Every question.
Straight answer.

Every project starts with a custom website. The Custom Website Build is $1,997 flat — $997 to start / $1,000 at launch. From there you choose a package or individual add-ons: Digital Foundation $3,647, Lead Machine ≈ $6,441, Customer Lifecycle $6,997–$9,497 (each includes the website). The Job-Call Leak Scorecard is free for qualified owner-operators; $350 structural audit otherwise, credited to the build.

The diagnostic call and the proposal are free. You only pay once a written scope is agreed and work begins. The pricing page lists every package and all 37 add-ons and is the single source of truth for every number.

There is no mandatory retainer on the website itself: it is a one-time fixed-price engagement and you own the result. Some systems run continuously (for example the CRM, follow-up, or an AI voice receptionist), and each shows its monthly cost on the pricing page. Website care plans — Basic Website Care $100/mo, Professional Website Care $200/mo, Growth Website Care $500/mo — are optional.

Two third-party costs continue after launch, and you pay them directly to the vendor rather than to COAI: hosting at $20–30/mo (Vercel, in your account), and phone / sms at $15–50/mo per number (Twilio, in your account).

Three, each built on the Custom Website Build. Digital Foundation ($3,647): The logical completion package for your new website. Lead Machine (≈ $6,441): Everything in Digital Foundation, plus the systems that capture and follow up on every inquiry. Customer Lifecycle ($6,997–$9,497): Everything in Lead Machine, plus the systems that bring customers back and show you the numbers.

Missed-call text-back is part of Lead Machine, or $450 on its own.

Yes. Every system is priced individually — for example Google Business + Schema is $350, the Customer Review System is $450, and Online Booking is $600. Add-ons attach to a website build. The pricing page lists all 37.

The scope and price are fixed in writing before work starts. Digital Foundation is a set list of items. Lead Machine is approximate because the exact systems vary with what is implemented, and Customer Lifecycle is a range for the same reason. Monthly amounts for systems that run continuously depend on exactly what is implemented. You approve the final number before a line of code is written.

No. We build the structure, speed, and systems, and we measure the result against the written scope. Search rankings, AI answer-engine citations, call volume, and revenue depend on factors no vendor controls, so we do not promise them.

Ad spend, custom third-party integrations, ongoing content beyond the agreed scope, carrier, SMS, and AI usage fees, hosting, advanced CRM migration, and around-the-clock human dispatch are not included in any offer. Actual third-party costs are listed in writing before you sign, not discovered afterward.

The standard website split is built in: $997 to start / $1,000 at launch. Packages and larger builds use milestone-based structures set in the written scope — typically 50% to start and 50% on delivery, or a three-milestone split. We work with operators, not against them.

Two to three weeks from signed scope to live deployment. Larger e-commerce or automation work is scoped separately with its own timeline agreed before work starts. Every milestone has a staging link so you can see it taking shape in real time.

At minimum: your business name, services, service area, and any existing branding. We handle copy direction, layout, schema structure, and technical architecture. If you have photos, reviews, or existing content, bring it. If you do not, we build from what exists. We do not stall projects waiting for perfect assets.

Minimal. You review at each milestone checkpoint — typically two to three focused sessions over the build period, with specific questions and specific feedback. You run your business. We build the system.

You do. You control the domain registrar, hosting account, source code repository, analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and all lead data. We deploy into your accounts, document the setup, and hand over admin access at launch.

COAI retains no ongoing control or access unless you explicitly grant it for support. You never have to worry about COAI changing its pricing or going away and taking your site with it.

A rented platform can be the right choice for a simple brochure site, and we will tell you so if it is. The question is what your revenue operation needs.

Compare on the criteria that matter: who controls the account credentials, whether the system can be exported and the handoff documented, whether missed-call recovery is installed and tested, whether your business facts are kept consistent across the web and Google, and what happens when the vendor leaves. We put our answers to those questions in writing before you buy. Check any platform's answers against the same list.

Yes. You get handoff documentation and a walkthrough of standard content updates — prices, hours, photos, service descriptions. Larger structural changes are available at an hourly rate. You are never held hostage for routine updates.

Your published number stays yours. When a call goes unanswered, the system sends an automatic text back to the caller and creates a task for you.

An automated acknowledgement is not the same as a human response, and we do not describe it as one. The system is configured so that a lead nobody has touched escalates to a named person.

Cipher is an optional voice and text agent that answers calls, qualifies leads, and routes bookings. Callers are told they are speaking with an automated agent, calls may be recorded for quality review, and there is a named human escalation path and an emergency exclusion — the details are on our AI disclosure page.

You do not need it to get a working website. Our published business hours are monday–friday, 9:00 am–5:00 pm pacific; any coverage outside those hours is scoped and disclosed explicitly rather than assumed.

No. Our only company number is (661) 683-0228. Any other number that appears in our material is a product demo or test line and is labeled as such. One business, one published number — that is the same standard we hold your listings to.

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization: structuring your site so AI tools like ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Perplexity, and voice assistants can read and cite your business facts accurately.

In practice it is unglamorous work — making your hours, services, service area, pricing, and FAQs consistent and machine-readable so both customers and search systems can understand the business. We do not claim it makes any engine cite you first, and nobody can promise that.

Bakersfield and Kern County are the primary focus because the market is underserved and Jason knows it from the inside. The portfolio does include work outside the area. If you are outside Bakersfield the same systems and the same diagnostic process apply.

Yes. Bilingual Spanish is $250 on top of a website build (it is also part of the Lead Machine package) and is worth considering for most Kern County service businesses — a monolingual site simply cannot be read by part of your market. We build dual-language pages with proper hreflang markup and translation QA.

Optional website care plans: Basic Website Care $100/mo (monitoring, updates, and minor changes); Professional Website Care $200/mo (maintenance plus content, performance, and seo updates); Growth Website Care $500/mo (continuous conversion, seo, content, and technical improvements).

Larger as-needed work is scoped and quoted in writing before it begins. There is no mandatory maintenance fee — you can take full ownership at launch and never pay us for care again.

No. The systems catalog is a diagnostic map, not a package inclusion list. The Custom Website Build is $1,997, and the systems in the catalog are added through the three packages or as individually priced add-ons on the pricing page. Your statement of work names every included system before you approve it.

Yes. We migrate from Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, WordPress, and other major platforms, preserving your domain, URLs, and content. Migration is scoped and quoted per project — the price depends on page count and how much of the content can move cleanly, and you get that number before work starts.

Yes. If your site is down, compromised, or losing leads to a technical fault, we offer priority repair. We diagnose the root cause, fix it, and recommend a permanent solution. Rates and expected turnaround are agreed in writing before work begins.

This is a business-hours service. It is not a 24-hour dispatch desk, and we will not describe it as one.

The build uses stable, minimal infrastructure with no plugin stack to break on update, so faults are uncommon. If something does go wrong, support can be scoped and quoted before repair work begins. Because you own the hosting and code, you can also hire any developer you like to fix it.

We set up hosting in your own account on Vercel and hand you the credentials. It runs $20–30/mo depending on traffic, paid by you directly to the platform. We configure it; you own it; you can move it whenever you want.

We help you register the domain through a provider you control, then configure DNS, SSL, and email routing as part of the build. The registrar account is always in your name.

Standard content updates — pricing changes, new photos, text edits, service additions — are typically completed within two to three business days. Larger feature additions are scoped per project with a timeline agreed before work starts.

Next.js with TypeScript, deployed on Vercel. You receive full source access and written handoff documentation. No proprietary platforms and no locked-in systems.

No. Performance scores depend on your content, images, and third-party tools, and search rankings are set by Google, not by us. What we do publish is a live Lighthouse scan you can run against any URL, including ours — measured on demand rather than asserted in copy. We will show you the before and after on your own site and let the numbers speak.

COAI designs and builds custom, hand-coded websites for Bakersfield contractors and the systems around them: local search and AI answer-engine structure, missed-call text-back, online booking, follow-up, a CRM, and reporting. Websites start at $1,997 flat, and the systems are added through packages or individual add-ons.

The Custom Website Build costs a flat $1,997 ($997 to start / $1,000 at launch) with full client account ownership. Packages that add lead-capture and follow-up systems: Digital Foundation $3,647, Lead Machine ≈ $6,441, Customer Lifecycle $6,997–$9,497, each including the website. All 37 add-ons are also priced individually on the pricing page. Nothing is required to keep the delivered website.

Response timing depends on the carrier, integration, and approved workflow. COAI configures and tests the acknowledgement path against the written scope, then reports the observed result. We do not publish a universal speed claim before a deployment has a real test log.

You do. You control the domain registrar, hosting account, source code repository, analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and all lead data. We deploy into your accounts, document the setup, and hand over admin access at launch — COAI retains no ongoing control unless you explicitly grant it for support.

COAI was founded and is led by Jason Robert Manuel, Founder & CEO, a former licensed building contractor with 9 years of multi-trade field experience who now builds web and AI systems. Clients work directly with Jason via his direct phone line at (661) 683-0228, with no account managers or gatekeepers.

Standard agencies typically rent proprietary templates on monthly contracts without giving clients direct backend ownership or automated call recovery. COAI delivers a complete, client-owned infrastructure standard built specifically around field call workflows and local contractor economics.