A larger website opportunity.
A comparable economic model.

What the research supports

Website visibility can matter to a business without an LSA advertising account. It spans local services, professional firms, retailers, ecommerce and other sectors. CallRadius has a narrower qualifying use case: businesses buying supported local-service advertising, with the necessary access and willingness to pay for management or insight. The website opportunity is broader in principle; supported delivery, budget and practical distribution determine what we can reach.

The previous equal managed revenue was a 50/50 presentation allocation of one combined target. The previous profit comparison also gave LSA Signal a flat 70% margin while leaving website Signal profit unmodeled. Neither treatment established relative product potential. The new model uses separate customer goals and a comparable cost bridge.

My judgment: a year-five goal of twice as many managed websites as managed LSA accounts, and approximately twice as many website Signal sites as LSA Signal accounts, is a more useful operating ambition. Those ratios are analyst planning choices. No research source predicts that we will acquire these customers.

Market breadth: count the same thing

SBA’s 2026 FAQ counts 36,207,130 small businesses. The 2022 Census employer dataset records 6,395,635 employer firms and 8,298,562 establishments. Business counts include firms without a website or marketing budget; establishments are operating locations, not unique companies.

These four trade rows total 232,055 employer locations. They exclude nonemployers and many LSA categories. They are a documented industry anchor, not the number of active advertisers. Firm totals across industries can overlap, so the trade comparison uses establishment counts.

Google’s current category list extends into legal, health, auto, beauty, dining and other services, with some geographic restrictions. The older four-trade proxy cannot represent the entire LSA market. No active-advertiser denominator was established in this review; the model makes no precise LSA market-share claim.

ClickRadius’s broader potential audience includes businesses eligible for LSA as well as businesses that do not use it. The two markets overlap; their totals cannot be added as unique customers. I have not multiplied all 36.2M small businesses by a subscription price and called it obtainable revenue.

Demand exists; revenue still has to be earned

BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults reports 45% had used AI for local recommendations, up from 6% in its prior survey. This supports a changing discovery habit; it is not a business purchase-intent survey. Its separate visibility study ran 200,085 localized searches across 1,300 business locations and found material variation across repeated prompts and engines. Reports need sampled trends and retained evidence.

Pew’s observed browsing study found traditional-result clicks on 8% of Google visits with an AI summary versus 15% without one, with only 1% clicking a source in the summary. It studied 900 adults and March 2025 behavior; it is observational and does not prove that buying our product will create leads.

Semrush reported more than $38M in AI-product ARR at December 2025, up from $4M a year earlier. That is stronger demand evidence than a speculative market forecast. The same release reports a $22.8M GAAP operating loss and 12% non-GAAP operating margin on $443.6M annual revenue. Its results neither justify assigning us 70% net profit nor establish our future penetration.

IAB/PwC reports $114.2B in 2025 search advertising revenue. That is advertising spend across a broad category, not an LSA management-fee market or a website-software market. It is context only.

Pricing and competitive pressure

Primary publisher pricing and scope reviewed on 24 October. These are different packages, not an accuracy ranking. No paid competitor account or checkout was tested. Prices may be localized or change.

Reporting, competitor comparisons, citations and suggested actions are established capabilities. A low price and attractive dashboard alone are insufficient differentiation. The practical opening is a useful, bounded agency offer: understandable evidence, specific prepared repairs, one checked article at Pro, and an agency workflow that earns retention. Those advantages must be delivered and tested.

The proposed $29/$79 retail price sits within an existing competitive range. I have not assumed higher prices, a future premium plan or add-on revenue to inflate the forecast.

Independent targets behind the presentation

All four products use 70% wholesale / 30% retail. Both Signal products use 20% Pro in each channel. Managed service: $499 retail / $200 wholesale, giving $289.70 company revenue per month. CallRadius Signal: current $29/$79 retail and $12/$39 wholesale, giving $23.88. Website Signal: proposed $29/$79 retail and $15/$49 wholesale, giving $26.96. No HELM add-on revenue is assumed.

CallRadius Signal pricing was verified in the actual policy file, not inferred from old presentation copy. Website Signal’s stronger five-year revenue comes from a larger customer target and a slightly higher wholesale realization. Neither product is automatically assigned the same profit percentage.

Portfolio year-five MRR is $3,750,420; annual run-rate is $45,005,040; modeled in-year revenue is $38,015,790. Product counts may overlap across a business, but a managed subscription does not also pay for duplicate same-need Signal reporting.

What distribution must achieve

At the assumed channel mix, the year-five paid books require the following productive agency equivalents. Agencies can overlap across products; these are not additive unique-partner counts, signed commitments or an existing pipeline.

A website Signal partner with 50 retained sites produces $1,090 company MRR at the wholesale tier mix; its own resale revenue is separate. The agency must actually activate and retain those clients. A reporting login with no paying sites adds no revenue.

AgencyAnalytics’s reported 7,000+ agency customers establishes a functioning distribution category, not our access to that audience. Reaching 420 productive website Signal agency equivalents would still be substantial channel work. Direct acquisition must also support 9,000 retained website Signal sites.

At the planned 3% monthly Signal churn, a cohort retains 69.4% after a year without expansion. At 6%, it retains 47.6%. Churn rates are assumptions, not pilot findings. Website Signal requires 47,325 gross starts over five years to finish with 30,000 retained sites, including 19,655 starts in year five—about 1,638 per month.

A comparable profit bridge

The model does not turn contribution into net profit. Both Signal products first deduct the same categories, with explicit analyst budget allowances. Matched costs help compare the offers; they do not assert identical observed workloads.

Processing is 3.6% + $0.30 per account-month as a reference allowance. Company reps receive the modeled 30% retail / 15% wholesale after processing. Charging one fixed fee per site is conservative for a consolidated agency invoice. Actual gateway terms and the written commission definition control. Partner personal commissions are not added.

Delivery is $4 Report / $12 Pro, with another $2 support reserve per paid month. Extra acquisition/onboarding is $25 per gross start in addition to recurring rep commissions. Each Signal product also carries fixed annual budgets of $120K / $180K / $240K / $300K / $360K for engineering and allocated product overhead. These budgets are planning choices; there is no paid-pilot cost evidence establishing them.

Both Signal products show launch losses in year one. Year-five website Signal operating profit is $2,840,590 (35.8%), versus $958,718 (26.8%) for LSA Signal. The difference follows from price, retained volume and fixed-cost absorption. The previous flat 70% LSA margin is not retained as a validated result.

Both managed products retain Doug’s 50% operating-margin target. At $289.70 blended monthly company revenue, the modeled processing and rep costs leave only $70.64 per paid account-month for all other delivery, support, acquisition and overhead while meeting that target. Earlier $75–100 account-management estimates would exceed that budget before other costs. Actual staffing/provider invoices were not audited here; the target remains a target.

Operating profit is before company income taxes, partner distributions and cash reserves. Andrew’s salary amount is unset; its eventual cost must fit the company operating reserve or reduce profit. Monthly payments follow actual eligible cash net profit, including existing-account exclusions—not this illustration.

AI visibility scope drives delivery cost

DataForSEO’s interface scraper lists $0.0012 per standard result and $0.004 live, with different turnaround, for supported ChatGPT/Gemini interface collection. Its LLM response API instead adds task charges to the underlying model price. These are different measurement methods and cannot be substituted silently.

For illustration, 25 prompts × 3 engines × 30 daily runs means 2,250 answer observations per site-month. At $0.004 each, collection alone is $9; at $0.02, $45. Weekly collection at 4.33 runs/month means about 325 observations, or $1.30 / $6.50 at those same hypothetical rates. Retries, geographic variants, analysis, report generation, research and article quality checks are additional.

The $0.02 example is a stress input, not a vendor quote. The cheaper published endpoint is not proof of equivalent coverage across every engine. Google and Perplexity documentation separately price tools, searches and/or tokens. Cheap tokens alone do not establish an all-in cost. A 29-dollar product cannot promise unlimited daily multi-engine monitoring, human consulting and article production within a four-dollar allowance.

The planned product should retain clear method, date, engine and sample counts; bounded refresh and content allowances; failed/missing observations; and real cost evidence by paid account. These are implementation requirements for the future product. This research changed no provider configuration or paid service.

Stress tests that matter

Fixed Signal budgets remain unchanged across adoption sensitivities. Higher churn stress holds gross acquisition unchanged: at 6% monthly churn, website Signal ends year five at about 21,173 retained sites / $570,831 MRR, rather than 30,000 / $808,800. This is not modeled by simply cutting all ending subscribers in half.

If managed margins achieve 40% instead of the owner’s 50% target, year-five portfolio operating profit would fall by $2,650,755. The base plan retains the owner-set target; this is a cost sensitivity. Launch delay, agency concentration, managed downgrades, refunds and cash timing require operating evidence before a funding claim.

ChartMogul’s 2025 billing analysis and SaaS Capital’s retention research support comparing cohorts at similar prices and billing terms. Annual revenue retention, customer-count churn and expansion revenue are different metrics. Enterprise retention cannot validate our assumed low-price monthly churn.

Andrew’s additional compensation

Company salary begins at $75,000 MRR sustained for two consecutive months. The amount, responsibilities and start date are agreed in writing. It is additional compensation for his marketing work and will not fully represent his value because he also participates in Greg and Andrew’s combined 25% profit pool. Salary is a company expense before profit is divided. There is no accrued salary or back pay before the trigger. No payroll action or counterparty communication was made.

Model and inspection record

The model covers November 2026–October 2031. Each new-growth cohort starts at zero; actual current customer counts and revenue were not queried. Monthly closing paid units progress linearly between annual goals. Gross starts equal net growth plus opening-book cancellations. Revenue uses average opening and closing paid units, approximating mid-month movement; it is not a cash forecast. Website Signal’s first paid month is February 2027, subject to build and pilot readiness.

Internal policy inspected: app/services/signal_plan_policy.py:1–103 establishes $29/$79 retail, $12/$39 wholesale, the $14 optional HELM add-on and bounded base-tier questions. services/commercial-policy.js:42–71 establishes ClickRadius $499 retail / $200 wholesale, retired setup fees and the agency resale relationship. services/ai-pricing.js:1–150 explicitly distinguishes price-based usage estimates from provider invoices. No changes were made to these application files.

The scope is commercial research and static presentation/model publication. It does not certify a paid backend, live billing, a measured conversion rate, provider accuracy, realized net profit or a sale valuation. The $3.86M technology appraisal (26 October 2026, version 2, replacing the 22 October $6.4M), proposed graduated $3M founder priority, profit percentages and unresolved departure treatment are separate and unchanged.

The sale allocation follows Doug’s 24 October instruction: his scheduled founder asset priority is allocated first; the remainder is 15% Carl, 15% Greg and Andrew together, and 70% Doug. The presentation includes hypothetical allocation examples without a forecast sale price or transaction multiple. Operating-profit participation remains 45% / 30% / 25%.

Primary sources reviewed

Research covers market definitions, behavior studies, published competitor offers, channel evidence, collection costs and retention methodology. Publisher statements are identified as such. Review did not include paid competitor accounts, our customer invoices or a paid-product pilot.

1. Census 2022 SUSB tablesEmployer firm and establishment definitions; 2017 NAICS classification and 2022 reference year.
2. Census downloadable workbookUS 6-digit NAICS sheet, “01: Total” rows; downloaded and extracted locally.
3. SBA 2026 small-business FAQPublished February 3; 36,207,130 small businesses. Publisher-indexed text read; direct server fetch returned 403.
4. Google LSA eligibility and categoriesGetting started section: supported categories and geographic eligibility; lead-based commercial model.
5. Google LSA account reportingExisting native reporting and budget controls mean paid reporting must add decision value.
6. IAB/PwC full-year 2025 releaseApril 16, 2026 release; search $114.2B, up 11%. Advertising spend is not software TAM.
7. BrightLocal consumer research2026 survey: 1,002 US adults; self-reported use of AI for local recommendations.
8. BrightLocal local AI visibility study200,085 localized searches across 1,300 business locations; repeated prompts and platform variance.
9. Pew observed search behavior900 US adults, March 2025 browsing; search results re-collected in April; observational study.
10. Semrush full-year 2025 resultsMarch 2, 2026 release: $38M+ AI-product ARR; $443.6M revenue; GAAP operating loss $22.8M; 12% non-GAAP operating margin.
11. Semrush AI pricingBase $99/domain/month billed annually; 25 daily custom prompts.
12. Ahrefs Brand RadarCustom prompt checks are separate from the shared visibility index; geographic currency localization observed.
13. Otterly pricingLite $29/month, 15 daily prompts, four included engines; additional engines sold separately. Read via browser fetch.
14. HubSpot AEOStandalone $50/month, 25 prompts; ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini; recommendations and citation analysis.
15. Peec pricing50/150/350 prompts; daily tracking; three selected models; separate agency packages.
16. Peec published facts and price tablePublisher’s July 2026 structured price table: Starter $95 monthly / $80 annual; pricing page text did not expose dynamic numeric prices.
17. Profound pricingCurrent page presents a limited trial and custom enterprise packages. Older $99/$399 claims were not carried forward.
18. Scrunch pricingStarter $300 monthly or $250/month annually; 350 custom prompts and page-audit limits.
19. Surfer pricingIntegrated content and AI tracking; weekly versus daily prompt refresh differs by plan; numeric price requires interactive selection.
20. SE Ranking pricingCore $129 monthly / $103.20 annually; 100 daily prompts plus SEO tools. Multi-project capacity matters.
21. Athena plansStarter $295/month, 3,600 credits, broad model coverage; credit limits qualify “unlimited” prompt claims.
22. BrightLocal pricingLocal reporting and AI tracking; per-location packages and extra monitoring allowances differ.
23. AgencyAnalytics pricingCore $20/client/month billed annually; unlimited reports; AI tracking is a distinct optional add-on.
24. AgencyAnalytics companyPublisher reports serving over 7,000 agencies; agencies are not end-client site counts.
25. CallRail pricingLead Tracking displayed at $50/month plus usage; call-minute scope is not identical to read-only LSA reporting.
26. WebFX LSA servicesManager-backed LSA scope, budget work and custom reporting; not a pure software comparator.
27. Proforged LSA managementPublished $299/month management offer, ad spend paid separately; one price comparator, not a market average.
28. DataForSEO LLM ScraperChatGPT/Gemini consumer-interface collection; $0.0012 standard / $0.004 live per result, with different turnaround.
29. DataForSEO LLM ResponsesModel responses are a different data product; live task fee plus underlying model charges.
30. Google Gemini API pricingGrounding/tool and token charges depend on model; all-in provider costs cannot be inferred from output tokens alone.
31. Perplexity pricingSeparate model, search and fetch costs; published tool prices are not an all-in answer price.
32. Stripe paymentsStandard domestic-card reference 2.9% + $0.30; actual merchant economics not audited.
33. Stripe BillingPay-as-you-go reference rate 0.7%; combined 3.6% + $0.30 is an illustrative allowance, not a claim about the configured merchant.
34. ChartMogul SaaS Billing Report2025 analysis of 2,500+ SaaS companies; billing frequency and customer price affect retention.
35. SaaS Capital retention research2025 private B2B SaaS cohort research; revenue retention differs from customer-count retention.