Open · Costs
The math is the pitch.
Doing it yourself is not free; it is priced in hours instead of dollars. Here is the cost structure of the stack, line by line, and a calculator that runs your own numbers. Dollar lines are typical list-price ranges and are labeled estimates. The time line is yours to price.
The DIY stack, line by line
Website hosting and deployment
Free tiers exist; production-grade hosting for a small business site lands in this band at list prices.
$0 to $25 / moestimate
Domain and DNS
One domain at a mainstream registrar, before premium TLDs.
about $15 / yrestimate
Scheduling, design, and inbox tools
The usual stack of two or three subscriptions a business accumulates to post, design, and reply.
$20 to $60 / moestimate
AI model usage
Drafting, captions, and replies at small-business volume, at published per-token list prices.
$5 to $40 / moestimate
Your hours
Posting, replying, fixing the site, chasing follow-up. For most owners this line is larger than every other line combined, which is the entire point of the tiers below.
priced by the calculatorestimate
Run your numbers
Set your hours and your rate honestly. Most owners have never priced the first line, and it is larger than every subscription they pay.
Posting, replying, fixing the site, chasing follow-up.
What you would charge a customer for that hour.
Each one needs the same upkeep.
Doing it yourself, true cost
$994 / mo
Your time at $974 plus a $20 per site tooling estimate. The tooling is the small line. The time is the price.
Hosted DIY, Launch
$29 / mo
Hosted DIY, Growth
$59 / mo
Concierge Retainer (we run it)
$1,250 / mo
Estimates, honestly labeled: the DIY total prices your hours at the rate you entered and a $20 per site tooling estimate. Tier prices are the locked v1 prices on the tiers page.
Our own cost shape
UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN, deliberately. We publish our cost shape as percentages after the first clean month of ledger data. Until then this cell stays unknown rather than estimated, because a transparency page that guesses at its own numbers is worse than one that admits the gap.
Where each tier lands against these numbers is on the tiers page, with the pricing logic published next to the prices.