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Simple and hourlyPricing
You pay for the build and the help, not a subscription. Once it's running, the system is yours.
One-time setup fee + $80 an hour
The setup fee, quoted on the free call, covers the template and the code already proven at Athena Towing. Build-out, training, and support are then billed at $80 an hour.
Rapid build-out
We stand up your system on a server you own and connect it to your phones, Towbook, bank, website, and ads. Best done in person; remote works too.
Training & implementation support
Already technical, or want to do it yourself? I train your team and help you implement it.
Maintenance & improvements
Optional. Keep me on as your maintenance and improvement tech, or kick me out once you know the ropes.
Where I'd start: motor-club billing
It's the fastest win and the easiest to measure. We connect your billing portals and Towbook first, so the data entry is pre-filled and every deadhead mile is on the invoice. Your billing person can time it against the old way, then add phones, payroll, books, and the rest when you're ready.
Your running costs — server, phone numbers and minutes, and AI usage — are billed to you directly by those providers, at cost. No markup, no monthly fee to us. Run your own numbers in the savings calculator.
You don't start from scratch
I spent hundreds of hours building, breaking, and debugging this system on my own trucks and my own money. The setup fee buys you the result: the code, prompts, guardrails, and tests already proven at Athena Towing, cleaned of its data, plus the roadmap for standing it up in a new shop.
You skip the headaches, the debugging, and the AI token bill of building it from scratch. Your build-out hours go into connecting it to your phones, Towbook, motor clubs, bank, website, and ads.
And it doesn't stop there. If you keep me on, we keep improving your system: new automations as your shop grows, and more of the work moved onto open-source models you run yourself, so your AI costs go down over time instead of up.
Best done in person, where we can sit with your dispatcher and your billing person for a day. Remote works too.
Every cost, split out
You pay providers directly, at cost. The right column is what Athena Towing actually pays, from the bank feed.
One time
| Component | What it is | Athena Towing pays |
|---|---|---|
| Setup fee (the template) | The code, guardrails, and roadmap already built and proven at Athena Towing. | Quoted per shop |
| Build-out | Connecting it to your phones, Towbook, clubs, bank, website, and ads. Depends on how much you start with. | $80/hr |
Every month
| Component | What it is | Athena Towing pays |
|---|---|---|
| Your server | A private cloud server (VPS) that runs the system around the clock. | About $57/mo |
| Office computer (optional) | A desktop at your shop that runs the self-hosted AI models, memory, and dashboards. You own it; it costs electricity and internet. | A Mac already on hand; no monthly bill |
| Phone numbers, calls & texts | Your business lines and text messaging, on your own account. | $60–$135/mo, by volume |
| AI voice | The natural-sounding voice for the phone AI. | About $37/mo |
| Claude subscription | Claude Code and frontier models for advanced work, plus running your company by voice. | $200/mo top tier, shared across my companies; plans start around $20 |
| AI tokens & maps (pay per use) | The metered AI behind the phone and text assistant, plus mileage routing. Billed by how much it's used. | $25 in a quiet month, up to ~$360 in a heavy build month |
| Website hosting | Fast hosting for your site, on your account. | About $20/mo |
| Me | Only when you call me for maintenance or improvements. | $0 unless you call, then $80/hr |
Self-hosting and AI tokens, in plain English
Self-hosting means the system runs on machines you own or rent directly: a small cloud server that never sleeps, and optionally a computer at your shop. The server is a fixed monthly bill. The shop computer is a one-time purchase plus electricity. A desktop with enough memory to run open-source AI models comfortably typically costs $1,000–$2,500, or you can start with a computer you already have and keep everything on the cloud server. Either way, there's no per-seat software fee.
AI tokens are how frontier AI is billed: by how much text and speech it processes. The phone and text assistant uses pay-per-use AI. By our estimate that works out to roughly 4–6 cents per minute the AI is actually on a call, including speech recognition and voice. Your crew answers first, so you only pay for calls they miss. The advisor reports, Claude Code, and running the company by voice ride a flat Claude subscription instead of metered tokens.
Keeping the bill down is part of the design. Search and memory run on self-hosted models that cost nothing per use, frontier models are only called when the work needs them, and over time more of the workload moves onto your own hardware. At Athena, everything in the monthly table comes to roughly $400–$800 a month, depending on call volume and how much building we did that month, and $200 of that is a top-tier Claude plan a smaller shop may not need.
Plug your own numbers into the savings calculator. Compare that with what you rent today: premium dispatch tiers, accounting software, phone apps, answering services, and per-minute AI. At my companies the system replaced $1,345/mo of subscriptions, services, and an agency. See what it replaced
Built so you can walk away
You own it
Your server, your accounts, your data. No platform fee to us, ever.
Total control
You hold every login and can revoke my access at any time. How your data is handled.
Mutual NDA
We both sign before we start. It protects your information and my trade secrets. No minimum term: you pay by the hour only when you use me.
Your 30-mile zone
No other tow company within 30 miles of you gets my system or my help. For three years, and for as long after that as I'm still doing contracted work for you.