MarketStarter / Articles
The parts nobody else publishes.
Three pieces so far, and they exist for the same reason: the honest version was missing. What a category actually costs to run tends to be written only by people with an incentive to round it, what a product cannot do tends not to be written at all, and a case study that publishes the unflattering half of its own data is rarer still. So we write those, with the numbers itemised and the assumptions stated, and we say when we would tell you not to buy.
Written so far
Newest first.
- 01 Google Ads for schools — what six months of a real account showed A private college’s account read month by month: the same budget as the six months before it, a cost per click 74% lower, and 1,033 recorded enquiries against a prior period that recorded none. Including the finding that transfers — the peak enrolment month produced the dearest enquiries, and 45% of the budget was going into it. 7 AUG 2026 · 12 MIN
- 02 Customer service automation — what it can answer, and what it can’t The four questions it genuinely resolves and the four it should refuse by contract; why a containment rate improves every time the system escalates less; and the message volume below which none of it pays for itself. Costs itemised, from platform rates to what we charge. 5 AUG 2026 · 11 MIN
- 03 What an AI receptionist really costs The per-minute economics of a live phone line, taken from our own invoices — the telephony floor, the voice layer, the model — set against what human answering services publish for the same answered call. Includes our prices for every system, and when an AI line is not worth buying. 29 JUL 2026 · 10 MIN
How these are written
Graded, dated, and argued against.
- 01Every number is gradedOur own invoices, a vendor’s public price page, a competitor’s published rate and our own arithmetic are four different kinds of claim. Each one is labelled, so you can weigh it rather than take it.
- 02Assumptions are statedWhere a figure is calculated, the inputs are printed next to it. If you disagree with an assumption you can redo the sum, which is the only honest way to publish a calculation.
- 03Visible review datesPrices in an article age badly and get quoted back for years, including by AI assistants. Each piece carries the date it was last checked, and gets checked again when the underlying costs move.
- 04The case against us is includedWhere a competitor’s model is genuinely better for some buyers, or where we would tell you not to buy at all, that goes in the piece rather than being left out of it.
What you will not find here is a results claim we cannot evidence. There are no containment rates, no invented percentages and no case study attached to a system we have not run long enough to have one for — deliberately, and in one case the article says so about itself. If a number appears on this site, it is either ours, published by somebody else, or arithmetic you can check.
Bring the question these didn’t answer.
20 minutes, your numbers rather than ours, and a written scope. No obligation.