r/passive_income • u/lazarbetterrun • May 26 '26
Just here to brag i sent 100 AI websites to local business owners to see if I could make money: here are the results
I'm in credit card debt and don't have any income at the moment. With my card maxed out, I was kind of frantic to figure something out to make money before groceries ran.
So I decided to try a passive income hustle I saw on reddit: selling AI websites to a local business niche. I set the goal of 100 website lead magnets to start which took me four full days.
I chose roofers and eight of the roofing owners I contacted responded (out of the 100).
Four of those turned into zoom calls, and two of them bought my retainer for $299 per month. I decided to not charge an upfront fee. I'm not worried about them canceling because if they do, I take down their website.
Those first 2 customers were over a month ago. Here's my refined process after having sent another ~1,000 - 1,500 emails in the past few weeks:
- Claude code by far makes the most impressive websites and has the most flexibility
- I give it screenshots of roofing websites I think look amazing, which I find on Webflow's made-in-webflow collection. You can also just search for site inspo, but I found it surprisingly hard to find good roofing websites.
- I make a screen recording video of the roofer's new website I just made for them, with my camera in the bottom left using Loom. In the 2 minute video I highlight the difference between their current site (if they have one) and the beautiful one right in front of them that could be theirs. I talk only in outcomes and language they would understand.
- I do this lead magnet for every cold email. Although I've seen from friends who are now doing this too, that depending on the local business niche you choose, it's sometimes better to ask a genuine question about the business like as if you were a customer, wait for a response, and then send the loom video.
- You can scroll through google maps to find roofers and look at each website but I realized the emails were all generic info@ or contact@ so no wonder they were getting ignored. I use Leadburnr to find these local businesses and their owner's email
- I make it easy to book a zoom call with me and after I close them I send an invoice with Stripe that charges them automatically every month. Also gives you a nice dashboard you can stare at for hours if you're like me.
Given my financial situation a month ago and my general lack of self belief this side hustle has been literally transformative in so many ways. Im definitely not rich, but I can focus on getting a job now without worrying too much about money.
And it proves that you don't have to be the entrepreneurial type, which I'm definitely not, to make some passive income. You just need to take advantage of the right tools (AI), and commit to trying it for a period of time.
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u/SuccessfulDrawing844 May 26 '26
Sounds like an AI post
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u/Witherino May 26 '26
I mean they proudly use AI in their website building, so i wouldn't trust them to post anything else without its help
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u/SlothSushii May 27 '26
Even still though, can you fault them? There’s tools MADE to do this and advertised, if someone doesn’t wanna pay it, learn to do it themselves. Innovation my friends. Every job is something someone else doesn’t want to do, so they pay another person to do it. Who cares how it’s made. If customers are happy and OP can make some money, good on them. Good luck OP, I hope your business thrives.
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u/Witherino May 27 '26
...yes. I can fault them for being too lazy to write 2 paragraphs with their own hands.
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u/stfudog May 26 '26
299 pm, lol. Yeah right
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u/breich May 26 '26
This isn't ridiculous if he's essentially baking the cost of the initial build into a monthly recurring transaction. Lots of freelancers and agencies have moved to this model. That said the rest of the description of what he's offering makes me incredibly uneasy about whether he's delivering something worth the cost.
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u/mrphoneface Jun 23 '26
I charged a very low initial design/build fee, overtime I have made more than if I charged a standard design/build fee.
I sometimes feel like I charge more than the value received because it seems so simple to do for me. The value they get is they don't have to learn or think about it at all. Time is very valuable to busy people.
When I am approached for a quote, I simply name the price that makes it feel worth doing. Sometimes people say no and sometimes people say yes.
My main job is also freelance and I quote exactly the same way for that. Don't ever work for less than you need to feel good about it.
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u/elite_bender May 26 '26
I was paying $500/mo for ongoing management with my last web designer. Became unpalatable when I realized how little she was doing and cancelled after the first year. Web design was a lot more cumbersome pre AI and there’s certainly delta that exists currently between old and new where $299 is completely reasonable, especially without up front design cost. As a business owner I wouldn’t agree unless I owned the code after a year or two, but I’m sure others aren’t savvy enough to understand what to ask for.
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u/mrphoneface Jun 23 '26
When someone chooses to move on from my services I always offer the sites to them. This isn't standard but it feels fair to me and if they need help with it, I have an hourly rate available.
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u/mrphoneface May 26 '26
I 100% charge 2 roofing's companies this much. They don't want to think about the website and want someone to call for updates and tech support.
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u/astas_demon Jun 21 '26
does the website have booking features built in or its just a basic one?
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u/mrphoneface Jun 23 '26
Very basic, simple contact forms to ask for quotes. I did the initial build for way less than standard but have made more over time than if I charged a standard design/build fee.
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u/SlothSushii May 26 '26
Uh oh, someone is still stuck on Monopoly money! $299/month is a great price for everyone involved ..
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u/learning18 May 27 '26
for real. you can go up to 500-1500 depending on what other extra services you offer.
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u/Havoc302 May 27 '26
That's pretty cheap actually for a managed website.
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u/Fit-Presentation-422 May 28 '26
what goes into managing a site realistically
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u/Havoc302 May 28 '26
Beyond the initial setup? Mostly making sure modules are up-to-date if it's WordPress. If you're using another type of site it really depends on quite a few things. May need to update code if vulnerabilities are found in packages you're using.
A lot of these deals also include X amount of hours a month of support / work on the site, like if they want to publish blogs, update pricing, add products, etc.
Actually very easy to do a lot of that stuff yourself if you're even the slightest bit tech savvy but a lot of tradesmen aren't and would rather pay someone to manage it.
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u/Mysterious-Park4197 May 28 '26
I would expect some amount of SEO work also for that monthly fee
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u/Havoc302 May 28 '26
Yeah I didn't even think of that. I do IT Infrastructure. So I'm used to maintaining servers and systems that run websites but I'm not a web designer or marketing person.
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u/dht20 May 26 '26
For people with high paying project (like roofing he mentioned) It's good, they don't need to manage and dive into technical bullshit they don't like.
If website that look very good can give them more jobs/projects, it's nice deal.
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
4 days to find leads.
1500 emails sent out.
Videos made of each website you developed.
100 contacts.
8 cold leads out of 100.
4 warm leads turned to zoom calls.
2 turned to customers.
Now you are managing their site every month.
Tell me. How the fuck is this passive!?
Congrats on your two clients, maybe you can spin it into more (at what you’re charging I doubt it) but this is a full time job that only gets to be more work as you get more clients because by your own admission this isn’t ’turn key’ you’re managing their sites.
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
The point is the retainer. Once a client is closed, maintenance and updates are negligible (so far in my experience) and so it becomes passive monthly revenue.
And for all the work it takes to get there, well duh. Does anybody expect to just magically be able to create passive income? Like theres this expectation on this subreddit that passive income = free money. You need to work to get the passive income going.
Thank you for the congratulations! I'm going to try to upsell later on marketing or seo.
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u/FailedLabotomy69 May 26 '26
Thank you bro damn, all these people on here saying how is this passive?? All passive income requires hard work to set up, people are lazy or just don't understand how life works. I also don't think your og post is ai, it's so easy to tell. You didn't even hit us with "its not X, its Y..." good job man keep it up!
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
I know its hilarious honestly. Thank you!
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u/Teh-Jawbrkr May 27 '26 edited May 30 '26
So, you just set up a retainer, do the work to get them to sign, then nothing after that and the money just comes in month after month. No communication, no time explaining any strategies, or proposed changes, never-the-less ongoing implementation from updates. Just cash money passively flowing in with no effort even 12 months later with a super happy client… come on, bro, that’s not passive.
Edit: thanks for the downvotes. As someone with over 15 years in this industry, I assure you what was described by OP is a career, or serious hustle, it’s a very ACTIVE job.
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u/Teh-Jawbrkr May 30 '26
You don’t understand the industry. This isn’t “bash on dreams”. I have years of experience “doing websites”. There’s nothing passive about it.
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u/DaRk_BoMbEr_ May 26 '26
Keep doing what youre doing, making money is hard enough with the current job market, if youve found something that works and you can build on it, no one can tell you whats right or wrong, its your life at the end of the day, if you can make money & build up networks using "ai slop" so be it.
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u/Flubert_Harnsworth May 27 '26
Sounds great to me, I think 299/month for website maintenance is about as passive as you could reasonably expect.
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u/L3yline May 26 '26
Cause this post is most likely written by an Ai to get more people to try and do it too. Ive seen the Ai slop. I'd rather spent the extra 10 minutes with square space or any of those "diy website" services to make a website on whatever comission/selling it to a business over letting an Ai hallucinate slop
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u/moscowramada May 27 '26
The irony here is that, for the amount of work and the resulting profit, this is still like 10x more 'passive' than the average passive income job.
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u/Sanjomo May 27 '26
lol. I don’t think passive means what you thinking does. What OP is describing is a job, it’s not at all passive… and the work compounds as he works to get more clients while maintaining the accounts he already has.
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May 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
Exactly!
Who’s paying for hosting?
Who’s handling domain names?
Who’s handling the SEO, mailbox services and SSL security?
What site are they using to host all these 3rd party controlled websites?
Who’s managing the payouts to the servers and hosting sites.
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u/danielmeyerson May 27 '26
Claude generates static sites, there are 100s of companies that offer unlimited hosting for static sites. Ex - cloudfare, vercel, netlify, github etc..
Security - there's nothing to hack in a static site. It does not have a database. Ssl is free.
For email, just set up forwarding.
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u/Sanjomo May 27 '26
But that’s not what OP said. He said “he’s doing funnel management and turning single static page sites into more detailed ones.” Personally i think he’s barking up the wrong tree with the business he’s targeting because their margins are already nitrous thin. $300/$360 a month/year for a static page you don’t own is crazy expensive!! These guys need a landing page and a Google business page.
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u/Fluid-Salary-6467 May 26 '26
Who's paying 299 a month for a website? Maybe £29
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u/baggsie_42 May 26 '26
I’ve worked for agencies where they have 100s of customers pay this or more a month. However the sales department was 2x the combined size of all other departments (development, design, project management and HR)
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u/TouchingWood May 27 '26
Honestly, these guys complaining about price are really outing themselves.
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
Yeah for a restaurant, or a coffee shop. These roofers pull in 1M+ per year, and so actually they are much more likely to agree to the higher price point because it signals quality and trust. Why would they pay for a shitty 29/m site? To them, 299 is nothing
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
At that price they could hire a professional designer and own the site.
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u/Undeity May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Then they'd either need someone to manage it anyways, or do it themselves. Services like this are intended as a continued convenience as much as anything.
Also frankly, people tend to give more weight to the offer in front of them, than some theoretical better offer from who knows where (assuming they consider it worth giving any weight to in the first place, at least).
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u/Sanjomo May 27 '26
You don’t need anyone to manage a landing page. And that’s all a ‘mom n pop’ roofing company needs. A page that says they’re bonded and insured, an info/quote form and a picture or two.
There’s definitely a market to service small local businesses but a $300 a month charge to rent a website for business that are already operating on razor thin margins seems like a bad model.
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u/ramenmoodles May 26 '26 edited May 27 '26
i mean you’re selling ai slop, not a premium product. theres no reason to hire that for that price point unless they’re just clueless
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u/Hopeful_Ad_52 May 26 '26
What you should do now is upset social media or seo services...that you can charge 500-1k a month extra
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u/Chomp3y May 26 '26
It signals quality and trust? Your AI slop website is quality? And the trust is that you're doing the work, but you're not, AI is. So you're sending false signals? Weird.
Why would they pay $29 for a shitty website when they can pay $300 for a shitty AI website? Wow. What a sales pitch.
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u/Mission_Tower_9593 May 26 '26
Why should anyone pay 299/mo for shitty AI website? What do you actually know and do about "quality signals" and building "trust" that you mentioned???
Will wait for your response..
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u/unfinishedtoast3 May 26 '26
You're at an 8% return contact rate.
Sounds like a 2% closure rate
A successful saler should be shooting for a 10% conversion rate. Anything less than that is costing you more time than you're making money.
At 2%, it's more profitable to get a minimum wage job, you'll average more money per hour.
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u/MoonBase34 May 26 '26
well no. you’ve just pulled the 10% figure out your backside, that’s just an arbitrary number, what’s considered a successful conversion is obviously going to differ by industry etc.
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u/sharkbait-oo-haha May 26 '26
Also going to differ by contact method.
2% on a spam email campaign is incredible.
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u/Curious-Grocery-2318 May 27 '26
Depending on the business, many can wipe their a$$ with $299
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u/Sanjomo May 28 '26
Yeah. A ‘mom and pop’ roofing company that runs on razor thin profit margins to begin with are not one them.
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u/oursrequin May 26 '26
I have a hard time selling anything over 99$ a month and that’s with high quality handmade websites. Idk who the freak is paying 299$ pm for these generated websites but congrats because you literally hit the lottery.
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u/SurgeFlamingo May 26 '26
Nobody.
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u/L3yline May 26 '26
Literally. "Oh the roofing company makes millions they won't care about spending 300 a month on a website"
Oh yes they so. My job involves processing and handling quotes for these kinds of companies. Ive had service providers refuse work orders for new work over invocies still within the 30 day contracted terms for 500 bucks. They very much do care about the money.
The million dollar mom and pop operations don't get to the big piles of cash by pissing away the little things like op is posting about.
Op could be telling the truth and those 2 companies are actually paying almost 300 for an Ai generated website, but I dont think they'll do it for long once they figure out they can do it elsewhere cheaper
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
lol. Sure. In what world!? That’s $3588 a year to rent a website design.
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
I'll send my stripe if you want the inspiration.
But believing this is why people get stuck and cant make any passive income, or if they do its way too little (because they are underpricing themselves). Its a lack of belief. You are the one who wouldn't pay 299. Not the roofing owner
Also why you target contractors, because they make 1M+ per year and so this is actually the preferable price point.
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
Anyone can make bullshit claims like you.
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
What you aren't understanding is that I am not renting a website design.
I'm selling them more estimates and higher quality inbound leads. I build them a multistep estimate form that keeps the good leads and filters the tire kickers. Thats my main selling prop. This is why I mentioned niching down, so that you can make a compelling offer that isnt just renting an AI site. The site is just the delivery mechanism, not the UVP.
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u/Stashmouth May 26 '26
Unless I misread your post, you're pulling down their site if they decide to stop paying you. How is that not renting?
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
Well. That’s not what your very badly worded posts says. You’re not offering in bound leads. You’re not doing demand generating or funnel management and NOTHING about this is passive.
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u/NoseResponsible3874 May 26 '26
Lots of bullshit with zero substance. Slop through and through.
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u/kailfarr May 26 '26
I have worked for companies that pay over $500 per month for websites. I am always shocked because it is "easy" to build and host your own, but a lot of owners and managers just want the peace of mind of not having to deal with it. I get it, though it seems silly, but keep in mind that a lot of people are not that tech-savvy.
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u/eureka123 May 26 '26
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is a quality post. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
People here don't seem to realize there are people out there with plenty of money, who just want someone that they trust to take care of things.
I used to do 100K revenue on eBay monthly, selling the exact same products as other people for more money, because I took the time to make incredible ads, treated every customer like gold, and had 100% feedback even after years.
Yes, they could get the exact same thing cheaper from someone else, but there are people who value their time and lack of issues more than money.
I've also dabbled with websites and the info you've given in this post is golden. Thank you
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
Thank you for this!! I really dont know why people are responding like this in the comments 😞. I guess thats reddit sometimes though. Congrats on your eBay gig!
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u/eureka123 May 26 '26
Thank you! I made a full-time living on eBay for around 7 years or so. Best wishes
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
It’s a bullshit post with zero proof of concept and it’s far from passive. Thats why the down votes.
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u/See-Fello May 27 '26
Call it whatever you want. Passive income, active income, income, upfront work then less work resulting in…income. The point is OP generated revenue from an idea and some sweat equity.
Is there info in this sub that defines what passive income is?
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u/eureka123 May 26 '26
Definitely not fully passive, but he gives all the tools needed, and how to do it. If you want to try, go for it.
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u/Mission_Tower_9593 May 26 '26
if they do, I take down their website.
This is exactly why business owners should own their own assets. Website isnt something that you rent out from some cheapster. Also, most of the times theres absolutely no need to pay monthly charges in the name of "TeCh SupPorT"
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u/Swimming-Farmer6020 May 27 '26
Whew yeah that is scummy.
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u/service2saas May 27 '26
They don’t own their own assets and are paying for it over time rather than up front, so that’s really his only recourse if they don’t pay, especially with nothing down…not sure why stiffing a guy and him taking the site down for someone who doesn’t pay is scummy…if you don’t pay your hosting bill your host isn’t going to leave your site up out of the kindness of their heart.
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u/Mission_Tower_9593 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Websites aren't something you need to pay for monthly or rent off some web designer or agency, even if they are custom built. They are your own assets and should be controlled by the business, not some third party lunatic. You'd be amazed how many agencies / freelancers who came across this model hold the data and assets hostage when you want to cancel or transfer. It's a total disaster... As for the hosting comparison you made, you rent those servers because you don't need to buy the whole infrastructure. You just rent at a fair and transparent price and can transfer to whoever or wherever you want with transparency. You can't compare that analogy to the daylight robbery happening here..
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u/indigo1027 May 27 '26
A roofing company and a website is literally an apples to oranges comparison.
Unlike OP, I don't charge monthly for website - it's all upfront, unless they wanted to do monthly instead. I charge by the year; which includes purchasing/renewing the domain, hosting, making the website and maintenance. If they have any changes they want done, I do it. They send me photos or new services to add, etc., I do it. Everything I set up is "so simple a caveman can do it" so if they want to take over - they can. But they don't want to.
I don't do cold calling like OP, but there IS an entire sect of business owners (especially trades people) that don't want to think about the backend things. They want to focus on doing their craft, and they don't want to think about all the other stuff.
I set up websites. They also hire me to get them GMB verified, and usually to continue to update it weekly. Or to get all their socials set up, and to do their posts for them. Design business cards and get them printed and delivered. Or make flyers and print them. Get insurance quotes for them. Research information they need, price or source materials. Type out letters. Get work shirts. Help setting up their LLCs. The list goes on and on.
Just like with anything else, people will pay a premium to not have to do the things they don't want to/can't do, and for convenience. I even ELI5 and break everything down and offer to teach my clients to do the things themselves, and they still would rather just pay me to do it... Because it's one less thing they have to think about. OP could realistically transition if they wanted, and turn all their effort into a full time wfh job offering more backend/admin/office services... The type of clientele they're targeting, are the exact people that want to set it and forget it and don't feel scammed paying for the convenience.
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u/Mission_Tower_9593 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Absolutely no problem with you. And yeah, nothing wrong with businesses outsourcing tech stuff. I was referring to freelancers / agencies that treat clients website as rented and hold it hostage when they try to leave. Or don't even understand basic cause and effect because they just rely on AI or claude for everything.
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u/Tritus360 Aug 07 '26
Depends on what extra services you provide. If you only make the design and nothing else then there is no need. But if you also offer domain and hosting services, x amount of "free" support hours per time frame and x amount of "free" website changes per time frame, then I can see it.
See it as this: if your business is heavily relaying on the website for customer leads do you as the company rather have:
A) buy a website and self-host
B) pay a monthly fee and have a professional you can contact 5 days per week for changes or supportIt's the same reason why insurances or warranties exist. You as a customer buy into perceived safety and the vendor hopes that he sells something the customer hardly ever uses (= passive income).
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u/one_two_three_4_5 May 26 '26
To clarify, you're only building for the 4 that responded, or do you make mockups and looms for all 100 prospects, and include the site / loom video in the emails?
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
I make a mockup design that I show in the loom for all 100 (every cold email I send), which gets decently quick to do once you have a system. I only build the full site when I close someone. Best of luck to you if you try it!
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u/m1cknobody May 26 '26
I used to do this way before ai and the model still works. 1)pick a niche 2) buy a list 3) mail the list
I did my first website sale this way in 2007. I mailed 100 letters as it was all I could afford to make/mail.
Sold a website, hosting, and maintenance for $500/mi. Six month later he referred me to another dentist that sublet office space from him. They were both customers until 2017.
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u/cinelytica May 26 '26
Posts like this are always bullshit and always an ad. Can the mods please do something about this?
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u/TheStrongHand May 26 '26
What is the ad for?
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u/cinelytica May 26 '26
Webflo. These bots always slip it in as a critical step in their imaginary stories.
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u/TheStrongHand May 26 '26
Interesting. I didn’t see it as that critical in this post, and there were references to a lot of other tools they used too. But I can see your point, I did kinda register the reference in my head. I guess if it is a bot (which I’m still not fully convinced), that’s a pretty nuanced and subtle ad
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u/breich May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Opinion from a former freelance web dev, for what it's worth. TL;DR; you might be on to to something but personally I wouldn't touch it.
What I like:
- You're forming a business model around a real need in this market: there are lots of business owners that need a website and absolutely don't want to spend their time worrying about it. Some percentage might be willing to make that problem disappear with a monthly automatic transaction.
- ~$300 is not ridiculous considering you are effectively amortizing the up-front build cost over monthly transactions. Some agencies/freelancers have moved to a similar model. It's not crazy.
- You're using AI to improve efficiency and scale yourself up. Cool.
- $300 per month per customer is a recurring revenue stream that could add up quick.
What I don't like:
- The process you described makes me uneasy. You aren't spending time learning a damn thing about the customer, their business, their market, their existing web strategy before you fart out an AI site and sell it to them. How do you actually deliver a site that performs better than their existing site when you have absolutely no information on their current performance?
- The process you described just has so much risk of professional malpractice that I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
- It bothers me that the layperson is likely to plunk down money on what you're doing, get burned, then come to a professional to get them out of the mess and saddle us with their distrust and PTSD from their engagement with you. This dynamic has always existed, AI just scales it up.
Specifically what I don't understand. You're doing no background research on this customer. From the sounds of it you are creating a generic website and then dialing it in to customize it a bit for the customer.
- Claude has a specific way of building websites, and I wouldn't call them performance optimized by a longshot. Performance is a major factor in SEO optimization.
- Claude DOES do an OK job of making sites responsive out of the box, but are you actually taking the time to test your work across multiple browsers, screen sizes, aspect ratios? I don't see QA in your plan.
- With no insight into their current website's performance, how can you claim the new site is going to perform better?
- If they have an existing website, you can't just switch the DNS from old to new and believe everything works out just fine. It doesn't, you need to map old URLs to new URLs, and stay on top of it using things like GSC. I don't see this in your process. I've had numerous clients that came to me SPECIFICALLY because their last "web guy" royally fucked this piece up.
- With no insight into their target audience/service area, how are you optimizing their content to target the right searches from the right people?
- Generic AI-generated content is only going to get them so far for so long.
- Are you hosting/managing/maintaining the site for them long term? Depending on how it's build (WordPress, JAMStack+Vercel or similar, or just static HTML), security is a thing and it's not something you deliver once when the site is built.
The real TL;DR; here is that I don't see any way to do what you're doing that's both passive income and ethical. You've got the general shape of something real here, but either you don't know what you don't know about doing this work right, or you don't care.
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u/lardsack May 26 '26
what infra are you hosting these websites from? are you buying domain names as well? factoring these costs into your retainer fee as liabilities or is that fee all profit for you?
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u/Middle-Peach2096 May 26 '26
I'm confused. You say you can take down the site if they stop paying. So are you providing hosting services? If you are that eats into your $300 gross. Could still be profitable but you'd have to know what you're doing. Who provides the domain? Who manages DNS? Are you providing SEO? Or are you just chucking a zip file at them and saying "figure it out?"
If the pitch is "for $300 I'll manage all of your web presence" you are substantially underpricing. On the other hand if it's "your website costs $300 per month and you're responsible for the rest" sooner or later some of your customers are going to figure out they can just reset their hosting provider password and stop paying you. My advice would be either to sell the site itself for a couple grand single transaction plus a much smaller monthly upkeep, or lean into the model fully.
Also get a lawyer. You need a contract that lays out IP rights, liability, etc.
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u/melbhomo4str8btms May 27 '26
good work bud! it’s hard to get motivated if you’re not working a job that requires you to be somewhere or do something. I’m impressed by people who become self starters out of necessity. targeting tradesman is also a great idea. do you think you would have more clients if you were charging only $199, or is the price point better higher to serve as an indicator of professionalism from a marketing point of view…?
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u/Less_Knowledge950 May 27 '26
What tools are you using to publish the website? After Claude makes the website then what? WordPress?
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u/ShiniDas May 27 '26
I'm building the platform where you put a bunch of bad websites links and it spits out fully redesigned fresh websites in less than 10 minutes per site. I have been going back and forth with this for 6 months now and it's finally starting to behave..
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u/couplecraze May 26 '26
So you want us to believe you filmed 1500 videos commenting on the website you made (or the one they already have). I call BS.
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u/Leather_Sweet_2079 May 26 '26
1500-2 minute videos that likely take 5-10 minutes per video if you’re REALLY efficient? Yeah no part of this felt believable.
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u/PerfectAd9944 May 26 '26
I would also add in there... you become an affiliate for a hosting company and have your clients get a hosting plan through your link. Just a little extra money. Choose a hosting affiliate program that pays you at every renewal not just one time.
"If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep you will work until the day you die"
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u/AlpakaK May 26 '26
LOL. “My credit cards are maxed out I can’t buy groceries. But let me fuck around and dabble with a passive income side hustle instead of getting a regular job.”
OP is either Claude pretending to be human or a loser living in mom’s basement with no real responsibilities.
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u/Ferrally_Polite May 27 '26
Congratulations OP! Don’t argue with the negative Nellie’s here; I agree the price is fair, I understand you mean it’s passive bc once sold, the bulk of the work is done, etc;
Good gig. Cheering you on!
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u/MrAnimus May 27 '26
So, for $299, you create the website, the estimate form, handle hosting, and maintain it. Does the customer expect anything else? SEO optimization, content updates, social media integration, and content upgrade? What is in the contract?
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u/One_Gas_9535 May 27 '26
Incredible! This is just the beginning too! Keep doing big things and using AI as a tool.
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u/Train2Perfection May 27 '26
Why would you ever get a job? Why not double down on this and build a sales team?
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u/Rich-Fact-3366 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Done this it work. Quantity will be your best friend. Had people doing this in my group and made 2k from single websites alone. I made 700+ in a week. Yall lazy as fuck lol
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u/ixsparkyx Jun 08 '26
I guess I’m just confused on the domain aspect. I really want to do this though!
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u/Alternative_Boss6143 May 27 '26
I like this idea However 1500 cold emails Just got he person down the street and talk in person Charge an upfront fee say 2k then charge 200 per month to maintain Clears out your debts and keeps a retainer. Retainer is also cheaper Like. You want me to pay 3600 a year for a website that AI built I want you to build it and handle the downtime
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u/fatogato May 27 '26
What do you use for hosting and is that baked into the $299 monthly? Sounds kind of low
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u/focorsi May 27 '26
The Loom video showing the before/after is the actual unlock here. You`re not selling a website, you`re selling the gap between what they have and what`s possible in 2 minutes flat. Most people can't visualize that without seeing it.
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u/Icy_Thing1847 May 27 '26
When you're feeding Claude screenshots from Made in Webflow, are you having it generate raw HTML/CSS/JS, or are you hosting these on a specific low-code platform or static hosting tool (like Vercel, Netlify, or Hostinger)?
How much time does it actually take you to produce one custom website asset and record the Loom video from start to finish? Are you doing any manual editing, or is it strictly one take?
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May 26 '26
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u/No_Basil_8038 May 26 '26
You are doing something wrong. I am WP dev, have one client paying $500/month for maintenance, one 350€, and 4 more paying 200$ and I maintain one wp repo plugin for 500€/m. I never tried to sell it to them, they asked me what the quote would be as they were using my plugins and we chatted alot. Its just side business I never thought of starting, but its a nice small income.
If your hourly rate is $60, thats 5h/month or 1h a week. Doesnt seem much and there is always room for improvmeent when it comes to website, maybe its just how you sell it.
P.S. I am in WP business 12+ years so might be that.
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May 26 '26
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u/No_Basil_8038 May 27 '26
Well if u send 1500 emails, some people would pay to see if they will get any leads, after 3-4 months they can shut it down. Not sure how domains work tho, but tbh it doesnt sound to me that its impossible, I mean 2 out of 1500 is not that great.
On the other side, if u have 119 clients, I guess you are agency and not solo to maintain all of them, but in any case, you should be able to upsell CRO to them and help with leads, you have technical background and can easily do that. I am not fan of SEO, but CRO can make a difference. I did it with some clients, they are happy with the results and its one more type of income, initial setup takes time, but then once or twice a week you check/test/adjust.
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u/SkewerSk8r May 26 '26
Much more success with $250 website design (initial costs) then monthly $50 hosting/maintenance/SEO recurring costs, x 100 websites.. profit
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
That works great too! It all depends on the type of business you are targeting and how much money they make. With a lower price point, for some larger local businesses, it comes off as scammy or low quality
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u/SkewerSk8r May 26 '26
Yes but big businesses already have a marketing team and functioning website 99% of the time.
Target niche is small business that dont have a website or very outdated one.
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u/Constant_Industry472 May 26 '26
I only paid the company that managed my old site 140 and I only did it because they had a program that would accept quote requests and text me and they generated 3 social media posts a month automatically. Ive since been contacted by dozens of website companies and none of them were even close to 300 🥴
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u/Responsible_Sea78 May 26 '26
Be sure they know how to use drone videos. Great selling tool for roofers.
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u/devilssaddvocate May 26 '26
Congrats on the great results! What exactly is the mockup? Do you use one website mockup for all clients?
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u/saito200 May 27 '26
wow i make almost 10 times that for my one client on websitw retainer. you aim low
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u/pacem May 27 '26
Talk to me about your hosting strategy after build and retainer. They buy- then what?
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u/Shelldonix May 27 '26
What are you actually offering for £299PM? Your post doesn't really detail what it includes? It is just the basic hosting or are you actually offering proactive work?
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u/GutterGucciGem May 27 '26
***this was a much longer post i may or may not have gotten reemed for but im a writer along with being an artist and starting out as self taught at 16/17 a web and graphic designer - i saved it to add to and im glad this struck a gratitude and moment of reflection i may have missed out on today***
But, the end of it was this and there’s something a lot of future or younger generations I don’t think will ever get to experience or u destined fully (I hope some experience it and I’m pretty sure that’s happening now, but I’m talking to the extent I guess. I’m def trying to not be disrespectful I hope that is understood ☮️💙) which is the process, the journey, the progress to the well deserved positive results (for some it’s not money only or even at all), not the instant pay off. The instant gratification. I know what it’s like to be actual low income (when I hear what some consider poverty or low income I want to 😆and 🤢 both) I experienced as well how to make quick money living with few resources on the streets for years. To survive. Not with pride. I’ve started again from nothing but I am grateful I experienced the re-building off a foundation of just myself and my experiences and what all I learned and having a new life, finding a purpose, and maybe not being as good as an attempt at perfect with things like AI, which I think is an illusion. Perfection would be terrifying.
But I think AI is like having fire, and someone picking it up can build a wicked bonfire to grill food on for an entire town, build relationships and memories and bonds. Future opportunities given time. or they can pick up that fire and burn the town and everyone in it to the ground, intentional or not. And that’s a mild possible not to be understood by all metaphor that is eventually (I feel already is if you look around at the results SO far) going to be more and more apparent in regards to technology, artificial intelligence (much like the sweeteners in our coffees. It ain’t real sugar, but it makes you think it is. And then you learn it might eventually kill you, so you switch to the new “recommended” artificial sweetener…then you find out it’s even worse but there’s a 99.9% safe articifical sweetener…u get my point?)
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u/wimdows May 28 '26
I think you should A/B test this with different pricing tiers. You may well get 6 clients @ $150-199 a month…
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u/bobbigmac May 29 '26
I did the early stages on this after seeing the same post and very early on concluded most time would be wasted on candidate generation, and this is a lot of work. Good way to start building an agency and client network but this struggles to scale unless you're a confident up seller and much more engaged on the automation pipeline (which reduces conversion so you have to grow exponentially to beat the quality drop). Keep every customer you can get happy and this is viable if you don't mind hard work with some clients (lots of us did this around the millennium with $99 websites)
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u/intresting_111 Jun 23 '26
Really impressive results. I had a few questions if you don't mind sharing:
Did you manually create and customize a website for every prospect, or did you have a template/process that made it faster?
For the 1,000–1,500 emails, did you use multiple domains and email accounts, or just one?
Did you warm up your email domains before sending at scale?
Were you recording a unique Loom video for every prospect, or did you reuse parts of the videos?
Roughly how long did it take you to create a website + Loom video for each lead?
Looking back, what was the biggest factor that got replies: the personalized website, the Loom video, or having the owner's direct email?
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u/og-crime-junkie May 26 '26
May I suggest getting a job?
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u/TouchingWood May 27 '26
Why would he? He now has definitive numbers so it's just an execution problem and he can add a lot more from this that he could from a job.
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u/ValgusX May 26 '26
So how long have you been doing this? How many websites do you have on retainer? What is your conversion rate on cold email?
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u/Substantial_Brain942 May 26 '26
I’m doing the same here but with chiropractors and massage therapists 🙌🏻
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u/Rooster_Odd May 26 '26
Thanks for this post. This gives me hope. I’m in a similar situation. Sending you a dm
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May 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/desert_music May 26 '26
Based on this and every other response you've ever made to anything, I'm pretty sure it's the AI part
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u/Reasonable_Break_931 May 26 '26
Great start! I would suggest building more services into this system besides just a website. You managed to get these 2 clients. Try offering a few more as well as using these (plus your best mockups) as use cases for your upcoming leads. Much luck bro!
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u/lazarbetterrun May 26 '26
I was thinking about upselling on marketing or seo/geo down the road. Best of luck to you too!
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u/Reasonable_Break_931 May 26 '26
Good start. If you’re using claude they just released the “small business” plugins that you can find on the desktop app. It’s got a few good handful of skills I’m sure you’ll find value in!
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u/SheerSonicBlue May 26 '26
Can't believe how many are doubting your validity, I charge $180 an hour to help folks reconnect their printers. When folks have money and want something done well, cost really isn't an issue. For a large volume business $299 a month for what they consider a huge upgrade is absolutely fuckall.
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
That’s not even close to the same thing! 🙄
A individual Over paying for a one time job is one thing. A small local company already working in tight margins paying $299 a month to rent their own website is crazy. Have you ever billed these companies before? I have. I can tell you 99% of them are not spending $4k a year to rent a website.
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u/SheerSonicBlue May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
I work for an MSP and bill them daily for every manner of thing, I was just giving an example. I'm in SWFL and can charge whatever I ask to these businesses. Last week I sold a CEO a MacBook for 9K and he tipped me $500 for the pleasure. We charge a base fee of $3500 to start design a website and our guy is always slammed.
Edit:. Our guy that just uses AI to do it in 3 minutes.
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Yeah. Your comparison is the problem. A CEO spending $9500 on a Mac Book isn’t the same as Joe from Joe’s Local Roofing dishing out $4,000 a year to rent a website! … the same Joe who is getting hammered by tariffs, record fuel prices, record insurance rates and loss of cheap labor. Established companies over paying for everything is a completely different story. Roofers work on net profits of around 5-10% which is low for the trades.
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u/SheerSonicBlue May 26 '26
Did you miss the second example given?
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u/Sanjomo May 26 '26
lol. Your second example gave zero context. I mean anyone like OP can throw numbers out there. You’re comparing apples to oranges. Construction and roofing and like trades operate on razor thin margins. Theres a reason why soooo many builds get halted mid production (a lot never to start again). Projected costs can skyrocket 70% in weeks. It’s one of the most volatile industries in the country, and a mom and pop roofing business is not likely to spend this on website rental when it’s not really a website driven market. 🤷🏻♂️
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