A light switch looks simple. Look behind the wall.
Every “can you just…” flicks a switch. This page shows you what is wired to it — the decisions only you can make, the twelve paid services holding it up, and why we ask so many questions. Plain English. No prices, no pitch.
Ten seconds to say.
Here’s everything that has to be answered first.
Pick one. Both are real asks we have had from real clients, and both sound easy. Neither is hard because of the code — they are hard because of the questions.
17 of the 18 are about your business, not about code. Nobody can answer them but you.
- People
Which number do we text?
- The mobile on the job, or the one on the account?
- What if the only number on file is a landline?
- Tenant’s job, owner’s number — who gets it?
- Timing
What sets it off?
- The tech taps a button when they leave?
- Automatically, when the last job is closed off?
- When the van starts moving — which means tracking the van.
- Timing
When is too early — or too late?
- First job is a 6:40 start. Do we text at 6:40?
- Saturday call-out at 7pm — still send it?
- The job before runs two hours over. Now the text was a lie.
- Edge case
What if the day changes?
- The job gets moved after the text has gone.
- A different tech ends up going instead.
- They cancel between the text and the driveway.
- People
What if they text back?
- “Can you come tomorrow instead?” — who reads that?
- If nobody does, you’ve built a way to ignore customers.
- Replies go to your mobile, the office, or a screen someone watches?
- Money
What does it cost to keep running?
- Every message costs a few cents. Every day, forever.
- Forty jobs a day is forty messages a day.
- If it misfires and sends four hundred — who wears it?
Not one of these is hard on its own. But every one is a call only you can make — and if we guess instead of asking, our guess is what turns up on your customer’s phone.
The box itself takes about ten minutes. The box is not the job. These are the job.
- 01 Who is allowed to use it — you, the office, everyone? People
- 02 Is there a cap? Ten per cent? Fifty? Can it go below cost? Money
- 03 Does it come off before GST, or after? Money
- 04 Off the labour, the materials, or both? Money
- 05 Does the customer see the word “discount”, or just a smaller number? People
- 06 Does it reach your accounting as a discount line, or as a lower price? Data
- 07 Does the deposit recalculate, or stay at the old figure? Money
- 08 What happens to the forty quotes already sitting out there? Edge case
- 09 If the team is on commission, is that paid on the discounted figure? People
- 10 Does your margin report know a discount happened at all? Data
That last one is the one that costs you. Keep scrolling.
Nothing errored.
Nobody noticed.
The discount box works. Everybody is happy. But nobody wired discounts into the margin report — because nobody thought to ask. It was a box on a quote, not a reporting change.
So for three months the report says you are making 32%. You are making 24%. And you price the next twelve jobs off a number that is not true.
Software rarely breaks loudly. It breaks quietly, in a number you trust.
This is why testing is the biggest slice of the bill, and why we ask questions that sound nothing like what you asked for. We are not padding it out. We are hunting for the thing that is going to go quietly wrong.
Twelve jobs priced off the grey bar. Zero errors logged.
One screen you can see.
Twelve things holding it up.
Every system we build sits on a stack of paid services — the thinking engines, the servers, the backups, the thing that watches it at 3am. Most are billed to us monthly whether you use them or not, and they are all in your price. We have left the brand names off on purpose. They change. The stack does not.
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We use more than one on purpose. One is better at code, one at long documents, one is cheaper for the simple work. Pick the wrong one and you either pay too much or get a worse answer. Charged by how much goes through it — so a busy month costs more than a quiet one.
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Job photos marked up, before-and-afters, a diagram on a report. Charged per image or per second of video, and the good ones cost more than the ordinary ones.
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A number to own, a line to run it on, and a voice that doesn’t sound like a robot. Monthly for the number, then per minute and per message on top. This is the layer behind “just text the customer”.
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We never build on the live one. A change is made on a copy, tested on a second copy, and only then moved to the one your team uses. Three environments, not one — so a mistake lands on a copy, not on your real jobs.
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Paid per seat, every month. This is why a build costs less than it did a few years ago — and that saving is already in your price. It is also what reviews the work and picks at it, which is the bit that matters.
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Every change, who made it, when and why. If something goes wrong in March we can put your system back to how it was in February and compare the two. Without this, there is no undo.
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Real machines in a real data centre, sized so it is quick at 8am when everyone opens it at once. Paid per copy, per month — and it runs at Christmas whether anyone opens it or not.
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Anyone can switch backups on. The cost is in restoring one on purpose, on a schedule, to prove it was real. A backup nobody has ever restored is a rumour, not a safety net.
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Something checks your system every minute of every day and wakes somebody up when it stops answering. This is the difference between us ringing you, and you ringing us.
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Your system holds keys to your accounts, your phone line and your customer records. Those live in a vault that logs every time one is used, and they get changed regularly. The cheap version is pasting them into the code, where they stay forever, readable by anyone who ever sees it.
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Sending is easy. Landing is not. This layer proves your domain is really you, watches whether the big providers trust it, and tells us when they stop. Get it wrong once and your quotes go to junk for a month.
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Who touched what is logged. If a customer ever asks what you hold about them, there is an answer. This layer costs money and wins no arguments — right up until the day it is the only thing that matters.
The screen you use is the top of this. If any one of these twelve stops — or was never there — the screen keeps working right up until the day it doesn’t. Keeping all twelve running after launch is what a Care Plan is for.
Typing the code is the small part.
Roughly how a job divides up. The part everyone pictures — someone typing — is a fifth of it. The two biggest slices are working out the questions above, and proving the answers did not break something else.
- 15%Working out what you actually meant
- 20%Writing it
- 20%Wiring it into what you already run
- 30%Testing it — and everything it touches
- 15%Handover, backups, making it safe to run
The typing is quick. Deciding what to type — and proving it didn’t break something else — is the job you are paying for.
Same brief.
Two very different things on the other side.
Plenty of people discovered AI last year. Twenty-two years ago I was pulling network cable. Flip the switch and see where that shows up.
- Backups
- ✕Never came up.
- ✓Daily — and we restore one on purpose to prove it works.
- Your keys and passwords
- ✕Typed into the code, where they stay forever.
- ✓In a vault, logged, changed regularly, never in the code.
- Where your data lives
- ✕An overseas account, in their name, on their card.
- ✓Australia, in your name, and you can log in and see it.
- Testing
- ✕It worked on their laptop, so it shipped.
- ✓Proven against your real jobs before you ever touch it.
- 4pm Friday, it stops
- ✕Read receipts. Maybe Monday.
- ✓The monitoring already told us. You get a person — usually me.
- Who owns it
- ✕Their subscription. Stop paying, lose the lot.
- ✓Yours. Code, data, access, history — handed over.
- Privacy and records
- ✕Not mentioned, because it was not considered.
- ✓Raised before you asked, because a customer will one day.
- The thing nobody thought of
- ✕You find it in month three, in your own numbers.
- ✓We find it in week one, because we have seen it before.
None of the right-hand column is clever. It is just what you do when you have already watched each of these go wrong for someone. That experience is not on any invoice line — it is in every one of them. If you are weighing up someone else, here are the red flags to look for.
The same change.
Three very different prices.
- 1× Before we build it A conversation. Nothing exists yet, so nothing has to be pulled apart.
- 3× Halfway through We unpick what is already wired in, then wire it back together.
- 8× After it has gone live Re-test the lot — with your real jobs and real money already in it.
How to keep it cheap
- Say it earlyThe cheapest change there is: the one you mention before we build. Even a maybe.
- Batch them upFive changes together cost far less than five one at a time. The testing runs once.
- Ask what it touchesSome things really are ten minutes. We will tell you straight when they are.
Not sure which one yours is? Book thirty minutes and we will tell you before anything is built. The stages and what each one costs are on how we charge.
Questions people actually ask
“Why so many questions before you’ll even quote?”
Because the questions are the job. Every one we ask now is one we would otherwise have to guess — and a guess is what turns into a rebuild you pay for twice.
“Doesn’t AI make all this quick now?”
It does, and that is already in our prices — this same build would have cost you more a few years ago. What AI cannot do is decide whether a 6:40am text is alright with your customers, or know that your margin report needs to see discounts. That judgement is what you are paying for.
“What if I just want the quick and dirty version?”
Sometimes that is the right call, and we will say so. We will also tell you exactly what we are leaving out — usually the testing around the edges — so you take that risk with your eyes open, instead of finding out in three months.
“Why don’t you name the suppliers?”
They change, and the point is not who they are. The point is that there are twelve of them under every build, and that keeping the right twelve running — and paid — is somebody’s job. That job is in the price.
Whatever you decide, always:
- You own itThe code, the data, the backups, the access. Never ours to hold over you.
- Backed up dailyAnd the restores actually get tested. Not a promise — a thing we check.
- A straight numberWhat it costs, before you commit. And a straight no when it is not worth doing.
- No lock-inWant someone else to run it one day? The whole lot hands over.
Tell us early.
Even a maybe.
We would rather have the conversation twice than build the wrong thing once. The earliest version of a change is always the cheapest one — so say it the moment you think it.