Why I won't take a retainer — my pricing model, open book
Every marketing agency wants the same thing: a fat monthly retainer, locked in, whether you book a single job or not. You pay, they "manage," and all the risk sits with you.
I do the opposite — and here's the entire model, nothing hidden. The pricing, the guarantee, exactly what happens if I miss. Read it and decide for yourself.
The problem
Retainers pay agencies to look busy.
The outcome
You pay per booked inspection. Nothing else.
The asset
The full price sheet + guarantee terms.
A retainer pays me to look busy. Getting paid per booked inspection pays me to book you jobs. Those are not the same business. If I'm any good, I make more when you make more. If I'm not, you keep your money.
So the model is built so the risk lives with me, where it belongs.
Part 1. You start for a dollar
- $1 to start. Not $3,000. Not a setup fee. A dollar.
- That dollar gets your market built — the ads, the targeting, the intake, the booking system — set up and ready to review before you commit to anything real.
- It's skin in the game, not a sales gate. People who put in a dollar are serious; tire-kickers don't.
Part 2. You pay per booked inspection — not per lead, not per month
WHAT YOU PAY FOR
A qualified booked inspection — a real homeowner, with a real foundation/waterproofing problem, actually on your estimator's calendar. Not a form fill. Not a "lead." A booked appointment.
THE NUMBER
~$195 per qualified booked inspection.
WHAT A TYPICAL WEEK LOOKS LIKE
5–10 booked inspections / week → ~$975–$1,950 / week
Ad spend is included in that number. There's no separate ad budget invoice on top.
Part 3. The guarantee — what happens if I miss
- The target is 5–10 qualified booked inspections a week.
- If I don't hit at least the floor in a given week, I credit you the difference. You don't pay for a number I didn't deliver.
- Cancel anytime. Week to week. No 6-month contract, no early-termination fee. If it stops working for you, you walk.
Why I can offer that: the guarantee isn't a gimmick. It's just what happens when you charge for the result instead of the effort.
Part 4. What I do NOT charge for
- No monthly retainer
- No setup fee — it's a dollar to start
- No separate ad-spend invoice — it's in the per-inspection price
- No long-term contract
The only thing you pay for is a homeowner on your calendar.
The one catch — so it's truly open book
I guarantee booked inspections, not closes. Getting a qualified homeowner onto your estimator's calendar is my job. Showing up sharp, running a clean inspection, and closing the job is yours. If your close rate is broken, more appointments won't fix it — and I'll tell you that before you start.
Go deeper
The owner math behind this model — what a qualified inspection is worth, when demand justifies a hire, and the benchmarks — lives in the Backlog Blueprint.
Get the Backlog Blueprint →