Start with one. They are not a package.
Each line below stands on its own, and each says where it stops being useful.
A website you own outright
Off the platform you are renting and onto your own domain and hosting, with the content in plain files rather than locked inside a page builder. You can leave me at any point and take all of it.
What is included, and where it stops
- Migration that keeps your search traffic. Every old URL redirects to its new home, so whatever ranking you have does not evaporate on launch day.
- Lead capture that reaches you. Forms tagged with their source, so you can tell an ad enquiry from a referral without guessing.
- A blog you can actually post to, structured so search engines can read it rather than just render it.
- Where it stops. A new site captures demand that already exists. It does not create demand. If nobody is searching for what you do, this is not your first problem and I will tell you so.
Runs on: static hosting and a CDN, a domain, and a form endpoint. A few dollars a month, and no platform fee. This site is the worked example.
Tracking that tells you the truth
Analytics that records real visitors instead of your own browsing, conversion events on the things that matter, and ad pixels installed and verified rather than assumed.
What is included, and where it stops
- Analytics that excludes you. A surprising number of small-business sites are quietly counting the owner's own visits, which makes every number after that meaningless.
- Pixels checked, not just pasted. Installed, fired, and confirmed receiving, so ad spend optimises against real events.
- Source attribution on every form. So the question "where did that job come from" has an answer.
- Where it stops. Measurement tells you what happened. It does not improve the offer, and no amount of tracking rescues an ad for something people do not want.
Runs on: the ad platforms' own tooling. The cost is your ad spend, not the plumbing.
The back-office work that eats the week
Whichever of these hurts most: requests arriving by email in no consistent format, work orders on paper, quotes going out with nobody following up, or nothing from yesterday being visible today.
What is included, and where it stops
- Inbound requests into one shared sheet, classified, with the details pulled into columns and attachments filed and linked, so nobody re-reads every message.
- Paper forms onto a phone, so the data arrives the day the work happens rather than the week after.
- Follow-up drafted for you to review rather than sent behind your back.
- Where it stops. Edge cases are the norm. These handle the common cases and flag the rest for a person. Anything involving pricing judgement stays with whoever knows.
Runs on: what you already have. Outlook, Excel, QuickBooks, SharePoint and similar. Usually $20 to $50 a month in software and API cost.
Most people start with one line. You do not have to pick now.
Two routes, and I will tell you which one your situation favours
Every piece above can be built either way. Neither is the right answer for everyone.
I build it on low-cost tooling
Cheaper to run, and flexible enough to handle your edge cases, because I build to them rather than around them. The interface is a spreadsheet and an automation, not a polished app, and I maintain the automation during the engagement. Software and API cost is the $20 to $50 a month range above.
We add a commercial platform to your stack
More polished, multi-user by default, and supported by someone other than me. It costs more every month, it may need license upgrades on your Microsoft plan, and it is less forgiving of unusual cases. For a comparable scope this has run in the $285 to $335 a month range, plus those upgrades.
Common Questions
What does this cost?
Discovery is $500, and I credit it against a build if you go ahead. A build in the range described above runs $3,000 to $6,000, usually over about four weeks. That is my fee. The software and API costs are listed per item above and are yours directly, not marked up through me.
How much will this disrupt us?
Phased. One inbox first, tested against what your team would have done manually, tuned until it is reliable, then the rest. Nothing gets switched off while something new is switched on. You get a progress email every Monday covering what is done, what is in progress, and what I need from you.
My staff will not use it.
It is a spreadsheet they keep open in a browser tab. There is no new application to learn and no login to remember. Expect at least one holdout, and expect the thing that moves them is watching the person next to them finish sooner.
What about our data?
Everything stays in your own Microsoft environment, SharePoint or OneDrive, under the access controls you have today. No customer data goes on external servers. Standard file formats throughout, so it moves into an ERP later instead of trapping you.
What if you disappear?
You own everything at the end: the files, the flows, the documentation. Standard formats, no proprietary layer, nothing that only I can open. Ongoing support is available and optional. I am one person, which is the honest risk here, and the way I manage it for you is that nothing I build depends on me being around.
How long until it works?
I will tell you after I read a sample of your actual email. How long it takes depends on how many inboxes there are and how varied the requests are, and I would rather scope it from your mail than quote you a number now.