FAQ
The questions business owners actually ask before hiring us — pricing, the guarantee, what changes after launch, and how this compares to the things you've probably already tried.
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Three tiers, Signature tier published, what's included, what's not.
The Forge Method has three tiers, priced the same for every industry. Signature is the standard at $1,297/mo on a 12-month commitment: full management (SEO, content updates, automation tuning, monthly reporting). There is no separate build fee. Activation always equals one month, so the first month is $2,594. Platinum ($2,997/mo) is for businesses whose system connects to an outside data source, or that run more than three locations, and adds content execution, ad management, and a quarterly strategy call. Starter ($997/mo) is the lean single-location option: the automation core runs, without a content program or ad management. Pay the twelve months up front and take 10% off. You own the code, domain, hosting, CRM, and content from Day 1.
At the Signature tier (the standard), $1,297/mo covers all of it, because there is no separate build fee. The build itself is the Quick-Win Sprint (Days 1-7), the custom-coded website, lead capture with AI follow-up, automated review system, CRM pipeline, and local SEO. The same monthly then covers full ongoing management: SEO, content updates, automation tuning, ongoing refinement from real visitor data, monthly reporting, and direct access to the team that built your site. Starter ships less of both: smaller build scope (5 pages, no AI follow-up, no review automation) at $997/mo: hosting, security, your AI workflows running, and a live lead dashboard, with no content program, ad management, or ongoing SEO. Platinum is $2,997/mo for businesses whose system connects to an outside data source or that run more than three locations, adding content execution, ad management, and a quarterly strategy call on top of Signature's management.
There is no build fee to spread: the build is already amortized into the monthly. What you can do is pay the twelve months up front and take 10% off. Activation, equal to one month, is still due either way. We work out the schedule on the proposal call so it lines up with your cash flow.
No. One monthly fee, plus a one-time activation equal to one month. Hosting, SSL, email sending, automation runs, review requests, dashboard access. All included. We don’t mark up third-party platforms or charge per lead. The number you agree to is the number you pay.
Two things, and neither is your industry. Platinum is for businesses whose system connects to an outside data source, or that run more than three locations. MLS or HIPAA integrations, e-commerce, multi-location work, content at scale. Everything else is Signature. All three prices are published: $997, $1,297, $2,997. None of them is quoted after the fact.
The agreement runs 12 months, then renews month to month. If we miss two consecutive months of what your signed scope says we deliver, you end it with no further obligation and owe nothing further. Leave early for another reason and you owe only the unrecovered part of the build we waived, one twelfth per completed month. Never the balance of the term. You own the website, the domain, the content, and the data from Day 1. If you leave, we hand everything over and assist the transition for up to 14 days.
You own the site, domain and data from Day 1. What we owe you beyond that is on page 1 of every proposal.
Four things, on page 1 of every proposal. **You own it from Day 1:** code, domain, hosting, CRM, content, transferred to your accounts at launch, not on exit. Most agencies hold your logins until you pay to leave. We don’t. **We ship in 28 days** from assets received, or we credit $150 a day against your invoices, capped at $1,500. **If we ship a bug** against the plan we both signed, we fix it free for as long as your commitment runs. **And if we stop delivering** — two consecutive months missing signed scope — you leave with no further obligation. However it ends, we hand over accounts and answer the next team’s questions for 14 days. Full contract language at /terms Section 5.
No. And if you got that promise from someone our size, run. A revenue guarantee from a small shop is either a bluff or a refund policy hiding fine print. We won’t do either. We guarantee the four things we actually control (how it’s built, when it launches, who owns it, how you leave). Every one of them backed in writing on page 1 of the proposal. Positive ROI depends on your market, your close rate, and your operation. Three things we don’t sit in. We’ll say no on the strategy call if the math doesn’t work.
Anything that doesn’t work as specified in the signed SOW: broken forms, non-functioning links, layout that breaks on the browsers or devices listed in the SOW, code errors preventing normal use. A change request (new feature, different flow, design preference change, added content) isn’t a defect. That’s new work, quoted separately. Third-party outages (Cloudflare, Resend, Google, MLS/IDX providers) and defects introduced by client edits after handoff are excluded.
The clock pauses for excusable delay: content, copy, or assets not delivered within 5 business days of request; feedback not returned within its review window; refused reviews; client-driven scope changes; failure to complete third-party steps (domain/DNS access, MLS/IDX credentials, GBP verification). Each pause is documented in writing at the time it happens, never retroactively. Total credit is capped at 10 business days ($1,500).
Yes. If the fit isn’t there: average customer value too low, market saturated to the point where the spend to compete would crush the return, ownership team not aligned on what a website should do. We say no. We’d rather not start than start something that ends badly for one of us.
The build, the system, the timeline, and what “custom” actually means.
The Forge Method: the Quick-Win Sprint inside the first 7 days (missed-call text-back, Google Business Profile optimization, automated review system, 30/90/365 playbook), a fully custom-coded website, a lead capture system that routes inquiries to your phone within 60 seconds, AI follow-up that keeps quotes moving until they close or the customer says no, a CRM pipeline tracking every lead from first touch to closed job, mobile + speed engineering (hero paints in under 2.5s at handoff), and a live dashboard. The full operational system, not just a pretty site.
The Forge Method is a 28-day (four-week) engagement. The Quick-Win Sprint runs Days 1–7 on your existing business, before the new site exists. Weeks 2–3 build the site and wire it to the automation. Site goes live around Day 28. Billing starts when you sign, not at launch, and the Quick-Win Sprint is what earns month one. Ongoing refinement from real visitor data starts the day the new site is live. By launch you have already seen the system producing on the business you had before we started.
Hand-coded, no templates, no WordPress, no page builders. Every site is designed and built for the specific business. You won’t find another company on Earth with a site that looks like yours.
Modern hand-coded stacks chosen for speed and reliability: typically a Next.js or similar React-based front end on Cloudflare’s edge network. Your site loads fast everywhere, doesn’t need plugin updates, and won’t break in the middle of the night. You don’t need to know any of this; we mention it because business owners ask.
Everything. The code, the design files, the domain, the content, the customer data, the analytics. If you ever leave, you take all of it with you. Ownership transfers on day one. It’s not held hostage by the relationship.
Built mobile-first. More than 60% of small-business website traffic is mobile, and most generic sites still load slowly or break the layout on phones. We optimize for the phone first and the desktop second.
What changes the day after launch and what the system runs on your behalf.
Launch isn’t the finish line. It’s where the system starts working. Every new inquiry hits your phone within 60 seconds. Every quote keeps getting followed up on until it closes or the customer says no. Every completed job triggers a Google review request the same day. You get a one-page monthly report showing what came in, what closed, and what we’re moving next. The retainer covers all of it: no separate platform fees, no per-customer add-ons. You pay one number; we run NovraScale One, the platform behind it, for you.
Three main paths: local search (your Google Business Profile and service-area pages ranking for the queries your customers type), direct (people who saw your truck, got a referral, or already know your business), and follow-up (people who showed interest months ago who get re-engaged by the system). The mix shifts as the SEO compounds, but month one starts producing inquiries.
Inquiry hits your phone within 60 seconds as a notification. If you don’t answer the call, a text goes out automatically so you don’t lose them to the next business they call. The inquiry lands in the pipeline and the follow-up sequence starts: spaced messages over the next two weeks until they book, close, or say no.
When a job closes, a review request goes out the same day, first to your most likely-to-review customers, with smart timing based on what the job was. Customers who say they had a great experience get routed to leave a public review on Google. Customers with concerns get routed to you privately first. Result: your Google review count grows steadily, and you hear about problems before they become 1-star reviews.
A one-page monthly summary: inquiries this month, where they came from, what closed, what’s in the pipeline, your top-performing pages, your Google review count and rating, and what we’re moving next month. Plus a live dashboard you can open anytime for real-time numbers. No 40-page PDFs full of jargon.
No. The system runs in the background. You answer calls, text messages from new customers, and respond to reviews, same as you do today. The CRM and dashboard exist so you can see what’s happening if you want to, not because you have to operate them.
How the relationship runs, who you talk to, and what happens if you want changes.
The same person from the discovery call to launch and every month after. No account-manager handoff, no ticket queue, no offshore team you’ve never met. You message the person who built your site and they respond, same day during business hours, usually within a couple hours.
Same business day, usually within a couple hours during working hours. If something breaks, faster. There’s no support ticket system because there isn’t a queue. You message us, we message back.
The agreement runs 12 months, and we say so plainly rather than hiding it. What we don't do is hold the asset: the code, domain, hosting, CRM, and content are in your name from Day 1, and the commitment runs both ways: miss two consecutive months of what your signed scope says we deliver and you end it with no further obligation. Leave early for another reason and you owe the unrecovered part of the build we waived, one twelfth per completed month, never the balance of the term.
Small content edits, new service pages, seasonal copy updates, photo swaps, hours changes, new offer additions, included in the monthly. We treat the site as a living thing because it is one. Big strategic shifts (full rebrand, new product line, etc.) get scoped separately so we can do them properly.
The commitment runs twelve months. Inside the term, email us: if we have missed two consecutive months of your signed scope, you end it with no further obligation. Leave early for another reason and you owe the unrecovered part of the build we waived, one twelfth per completed month. After the term it renews month to month and you can stop any time. You keep the website, the domain, the content, and the data. Ownership was yours from day one. We assist the migration for up to 14 days if you’re moving to a new provider.
How this compares to the things business owners typically try before calling us.
Squarespace is selling you the pilot’s seat: you build it, you maintain it, you debug it at 11 pm when something breaks. What we sell is first class: you say “I want more customers,” you show up with more customers. Most businesses that come to us after trying DIY didn’t save money. They spent it twice, plus the year of lost time.
Most agencies sell pieces (SEO services, ads, social, content) and leave the integration to you. You end up coordinating four vendors and still don’t know which one is generating the results. We build and run the complete system, end to end. One number, one team, one set of numbers you can actually point at.
A freelancer ships you a site and disappears. Six months later it’s outdated, the contact form is broken, and there’s no plan for what happens next. The website is the cheapest part of the system. The value is in what runs on top of it. Pay once, fade out, vs. pay monthly and stay in the lead-generation game.
Sometimes. We do hybrid engagements when the existing site is well-built and the bottleneck is the system around it (no lead routing, no follow-up, no review generation). But often the site itself is the bottleneck and bolting a lead-gen system onto a slow, untrusted site doesn’t fix the math. We tell you honestly which one you’re in after we look.
Because clicks aren’t customers. Most self-managed Google Ads accounts spend the budget on irrelevant clicks, send them to a page that doesn’t convert, and don’t track which calls actually closed. Ads work, but only when the system underneath them is built to capture, follow up on, and close the traffic they bring. We get the system right first; ads can come later.
What the scan is, what it isn’t, and what happens after you get yours.
An automated scan of your current website that returns a graded report inside a few minutes. It checks performance (how fast your site loads), SEO foundations (whether Google can find you), security and trust signals, and mobile readiness. You get an overall score, a category breakdown, and the specific findings driving each grade.
Really free. No credit card. The Report Card is automated. The cost to run it is nearly zero, and we treat it as our front door. Some recipients have us build them a new site; most just take the report and fix things themselves. Either is fine.
No commitment. After you get the report we send a short follow-up offering a call if you want one. Reply yes, or ignore it. Either is fine. We don’t do hard-pitch calls.
A few minutes after you submit. You’ll get a confirmation email immediately, then the full report by email when the scan finishes. Most people have it inside 5 minutes.
Useful enough that we routinely hear from people who fixed what we flagged and never hired us, which is fine. The scan tells you what’s slowing your site down, where you’re losing trust, and where competitors are beating you on Google. Whether you fix it yourself or pay us to do it is up to you.
Each of our 20 industry pages has its own FAQ tuned to that vertical — PMS integrations for dental, jurisdiction pages for law, storm-season ops for roofing, and so on.
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