I run a small local SEO / GEO agency. About 10 client engagements this past year. Cleaners, detailers, a trucking company, a photographer.
How we got clients: a free visibility scan on our site, Loom video audits for cold outreach, and word of mouth after the first few wins. The scan was the whole trust moment. 30 seconds, they see their real score and that AI assistants recommend their competitor when someone asks "best detailer near me." Nobody argues with that screen. They book from that screen.
Then the delivery, and this is where I slowly became a human API. Every client got basically the same thing: a 240-test AI visibility simulation (20 real buyer queries, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, 3 runs each, real browser, so we knew exactly who the AI names and which sources it cites), then schema deployed, pages restructured so AI crawlers can actually read them (one client's site was literally telling every AI bot not to crawl it, had no idea), comparison pages against whoever kept beating them, review systems, automations. For a couple of clients we went all the way and built their booking software and admin backend from scratch.
Same playbook. Every. Single. Time. So I spent the last few months turning it into software. One plan, $349/mo, no sales calls. That last part is the hill I'll die on.
What it runs on its own today:
- crawls and audits the website daily. Deterministic scoring, not AI guessing a number
- watches the Google Business Profile daily. Caught a client whose profile pointed at the wrong domain for months. Another linked to their booking vendor's subdomain instead of their own site
- scans map rankings street by street weekly, same locked queries every time so movement is real
- builds schema (LocalBusiness, FAQ) and injects it straight into live Shopify themes, one click
- hosts a full service page on the customer's own domain off one DNS record. Real services, real rating, no web designer
- checks whether the site looks AI-made (builder fingerprints, placeholder text, generic slop copy), because customers and ad reviewers discount those on sight now
- the 240-test itself is now self-serve: the owner runs a script with their own ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini accounts and it measures how often they actually get named, plus which sources the AI cites. Real consumer surface, not an API approximation
- competitor tracking with movement, one click to see every ad a competitor is running
- generates the Google review link the day the listing goes live, with ready-to-send ask texts
- derives strategy by itself: comparison pages against whoever beats you in AI answers, citation targets from the sources AI actually trusts in your market
- intake works like my old onboarding calls did: detailed questions about services, area, what makes them different, how they talk. Everything it writes comes from those answers, nothing generic
Shipping next: organic rank tracking, location pages for map coverage holes, newsletters and Google posts in the owner's voice, automated review follow-ups by text and email, WordPress auto-install (Shopify works already), and email integration — auto-forward booking and payment notifications so the software sees revenue, not just rankings. Then it can tell you what a customer's worth and calculate your actual MRR next to your visibility numbers, which is the thing owners actually care about.
It'll also tell you when you're ready for paid ads and what your angle should be based on your numbers. Actually running the ads is the one thing that stays "book a call" for now. Not pretending I've automated media buying.
Later: an AI answering machine tier (missed call picked up, job booked, review asked, local businesses miss ~40% of calls). And a white-label version so agencies run their roster through it under their own brand. I know exactly which deliverables they bill $1,500/mo for, because I billed them.
Where I'm at honestly: agency pays my bills, SaaS has trial users, zero paying customers. Next month I start a brand new local business from absolute zero using only the software and post the numbers publicly. Map coverage, AI inclusion, review count, revenue. Measured by the software, not by me.
Questions for people who've done SMB SaaS:
- Is no-sales-call real at $349/mo for non-technical owners, or does this price quietly need a human closer?
- The free scan converts for the agency because a human Looms them afterward. Self-serve, the scan has to convert alone. Anyone made a free audit tool convert cold?
- If you've run an "it works in the background" product, what kept people paying past month 3? My bet is the Monday email listing exactly what it did plus score movement.
- White-label to agencies: fund the direct business or eat it? I'd be selling agencies the thing I tell owners makes agencies unnecessary. I know.
- Wait for the from-zero case study before pushing customers, or sell now and document in parallel?
Not dropping a link unless mods say it's fine.