Build it once, and own it
Five ways to hire me for a defined piece of work. You own what I build, and it is priced before it starts — if I estimate badly, that's my problem, not something that shows up on your invoice.
It lives on the web, so there is nothing to install and no server in the back office. Your team signs in from a browser on whatever they already carry, over the same kind of encrypted connection your bank uses, and it works on a phone in a truck as well as on the computer at the desk — with nothing for them to keep up to date.
You may not need a build at all
The shop system runs repair and service shops, with your website included: $199 a month per trade, $0 setup, and add-on components at $99 a month each.
Scope & Plan
You know what your business needs. You don't have a spec, a budget, or any way to tell whether the quote you were given is fair.
Two weeks, and you get it in writing: what the software does, what every screen looks like, what it costs to build, and how long it takes. Plus the honest version of what to cut if the number comes back bigger than you wanted.
The plan is yours. Build it with me, take it to someone cheaper, or put it in a drawer. No obligation, and I'll put that in writing too.
If you go on to build with me, the Scope & Plan fee comes off the build price.
Architecture Review
You already have software and something is wrong with it. It's slow. It breaks in ways nobody can reproduce. Or the one person who understood it left, and now nobody will touch it.
I go through it and tell you what's going to break and roughly when — in writing, in plain English, in the order of what it'll cost you to keep ignoring.
Build
The thing itself, built and running. A scheduling board, a quoting tool, a customer login, a phone app for the crew, a way to finally get paid on time.
Scope and price are agreed before anything starts. A small single-purpose tool sits at the bottom of the range; a full system with logins, payments and a mobile app sits well above it. You'll know which one you are before you commit a dollar.
Care Plan
Software isn't finished the day it launches. Hosting, updates, security patches, the small changes you'll want by month three, and a person who picks up when something's wrong.
Month to month, cancel any time. Nearly everyone who builds something ends up on this, and the ones who don't usually wish they had.
Fractional Architect
You already have people building your software. What you don't have is anyone senior enough to own the decisions that are expensive to get wrong.
I take that seat part-time: reviewing the design, owning how the data is put together, and being the person willing to say no.
Payment
On anything past a small job: 30% when you sign, and the rest in three or six equal monthly payments. No interest, no financing company, no credit check.
30% on signature, before anything starts.
The balance in three equal payments.
The balance in six. The longest term offered.
One person builds and supports it
Me. No account manager, no ticket queue, and no handoff to someone who wasn't there when it was built. I answer during business hours and get back to you the next working day at the latest. There's no 2am emergency line — if your business needs one, say so early and I'll tell you straight whether this is the wrong fit.
Everything's in your name
Your domain, your card processing account, your phone number for texts. Your money never touches mine. If you want to leave, or hand this to someone else, it's a day's work to transfer — not a negotiation.
Add an employee
These pick up what is currently getting missed — the call that goes to voicemail at 7pm, the question on your site nobody was there to answer. None of them replaces anyone on your team. Think of switching one on the way you would think about onboarding someone: it needs to be told how your business works before it is any use, and that is the part I do.
They arrive with no name. You choose what yours is called and how it sounds when we set it up, and that name is what your customers hear from then on — so it answers as part of your business rather than as somebody else's product.
Six roles, and they sort three ways — which is the first thing worth knowing, because two of the three are the same thing wearing different clothes.
The same machine pointed in different directions. One answers your customers from what is already on your site, one answers your team from the documents nobody else has read, and one does the first of those out loud.
One works from exports out of whatever you run today, so it does not care who built it. The other reads the live system as it runs, which is only possible because I built that system.
Not a question answerer at all. It sits in on the meeting, writes up what was agreed, and drafts what happens next for you to approve.
Website Agent
Available nowAnswers questions on your site the way someone who works there would. Trained on your business rather than a generic list of questions. Captures who was asking and what they wanted.
- Unlimited conversations
- Trained on your existing site
- Full written record of every conversation
Knowledge Agent
Available nowEverything that currently lives in one person's head — your rates, your policies, how you handle the awkward situations — in something the rest of the team can just ask.
- Your rates, policies and procedures
- Ask it the way you'd ask a colleague
- Stops one person being the bottleneck
Data Analyst Agent
Available nowPoint it at the numbers you already keep — exports, spreadsheets, whatever your current system produces — and ask it questions instead of building another pivot table.
- Works with what you already have
- No new software needed
- Ask in plain English
Sales Assistant Agent
Available nowSits in on the call, takes the notes nobody was taking, and writes up what was agreed and what happens next — ready for you to send. Deal context stops living in one person's memory.
- Notes and a written summary per meeting
- Drafts the follow-up for you to approve
- Keeps the history against the customer
Operations Agent
Comes with a buildThe one nobody else can sell you. Because I built your system, this one can see inside it — what's open, what's overdue, what a customer was billed last quarter. Ask it in plain English instead of building a report.
- Added to a system I build you, not sold on its own
- Reads your own live data
- 5,000 questions included
Receptionist Agent
Coming soonAnswers your phone when nobody else can. Knows your services, your hours, and what you actually do. Takes the caller's details, works out what they need and how urgent it is, and gets it to you before you're back at your desk.
- 500 minutes a month
- Inbound calls only
- Your own local number
- Full written record of every call
Ask about any of these and I'll build you a working one on your own website, trained on your business, before you've paid for anything. You get to talk to it and decide from there.
These don't depend on a build. An agent works on its own or alongside a build you own outright, and either way it's a monthly charge — an agent is a subscription to a service that keeps running and getting looked after, not software you buy once, so buying a build outright doesn't change that. The one exception is the Operations Agent, which reads inside a system I built for you — it comes with a build rather than running on its own.
Not sure which one you need?
Describe it in a sentence and I'll tell you which one it sounds like. If it isn't clear enough to put a price on yet, that's what Scope & Plan is for.