Why We Killed Our Project Pricing (and What Replaced It)

We made about thirty cold calls to local trades businesses in one day this month — plumbers, electricians, roofers, graders. Good conversations, mostly. And we heard the same flinch, over and over.

It wasn't at the idea of a website. Almost nobody argued the website. The flinch came at the invoice — the moment a professional website became "a couple thousand dollars, up front." For an owner-operator running a crew out of two trucks, that's not a marketing decision. That's a capital decision, competing with tires, a compressor, and payroll.

So we stopped asking owners to make a capital decision.

The new model, in one sentence

We build your website free, and you pay one flat monthly rate — starting at $99 — that covers everything.

Hosting. Security. Updates. Content changes. Local SEO. On the higher tiers, Google Business Profile management, automated review requests, missed-call text-back, our CRM, and AI chat with online booking. One number a month, no surprise line items, and a real person who answers when you call.

What's the catch?

There are two, and we'll say them out loud because that's how we operate.

First: we ask for a 12-month initial commitment. We eat the entire cost of building your site up front. The commitment is how that math works. After the first year, it's month-to-month.

Second: it's a managed service. We run the website so you don't have to. Your domain, your content, your photos, and your customer data are always yours — full stop — and if you ever want to own the site itself outright, there's a straightforward buyout. No hostages. But while you're on a plan, the website is our job, not yours. Most of the owners we talk to consider that the whole point.

Why $99 works when $3,000 didn't

It's not a discount — over a few years the numbers land in similar territory. What changed is when the risk sits and who carries it.

Under project pricing, you paid everything before you'd seen a single result. Under the plan, we don't make our money back unless the website keeps earning its keep month after month. Our incentive is your site working — indefinitely. That's a better alignment than any invoice ever produced.

Who this is for — and who it isn't

The plans are built for owner-operators: the businesses that live on the phone and in the truck. If that's you, the details are on our new Site Plans page.

If you're running a larger established company — fifteen years in, real revenue, maybe starting to think about what the business is worth when it's time to sell — the plans aren't your lane. Our Digital Staging engagements are, and that's a different conversation entirely. Which brings us to the last thing.

Both doors are on the homepage now. Walk through whichever one sounds like you.