How can Annie's save so much money for people running small businesses?
Here is what the same job costs when a traditional shop does it with employees, set beside what Annie's charges. Every number is laid out so you can see where it comes from.
A one-page business website
Your own page with your description, pictures and contact details, set up so local searches can find it, and listed in Annie's community directory.
| Who | Work | Hours | Cost / hr* | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intake / customer service | Intake call and account set-up | 0.5 | $31.42 | $15.71 |
| Copywriter | Write up your description | 1.5 | $53.98 | $80.97 |
| Web designer | Layout, logo and photos | 1.5 | $44.19 | $66.28 |
| Web developer | Build and publish | 2 | $65.03 | $130.05 |
| SEO / marketing | Basic search setup | 1 | $55.28 | $55.28 |
| Project manager | Coordinate and check | 0.5 | $71.81 | $35.91 |
| Traditional shop total | 7 | $384.20 | ||
*Cost per hour is the national median wage plus what an employer pays on top of it — payroll taxes, insurance, paid time off and retirement — which runs about 46% more.34
A traditional shop sends this through six people, and every one of their hours carries a wage plus payroll taxes, insurance and paid time off.
At Annie's, trained AI does the writing, building and search setup. A designer and a specialist in your kind of business direct it and check the result before anything goes live — about half an hour of human time instead of seven hours of hand work.
The quality comes from the checking: people who know the work look at every page. The saving comes from not paying people to do by hand what a well-trained machine does in minutes.
A page with an agent writing for you
Everything in the one-page website, plus an agent that writes your keywords, page descriptions and fresh copy in your business name and branding, across up to ten towns.
| Who | Work | Hours | Cost / hr* | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intake / customer service | Intake and account set-up | 1 | $31.42 | $31.42 |
| Copywriter | Keywords, descriptions and first copy | 4 | $53.98 | $215.92 |
| Web designer | Layout, logo and photos | 2 | $44.19 | $88.38 |
| Web developer | Build, publish and town placement | 3 | $65.03 | $195.08 |
| SEO / marketing | Keyword research across 10 towns | 4 | $55.28 | $221.11 |
| Project manager | Coordinate and check | 1 | $71.81 | $71.81 |
| Traditional shop total | 15 | $823.72 | ||
*Cost per hour is the national median wage plus what an employer pays on top of it — payroll taxes, insurance, paid time off and retirement — which runs about 46% more.34
Keyword research and copywriting across ten towns is a long job by hand — a traditional shop would bill around fifteen hours of skilled time for it.
At Annie's, the agent does the research and the drafting. A writer and a specialist in your trade review what she produces so it reads like your business and says only what's true about it.
You're paying for an hour of expert attention, not fifteen hours of typing.
A monthly AI-ready check for real estate agents
A portal page that gathers your contact details and social links in one place, a starting assessment, then a check every month of whether you show up in search, on maps and in AI answers, with a report, a health score and next steps.
Traditional marketing firms and search agencies commonly charge a single real estate agent $1,500 to $2,500 a month for search work.1 Getting started costs extra: one search firm sells a $2,000 one-time roadmap,1 and one large national agency publishes a $5,900 to $12,200 start-up charge on top of monthly fees of $2,900 to $9,200.2
| Who | Work | Hours | Cost / hr* | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intake / customer service | Intake form and questionnaire follow-up | 1 | $31.42 | $31.42 |
| SEO / marketing | Baseline audit: site health, keywords across every area you farm, listings, geography and AI answers | 10 | $55.28 | $552.78 |
| Copywriter | Portal page copy | 2 | $53.98 | $107.96 |
| Web designer | Portal page layout | 2 | $44.19 | $88.38 |
| Web developer | Build and publish the portal page | 3 | $65.03 | $195.08 |
| Copywriter | Baseline report and health score | 3 | $53.98 | $161.94 |
| Project manager | Coordinate and check | 2 | $71.81 | $143.63 |
| Traditional shop total | 23 | $1,281.18 | ||
Then each month
| Who | Work | Hours | Cost / hr* | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEO / marketing | Site health audit: speed, mobile, structure, schema, broken links | 3 | $55.28 | $165.83 |
| SEO / marketing | Keyword and ranking searches across your ZIP codes and farming areas | 4 | $55.28 | $221.11 |
| SEO / marketing | Listings check: Google profile, Zillow, Realtor.com, directories | 2 | $55.28 | $110.56 |
| SEO / marketing | Geography check: is your reach landing in your areas | 1.5 | $55.28 | $82.92 |
| SEO / marketing | AI answer testing in ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini, logged | 2 | $55.28 | $110.56 |
| Copywriter | Report, health score and next steps | 3 | $53.98 | $161.94 |
| Intake / customer service | Send the report and answer questions | 1 | $31.42 | $31.42 |
| Project manager | Review | 1 | $71.81 | $71.81 |
| Traditional shop, each month | 17.5 | $956.15 | ||
*Cost per hour is the national median wage plus what an employer pays on top of it — payroll taxes, insurance, paid time off and retirement — which runs about 46% more.34
Done by hand, this is a lot of work: a full audit of your site, keyword searches across every ZIP code you farm, a check of every listing that carries your name, and a round of questions to ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini about agents in your area, every single month, then a report someone has to write. That is why agencies charge what they charge.
Annie's built its own AI agents and trained them, rigorously, on exactly this work. They run the audits, the searches, the listing checks and the AI tests around the clock, and they never bill an hour. A specialist who knows real estate reviews the findings and the next steps before you see them — about half an hour at setup and twenty minutes a month of human time.
Building those agents was expensive. Running them isn't. That is the whole reason the price is low: automation made it less expensive, not less valuable.
Less expensive. Not less valuable.
Traditional marketing firms and search agencies commonly charge thousands of dollars to set up and $1,500 a month or more for search and visibility work.12 They charge that because, done by hand, it takes a team of skilled people many hours, every month.
Annie's built its own AI agents and trained them, rigorously, on exactly this work. They work around the clock and never bill an hour. People who have done this work by hand direct them and check what they produce before it reaches you.
Building those agents was expensive. Running them isn't. That is why our prices are low. Automation made the work less expensive, not less valuable.
Caring humans guiding well-trained AI. See how it's mapped out.
Where these numbers come from
- Real Estate SEO Pricing Guide: What Agents Actually Pay in 2026, The Search Sherpa. Published 14 Feb 2026, updated 22 May 2026. A solo agent or 1–3 agent office: $1,500 to $2,500 a month. A one-time roadmap: $2,000. Read 19 Oct 2026.
- SEO agency pricing in 2026, Pepper. Published 8 Sep 2026, compiled from agencies' own published price pages. One large national agency: $2,900 to $9,200 a month, plus a two-month initial investment of $5,900 to $12,200. Pepper sells in this field itself. Read 19 Oct 2026.
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 release. National median wages for each role, divided by 2,080 hours a year.
- Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2026. For full-time private-industry workers, wages are 68.5% of what an employer pays per hour; the other 31.5% is benefits and payroll costs.
Traditional-shop costs are estimates built from public U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage and benefit data, not the price of any particular company.