The Playbook
The exact stack behind a one-person digital agency — build the client sites, generate the video and imagery, catch the leads, ship to production. $130 for Claude, $20 for Vercel, $15 in domains. Higgsfield is credits when I need them and Web3Forms is free.
$165
Fixed Monthly
4
Tools Total
0
Employees
$6.5K+
Replaces / Month
Dev Team
Replaces
A full-stack developer ($6K–$10K/month)
In Practice
Built a 47-page contractor website with city-specific SEO pages for 12 service areas — in 2 days.
Price
$130/mo
Claude Max plan
Common Mistake
Treating it like ChatGPT. Claude Code isn't a chatbot — it's a coding agent. Give it a full brief with file paths, tech stack, and constraints. The more context you front-load, the better the output.
DevOps Engineer
Replaces
Server management, SSL certs, CDN setup ($500–$1K/month + headaches)
In Practice
Push code to GitHub → site is live in 30 seconds. Every client site gets instant SSL, global CDN, analytics, and preview deployments for every branch. Zero server config ever.
Price
$20/mo
Pro plan
Common Mistake
Overcomplicating it. Vercel works best when you push and forget. Don't fight the platform with custom build scripts — lean into the defaults and you'll ship 10x faster.
Studio
Replaces
A video shoot and an editor
In Practice
Every ambient hero video and background image on a client site is generated here, along with the images that go out on their Google Business Profile. No shoot to schedule, and no stock footage that looks like stock footage.
Price
Credits
Pay-as-you-go credits
Common Mistake
Prompting a multi-shot clip. Describe one continuous camera move. Ask for cuts and you get an edit, which ruins a seamless loop and makes a scroll-scrubbed hero stutter at every cut.
Form Backend
Replaces
A backend built only to catch form submissions
In Practice
Every client contact form posts straight through to email with no server, no database and nothing to maintain. The conversion event fires on submit, so a form fill gets counted as a lead instead of a pageview.
Price
Free tier
Free
Common Mistake
Not verifying the sender address. Until it is verified the form accepts submissions and returns success while the emails go nowhere. It fails silently, and you find out when a client asks why nobody called them back.
Start Here
Vercel
Free to start. Deploy your first site in 5 minutes. Instant credibility boost.
Claude Code
Build your site (or rebuild your current one). This is where the leverage is.
Web3Forms
Free, and it is the difference between a brochure and something that can catch a lead.
Higgsfield
Last. Video and imagery once the site works — a good-looking site that converts nothing is decoration.
How It Connects
This is a real workflow running in my business right now. From form submission to follow-up — fully automated.
Lead submits form
Your website
Posted, no server
Web3Forms
Email lands
Your inbox
Conversion fires
GA4
Want This Built For You?
Custom website, automations, SEO, and outreach — all set up and running in about a week. Drop your email and we'll reach out with a plan specific to your business.
No spam. No obligations. Just a conversation.