks the whole group against your remaining allowance before anything sends, so it refuses the lot rather than chasing six of ten and stopping. What that costs →
What Obtainr does with your Google Account
Connecting a mailbox is how Obtainr works: the chases it writes are sent from your own address, so they arrive as an email from you rather than from a third-party relay. When you connect a Google Account, Obtainr asks for one thing only.
- Sending email on your behalf — so a chase leaves your address, on the existing thread, and reaches the recipient as an email from you rather than from a third-party relay.
- Nothing else. Obtainr does not request read access to your mailbox and cannot open your email. Replies are seen a different way: each chase carries its own reply-to address, so when someone answers, their reply reaches Obtainr directly. Your inbox is never read, scanned or indexed.
Your Google data is never sold, never used for advertising, and never used to train anyone's AI model. You can disconnect the mailbox at any time from your settings, which stops every chase running through it immediately. The full detail, including what is stored and for how long, is in our privacy notice.
Who's using it for what
The document changes by trade. The shape of the problem doesn't.
Conveyancers
What Obtainr chases for them →
Accountants
What Obtainr chases for them →
Estate & letting agents
What Obtainr chases for them →
Mortgage brokers & IFAs
What Obtainr chases for them →
Bookkeepers
What Obtainr chases for them →
Recruiters & HR
What Obtainr chases for them →
Insurance brokers
What Obtainr chases for them →
Construction
What Obtainr chases for them →
The questions people actually ask
What happens to my mailbox and my clients' documents?
Obtainr reads one thing: the thread a chase is running on. It does not scan, index or train on the rest of your mailbox. Connections are made with OAuth, so we never see your email password, and stored credentials are encrypted at rest. Upload links are scoped to a single chase and expire after 30 days at the latest. You can disconnect a mailbox at any time and the chases stop with it.
Will it sound like a machine?
It writes short, specific emails from your address, on the existing thread, naming the document and the deadline — the email you'd write yourself if you had a spare ten minutes. No template, no branding, no signature block advertising us.
And if you'd rather see for yourself before a word goes out: run it in approval mode for a fortnight. Every message waits for your yes, you edit anything that doesn't sound like you, and you'll know within a few chases whether you trust it to send unattended. Plenty of people never leave approval mode, and that's a perfectly good way to use it.
What if they just ignore it?
Then you'll need to pick up the phone — and we'd rather tell you that now than let you find out later.
How the chasing works, plainly. Obtainr acts on replies: when one arrives it reads it and, if your requirements aren't met, sends the next chase. It can also follow up when someone says nothing at all — you choose the wait when you start each chase (3 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours or a week), and new accounts start on a week. Set it to Never — for the account or for one chase — if you would rather follow that one up yourself. Those follow-ups only go out on weekdays between 8am and 6pm, because they leave from your mailbox with your name on them. What it still doesn't do.
It's also worth being clear about what it isn't. Most stalled files are not silence — they're a reply that arrived, looked like progress, and wasn't. A “sending it over now” that never came. Half the documents. The wrong date range. That is exactly the case Obtainr handles without you, and it's the case that eats the most days.
How do we know it works?
Because the numbers are small, we'll give you all of them rather than a percentage.
Small numbers, and real ones. There are no client logos on this page because we haven't earned any yet — here's the full data set.
Try it on the file that's been sitting there since last Tuesday
14 days free. Connect Gmail or Outlook, start one chase, and see what comes back.
From £49 a month after that — one person and 100 chases, or up to 5 and 500, or up to 20 and 2,000. One price for the firm, not per user.
14 days free · cancel any time