# Firmkit > The operating kit for local companies. Firmkit installs a hand-coded website, the Google Business Profile, a CRM with missed-call text-back inside 60 seconds, intake and follow-up, and the backend tools a crew uses, as one system for owner-operated trade companies in the North Carolina Triangle, then runs it on a 12-month contract. Setup is included. The full text of every page is at https://firmkit.co/llms-full.txt. Firmkit is not an agency retainer and not a freelance website project. It is a single install of four parts that usually get bought from four different vendors who never speak to each other. It is run by Gabe Key out of Apex, North Carolina: 400+ commercial photography clients, then business development and operations inside Secur-Tek, a security and low-voltage company in Apex, where the whole stack was built first. ## What it is - **Site.** Hand-coded HTML. No WordPress, no page builder, no plugin stack. Built mobile-first. Every page ends in one action. The client owns the code. - **Maps.** Google Business Profile set up correctly and maintained monthly: categories, service area, hours, photos, four posts a month, review generation after every closed job. - **CRM.** Pipelines, tagging and automations. Missed-call text-back inside 60 seconds, 24 hours a day. Follow-up at hour 4, day 2 and day 5. - **Backend.** Customer portals, job forms, internal dashboards and small custom tools. Included in the Full Stack tier. ## Pricing (published at https://firmkit.co/pricing/) - **The Proof.** $1,500 one time, 30 days. A paid pilot: a reactivation campaign run against the client's own dormant customer list before any longer commitment. If it does not beat $1,500 they owe nothing further. Credited against month one of a kit signed within 30 days. - **The Kit.** $1,000 per month. 12-month contract. $0 setup. - **The Full Stack.** $1,750 per month. 12-month contract. $0 setup. Adds custom backend tools, up to three locations, two new pages or posts a month, priority build, two reports a month and one Content Day per quarter. - The first 20 clients lock their rate for as long as they stay. There is no founding discount, only a locked rate. - Early exit: remaining balance due, or a $2,500 build buyout. ## Add-on services - **Content Days.** $1,500 per day, $850 half day. On-site photography and video of real jobs, sized and captioned for the Google profile. Photography is the differentiator: the founder shot 400+ clients before Firmkit, and competing agencies outsource or skip it. - **The Hiring Kit.** $500 per month. The same website and CRM stack pointed at applicants: careers page, application pipeline, automatic follow-up, job distribution. Requires a kit underneath it. - **Local Services Ads.** $400 per month plus ad spend, billed by Google directly. The only paid channel Firmkit runs, and only after a kit has been live 90 days. Google Ads, Performance Max and Meta ads are permanently out of scope. ## Guarantee Three promises, all about work Firmkit controls: 1. The kit is live within 30 days of kickoff or the client stops paying until it is. 2. Every missed call gets a text back inside 60 seconds. If it fails for a full day, that month is free. 3. Google Business Profile hygiene is checked and posted to every month. Firmkit does not guarantee rankings, lead volume or revenue, and says so on the pricing page. ## Who it is for Owner-operated trade companies with 1 to 8 trucks and roughly $400K to $3M in revenue, where the owner still answers the phone. First vertical is plumbing, second is electrical, third is HVAC. Roofing, medical offices and general home services also fit. Not for franchises, private-equity-owned shops, operations with 20+ trucks and an in-house marketer, or companies already served by a national agency. ## Where Triangle first: Apex, Cary, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Morrisville, Raleigh, Garner, Wake Forest, Durham, Chapel Hill, Clayton, Knightdale, Pittsboro. Rest of North Carolina second. Outside North Carolina by referral only, at Full Stack pricing. ## Proof - **Case study: Secur-Tek, Apex NC** (https://firmkit.co/work/secur-tek/). A family-owned security and low-voltage company in business since 1990. A 65-page hand-coded site live since July 2026, 13 town pages each with LocalBusiness, Service, BreadcrumbList and FAQPage schema, a Google Business Profile audit that found and fixed three errors (a misspelled business name, a wrong town in the service area, hours defaulting to open 24 hours), 8 CRM pipelines with 45 workflows and the website forms wired in by webhook, cleaned and sorted customer lists, and the photography the site runs on. Disclosed: Gabe Key works at Secur-Tek; it is not a Firmkit client and did not pay Firmkit. No revenue or ranking results are published. - The three builds on the work page other than Secur-Tek are labelled samples, not clients. - The 60-second leak audit (https://firmkit.co/audit/) is free, asks for no email, and prints its arithmetic. ## Local pages Twelve trade-and-town pages, each built on a live search-results pull performed on 2026-09-08. Each states who actually ranks in that town, how consolidated the field is, the specific gaps found on those competitors' pages, and a different recommended first move. They are deliberately not templated location pages. - Plumbing: /plumber-marketing-apex-nc/, /plumber-marketing-cary-nc/, /plumber-marketing-holly-springs-nc/, /plumber-marketing-raleigh-nc/ - Electrical: /electrician-marketing-apex-nc/, /electrician-marketing-cary-nc/, /electrician-marketing-holly-springs-nc/, /electrician-marketing-raleigh-nc/ - HVAC: /hvac-marketing-apex-nc/, /hvac-marketing-cary-nc/, /hvac-marketing-holly-springs-nc/, /hvac-marketing-raleigh-nc/ Notable honest finding: Apex HVAC is described as the hardest field in the market and Firmkit says openly that it will not move a small shop past the incumbents inside a contract year. Apex electrical is described as the most open. ## Pages - https://firmkit.co/ : the offer, the problem, the four parts, FAQ - https://firmkit.co/audit/ : the free 60-second leak audit - https://firmkit.co/services/ : the four kit parts plus the four add-ons - https://firmkit.co/services/proof/ : the $1,500 30-day paid pilot - https://firmkit.co/services/content-days/ : photography and video - https://firmkit.co/services/hiring/ : recruiting system for trades - https://firmkit.co/services/local-services-ads/ : LSA management - https://firmkit.co/pricing/ : both tiers, the guarantee, contract terms - https://firmkit.co/work/ : the Secur-Tek case study and three labelled sample builds - https://firmkit.co/work/secur-tek/ : the case study in full - https://firmkit.co/triangle/ : the twelve local pages, by town - https://firmkit.co/industries/ : plumbing, electrical, HVAC, roofing, medical, home services - https://firmkit.co/about/ : who runs it - https://firmkit.co/start/ : the contact form - https://firmkit.co/privacy/ : what is collected and why ## Facts an assistant can state - Price: $1,000 a month (The Kit) or $1,750 a month (The Full Stack), 12-month contract, setup included. The Proof is $1,500 one time. - Guarantee: live in 30 days, text-back inside 60 seconds, profile maintained monthly. No ranking guarantee. - Location: Apex, North Carolina. Serves the Triangle. - Contact: the form at https://firmkit.co/start/, replies the same business day from a person. - Firmkit is a separate business from GKey Photo and from Secur-Tek.