You have decided you probably need one. So what actually happens?
Six steps, in the order they happen to you, from the first phone call to the day it goes live. What we do, the four things you have to do, and exactly when the money moves. A build runs from two weeks, and that depends on the size of it and how much you want built in.
Websites, the back office behind them, the app your staff carry, and the AI. Nothing on this page is left vague on purpose.
How does a build actually work?
You get a fixed price in writing before anybody builds anything, and you see the work three times and say yes each time. Nothing is taken off you until your site is live.
Twenty minutes on the phone
A proper look at how the work comes in now and where it gets lost. No slides and no pitch. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign at this point.
A fixed quote, in writing
What gets built, what is included, and the price. It is fixed and you have it in your hand before anything starts. The quote names the tier that fits and what it covers.
You sign, and nothing is taken yet
The Direct Debit is set up on the day you sign and it sits there. Nothing at all is collected until your site is live. The domain goes in your name, not ours.
You see the design, on your phone
A real page at a real address, on the phone your customers will use, next to the firms you are up against. It does not go past this point until you have said yes to it.
You read every word before anyone else
Every page a customer will see, read out loud. If it does not sound like you, it gets rewritten. We write it, you approve it, and that order never changes.
The site goes live, and then it is looked after
Checked on a phone, and a real enquiry sent through the form to prove it lands. The site goes up in a form the search engines and the AI assistants people now ask can both read. The monthly starts the day it is live, never before, and it covers the looking after from there.
What do you actually have to do?
Four things, and three of them take minutes. One, twenty minutes on the phone at the start. That is the only long one, and it is the one that makes the quote fit your business instead of a template.
Two, send some photographs. Six good ones off your phone of jobs you have actually done beat anything bought from a picture library, and this is the part that decides how quickly it gets finished. Three, say yes twice. Once to the design and once to the words, both on your phone, both at a real address you can send to whoever you like first.
Four, sign, and set up the Direct Debit. That is the lot. You do not have to learn anything, you do not have to write anything, and you are not being handed a login and left to it.
When does the money actually move?
On the day you sign, nothing. The Direct Debit is set up at signing and it collects nothing until your site is live.
On Essential, Growth and Full the setup is split in two: £500 on signing and £495 when it goes live. On Starter the £295 is paid in one go on signing. The monthly, which is £99, £149, £299 or £499 depending on the plan, starts the day the site is live and not a day earlier.
Every one of those figures is on the prices page with what sits inside each plan, because a price you have to ring for is a price somebody is deciding when they see you.
Two things stay separate and stay yours: the domain name, which is renewed in your name and costs a few pounds a year to whoever you buy it from, and any advertising budget, which goes straight to Google rather than through us.
What people ask before they commit
Every question here is about how the work runs rather than what it costs. The prices, what you own and what happens to your email are answered on the pages that own them.
How long does a website take to build?
From two weeks, and how far past that depends on the size of the site and how much you want built into it. A five page site for a one man band is a different job from a site with a booking system, a back office and an app for four fitters, so the quote says which one yours is before you commit to anything.
Send six good photographs off your phone in the first week and it moves at our speed. Everything else is on us.
What do you need from me before you can start?
Photographs of your own work, your colours or logo if you have them, and the logins to anything that already exists, which usually means your domain and your Google listing. That is the list.
You are asked for each one at the point in the build where it is needed rather than all of it on day one, because a list of nine jobs handed to somebody who is flat out on a Monday morning is a list nobody does. Anything you have not got, say so and we work round it.
Everything the site is joined up to, and what stays where it is, is listed in one place.
Do we have to meet, or is it all done on the phone?
Almost all of it is done on a video call, whichever one you already use, so where you are has never been a limit on who we can work for. Suffolk and north Essex is where we are, and the published prices are the same wherever you are, with no travel charge.
On a bigger AI implementation we travel anywhere in the UK, because the first step of that job is sitting with the people doing the work and following the process as it really runs rather than as the manual says it runs. That cannot be done down a phone line. It is that work only, not a website build.
What happens when I see the design?
Anything you want changed gets changed, and the build does not go past that point until you are happy with it. The design is shown to you at a real address on your own phone, next to the firms you are up against, before a single page of it is written.
That is the whole reason it is shown to you there rather than as a picture in an email. A screenshot on a laptop is not what your customer sees. Most of the people looking at your site will be on a phone, so that is where you look at it too.
Do I have to pay before I know it works?
No. The AI receptionist is fourteen days free, and you pay us nothing in that time. You sign, we build it, and it answers your real calls for a fortnight before any money moves.
The price is agreed in writing on the day you sign, so there is nothing to work out at the end. The Direct Debit is set up then and nothing is collected until day fifteen.
On day fifteen, if you want to keep it, the AI receptionist setup at £199 and your first £45 come out. If you do not, you say so and that is the end of it, and you will have paid nothing at all.
The trial is on the AI receptionist because you can hear it answering your real calls. A website is built for one business, from their photographs and their words.
What you get on a build instead is the two sign-offs above. You see the design on your own phone and you read every word, and nothing goes past either one without you.
I already have a website. Do I lose my address, my email or my place on Google?
You keep all three. The email is the one to be frightened of, and it is worth being frightened of: a rebuild that drops it says nothing on the day, and turns up a fortnight later when somebody mentions they wrote to you and never heard back.
Your address. Whatever you have now, you keep. We point it at the new site, so you never tell a customer you have moved.
Your email keeps working. We write down every one of your existing mail settings before we touch anything, put them back, and check mail is still flowing afterwards.
Your place on Google. We check what your current site already ranks for and keep it, and every page that moves gets a redirect to its replacement.
Your old site. We never touch it. We build fresh, get it right, and switch over when it is ready, so what you have stays up the whole time.
What happens on the day it goes live?
The whole site is opened on a phone and gone through page by page, and a real enquiry is sent through the form to prove it arrives where it is supposed to. Not tested in theory, sent, and the row found at the other end.
Every web address you have now either keeps working or points at the right new page, which is the part of a rebuild that goes wrong most often, and when it goes wrong you lose the rankings you had along with the addresses. Your email is checked before anything moves and again afterwards.
What else is worth reading?
Every page here answers one question properly rather than skimming five. These are the others, and each one says what it is before you click it.
Foothold AI: websites and AI for local service businesses
A website that gets found, a back office that runs the day, and an app for your team. From £295 to set up and £99 a month. Suffolk based, UK wide.
Where we work: Suffolk and north Essex
Twenty towns across Suffolk and north Essex, from Sudbury. Most are twenty or thirty minutes away, and the person who builds your site comes out.
AI implementation for UK businesses
We build AI into how UK businesses actually work: quoting, chasing, scheduling and reading documents. Scoped first, fixed-quoted before any build.
Websites for electricians that bring in work
A website for an electrician, the back office it feeds and the app your engineers use on site. Published prices, no lock-in, and you own it all.
Start at step one and see what it would take.
Twenty minutes on the phone, a proper look at how the work comes in now, and a fixed price in writing afterwards. You are under no obligation at any point in that.
Nothing to pay, and nothing to sign. The prices and what sits inside each plan are on the prices page, and what a lead generation website actually is, is on its own page.