Moving Permits: Turning Bureaucracy into Trust

Permit Puller is the platform people use to pull moving permits in cities across the U.S. By 2023 the product was losing users at every step: opaque pricing, a monolithic form, no status updates after submit.

We rebuilt it from the ground up. Through interviews, persona work, and competitor analysis, we mapped the real friction and designed a step-by-step flow that made the bureaucracy feel like a service.

The new product lifted completion rates, sped up fulfillment, and brought users back for repeat permits. Clarity, it turns out, scales.

Picture this. You're finally moving into the city, ten stories up with views in every direction. You've prepped the movers, planned the timeline, and just want to get your boxes inside.

Moving day arrives. You head up to direct the team, then come back down to check on them. It's chaos.

Then you spot it: a fine for parking in a no-parking zone, tucked under the windshield wiper.

Permit Puller exists so that never happens. You handle the boxes. We handle the curb.

The challenge

The legacy system was a long, confusing form with no status updates after submit. People abandoned it constantly.

Pain points

One giant form. No feedback. No trust. We ran interviews, dug through support tickets, and watched session recordings. Two problems kept showing up.

• The 📜 monolithic form caused constant mistakes: wrong permit type, missing info, unclear fields.
• After submit, users felt 👻 ghosted. No confirmation, no status, no idea what came next.

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Issue 01 · Monolithic form

Every field lived on a single page. Users picked the wrong permit type, missed required info, and abandoned partway through with no way to recover.

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Issue 02 · Ghosted after submit

After submitting, users got radio silence. No confirmation, no status, no estimated turnaround. Many assumed the request never went through and re-submitted, or gave up entirely.

Issue 01Issue 02

Direct competitors all leaned the same way: phone-first. Express Permits, Permit Pushers, Suncoast Permits, all funneled users into "Contact Us" forms and call centers.

That meant fragmented communication and zero transparency. Suncoast led with a phone number front and center, pushing anyone who preferred digital straight back to the dial pad.

Permit Place and Burnham Nationwide were comprehensive but still phone-heavy. A clear opening for a digital-native experience.

So we looked at Angi and Thumbtack instead. Step-by-step flows, structured intake, less back-and-forth. That was the model.

Three principles guided the redesign.

A fully fresh perspective

Beyond the flow, we refreshed the brand and pulled the new UI into the growing PMG Design System.

New voice, new illustrations, new logo.

Step 1: Location

Drop a pin on the exact spot you need the permit for. Interactive map, no address fumbling.

Step 2 & 3: Permit Type and Details

Pick from a curated list, mostly moving permits. Each card shows the fee and the lead time up front, so coordinating with movers stays simple.

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Step 3: Timeline

Pick the date and time window. The permit lines up with the move, no guessing.

Step 4: Add-ons

A real differentiator. "Verified Site Review" checks compliance before the move. "Permit Signage Removal" handles posting and pulling down signs.

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Checkout

Some permits charge upfront. Others, especially in new cities, need a quick screening first. Either way, users get a response within 24 hours with a clear next step.

A unified, modern dashboard

A status dashboard with real-time updates, plus SMS and email notifications. No more ghosting.

From anxiety to trust.

The work paid off.

• 📈 Form completion rates climbed across the new flow
• 🏃 Permit fulfillment got 18% faster
• 👍 User satisfaction hit 91%

Over 80% of first-time clients came back for another permit. So we leaned in: pre-filled info, shorter flows, less friction every time. The second pull is effortless.

A look back: from inheriting the 2022 single-page form, through research and brand refresh, into the step-by-step flow and the status dashboard that closed the loop.