What it costs to automate a small home-services business in Wisconsin
Short answer
Ricochet missed call text-back is $297 to set up and $147 a month, month to month, with 500 texts included. Afterburner adds web-lead replies, estimate follow-up and review requests for $1,497 to set up and $397 a month, with a 3-month minimum.
What are the actual prices?
Ricochet missed call text-back is $297 to set up and $147 a month, month to month. Start there, because a missed call is the easiest leak to see.
After 30 days, Afterburner adds instant replies to web leads, estimate follow-up, review requests after every job, two seasonal campaigns a year and a monthly report. It is $1,497 to set up and $397 a month, with a 3-month minimum. The full breakdown is on the systems page.
Is there a guarantee?
On Ricochet, yes. If it doesn’t text back at least 5 missed calls in your first 30 days, you get the $297 setup fee back.
Why is Afterburner priced as one thing?
Because most of the setup is the same work whichever pieces you take: registering a dedicated texting number for your business, connecting how you send estimates, and writing and approving the messages in your voice. Doing that once for everything is barely more work than doing it for one.
What about a website?
Separate, and priced separately. Starter is $400 for up to three pages. Pro is $800 for up to eight pages with the copywriting included. The Care Plan is $100 a month for ongoing updates and security, and it is optional. Those are all on the websites page with what is included in each.
What is not included?
Worth being clear about, because surprise line items are how this industry earns its reputation.
Texting is included up to a cap: 500 texts a month with Ricochet, 2,000 with Afterburner. Past that it is 4 cents a text, billed the next month. You own your own domain and hosting for a website, in your name rather than mine. And anything genuinely custom that falls outside these systems is a separate conversation with a separate number.
There is no setup fee that appears later and no charge for cancelling. Ricochet is month to month. Afterburner has a 3-month minimum, then goes month to month.
What does doing nothing cost?
The comparison that matters. Take your average job value, multiply by the calls and enquiries a month you never get back to, and multiply that by the share you would normally close.
If that number comes out below the monthly fee, this is not worth buying, and I would rather say so on the phone than after you have paid.
How do you work out whether it pays?
One recovered job every month or two covers Ricochet for most trades. Whether you are losing that many is a question your call log answers faster than I can.
If you have never counted, start there. Pull last month, count the inbound numbers nobody called back and the form fills that never got a reply. Then decide.