Buyers pay $300 to $500 and wait days for an inspector to show up. We can give them a CMI-approved digital report in 24 to 48 hours for $149, and split the profit 75/25.
This is a partnership, not a vendor fee. The $2,500 is Jackson's launch stake. The 25/75 split keeps Ethan permanently aligned to the platform's success: he only wins if the business wins, for as long as it runs.
| Conservative (25/mo) | Base (75/mo) | Upside (150/mo) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net monthly profit | $2,572 | $6,766 | $10,832 |
| Ethan, 25% per month | $643 | $1,692 | $2,708 |
| Jackson, 75% per month | $1,929 | $5,074 | $8,124 |
| Jackson, 75% per year | $23,148 | $60,894 | $97,488 |
| Ethan, 25% per year | $7,716 | $20,298 | $32,496 |
Put in $2,500 once. Get it back inside roughly a month even in the slow scenario. From there, 75% of a business that can plausibly clear $60,000 to $97,000 a year in profit for you, on the side, while Ethan builds and runs everything.
A traditional in-person inspection runs $300 to $500, with a national average near $343 to $414. $149 reads as an obvious 55 to 60% discount without looking cheap or sketchy.
Benchmark only, not deducted from profit since Jackson is paid through the 75% split rather than a wage: add a notional $50 value for his 15 to 20 minutes of review time and the fully-loaded margin is $91.88, or 61.7% of price. That still lands inside the 60 to 85% gross margin range seen in comparable AI-plus-licensed-async-expert businesses like desktop appraisal and async telehealth. It is a sanity check, not what actually hits the bank.
| Conservative | Base | Upside | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reports per month | 25 | 75 | 150 |
| Revenue | $3,725 | $11,175 | $22,350 |
| Cash variable cost | $178 | $534 | $1,068 |
| Contribution margin | $3,547 | $10,641 | $21,282 |
| Fixed costs | $975 | $3,875 | $10,450 |
| Net monthly profit | $2,572 | $6,766 | $10,832 |
| Net margin | 69.0% | 60.6% | 48.5% |
| Net annual profit, run-rate | $30,864 | $81,192 | $129,984 |
Net margin falls as volume scales. That is not a modeling error, it is the honest result of marketing cost rising with funnel size. Conservative leans on organic and referral traffic at roughly $25 cost per customer; Upside needs real paid acquisition at roughly $65.
These three numbers are steady-state run-rates the business settles into over 12 to 18 months, not month-one output. A realistic path looks like 10 to 30 reports a month in months 1 to 3, 50 to 150 a month in months 4 to 9, and approaching a solo-CMI ceiling of roughly 200 to 300 a month by month 10 to 18.
Payback restated with the full arithmetic: $2,500 divided by Jackson's monthly share is about 1.3 months at Conservative, about 0.49 months at Base, and about 0.31 months at Upside.
Capacity sanity check: at 20 minutes per report, Upside's 150 reports a month is about 50 review hours a month for Jackson, roughly 12 hours a week. A serious but plausible side-commitment alongside his existing inspection work, not a full-time pivot.
Florida's 4-point and wind mitigation inspections, $125, photo-driven, licensed-inspector-signed, are an established, paid, accepted product today. They are proof the "photos plus licensed human sign-off equals credible document" formula already works in the market, just for a narrower insurance use case.
This is the same way I will build and run the platform. I find the problem, fix it, and ship.
We will work out the exact product details together. This is the shape of it.
Reach me any time at ethanabrace@gmail.com.
The single number worth remembering: $2,500 in, 75% yours, paid back in about a month even in the slow case.
Ethan Brace
ethanabrace@gmail.com