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Done-for-you email marketing: what you actually hand over

Most agencies sell you a tool and call it done-for-you. Here's the honest split of who does what, what it costs, and when it isn't worth it.

Adam Bauer 6 min read
On this page
  1. The test for whether something is really done for you
  2. What we do, and what you do
  3. Your part takes about a minute a month
  4. What it costs
  5. What you own when the year ends
  6. Who shouldn’t buy this
  7. How to find out cheaply
  8. Common questions

“Done-for-you” is one of the least honest phrases in marketing.

Most of the time it means software. You get a login, a library of templates, a walkthrough call, and a cheerful message every month reminding you that your campaign hasn’t gone out yet. The work didn’t move. It just got a nicer interface.

If you’re a contractor looking at this, you already have enough logins. What you want to know is what actually lands on your desk, and what it costs. So here’s ours, in plain terms, including the parts that don’t flatter us.

The test for whether something is really done for you

Ask one question: what do I have to do each month?

Every honest answer falls into one of three buckets.

What you’re soldWhat you actually do each monthWhat it usually costs
Email softwarePick a template, write the email, build the list, check it on a phone, send it$30 to $300/mo, plus your time
Software with a “success manager”The same work, with someone reminding you to do it$300 to $1,000/mo
Done-for-youApprove an email someone else wrote$1,000 to $3,000/mo

There’s nothing wrong with the first row. Plenty of shops run their own email well. But if you’ve bought email software before and it’s sitting unused, the tool was never the problem. The problem was that writing an email nobody asked for, every single month, is the first thing to fall off a busy week.

What we do, and what you do

Here’s the actual division of labor, month by month.

We do:

  • Connect to your ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro account and pull your past customers and their job history
  • Clean the list, flag the records that shouldn’t be emailed, and keep it refreshed every month
  • Write the email. A real person writes it, from a real story out of your business
  • Design and build it, and make sure it lands in the inbox instead of spam
  • Decide who gets what. A customer who bought a water heater last spring doesn’t get the same offer as one you rewired in 2022
  • Send it, then trace which jobs came back from it using your own CRM records
  • Send you a plain monthly report: revenue, by campaign

You do:

  • Send us one photo and a voice memo from a job, like you’re telling a friend about it. Or skip it, and we pull the story from what your techs already logged
  • Read the email and say yes

That’s it. You approve every send, so nothing goes out in your name that you haven’t seen.

Your part takes about a minute a month

That’s not a figure of speech. Capture is a photo and a voice memo from your phone’s browser, which is the length of one voicemail. Approval is reading an email and replying.

If a month gets away from you and there’s no story, nothing stalls. We pull from the jobs already in your CRM: the photos your techs took, the notes they wrote, the work you did. The email still goes out.

What it costs

AmountWhat it covers
Build fee$3,500, onceMonth one. Connecting your CRM, cleaning and migrating the list, designing your templates, setting up the automations. Nothing sends this month
Monthly$1,299 × 11Months two through twelve
Year one$17,789
Prepaid$15,000The whole year up front, which saves you $2,789

Two things that aren’t in that number, both on purpose.

Klaviyo. You pay for the email platform directly, in your name, usually $30 to $150 a month depending on how big your list is. We don’t mark it up and we don’t resell it. That’s what keeps the account yours.

Your CRM. ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro MAX is required and you already pay for it. It isn’t included in our fee and we don’t take a cut of it.

Your first email goes out around week six. Month one is the build, and pretending otherwise would just mean rushing the part that everything else rests on.

What you own when the year ends

All of it.

The Klaviyo account is in your name from day one. The list, the templates, the automation rules, the workflow triggers, the reporting setup. If you don’t renew, none of it gets switched off and none of it comes with us. You could keep running it yourself, or hand it to somebody else.

We think that’s the only honest way to sell a service like this. If the only reason you’d stay is that leaving would cost you everything you built, that’s not a partnership.

Who shouldn’t buy this

It’s probably a fit if

  • You have at least 500 past customers in ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro MAX
  • Most of your work could come back around: service, replacement, upgrades, referrals
  • Your phone is quieter than it should be for the number of people you’ve served
  • You’ve tried email before and it died after two sends

Look elsewhere if

  • You have fewer than 500 past customers. The monthly doesn’t earn out yet
  • You need leads now. This brings back people who already know you, and it takes months to compound
  • You’re on Housecall Pro below MAX, or a spreadsheet. We can’t see enough to personalize
  • You want to hand over your ads, your site, and your phones too. We only do this one thing

That last one matters more than it sounds. We work alongside whoever runs your ads and your website. We don’t touch any of it, and we don’t want to.

How to find out cheaply

The honest problem with a year-long program is that you have to decide before you know.

So don’t. The $599 trial runs the whole thing once on your actual customers: we connect to your CRM, write one email around a story from your business, match each customer to an offer that fits the work you did for them, send it, and then show you the names of who booked and what they spent, pulled from your own records.

If the phone stays quiet, you’ve learned your list is cold and it cost you $599 to find out. If it rings, you have a real number instead of a projection. If you want the theory first, what a dormant customer list is worth walks through the math.

The $599 doesn’t credit toward the program. It’s a test, priced at what the test costs to run, not a deposit dressed up as one.

Common questions

What does done-for-you email marketing mean?

It should mean you hand over the work and get emails sent on your behalf. In practice a lot of what's sold as done-for-you is software with onboarding attached: you still write, you still build, you still hit send. The test is simple. Ask what lands on your desk each month. If the answer is anything more than approving an email, it isn't done for you.

How much does done-for-you email marketing cost for a contractor?

Ours is a $3,500 build fee that covers the first month, then $1,299 a month for the remaining eleven. That's $17,789 for the first year, or $15,000 if you pay up front. You also pay Klaviyo directly for the email platform, usually $30 to $150 a month depending on list size. There's no setup fee hiding anywhere else.

How much work is it on my end?

About a minute a month. You send us a photo and a quick voice memo from a job, or you skip that and we pull the story from the work already logged in your CRM. Then you approve the email before it sends. That's the whole ask.

Do I need special software?

You need ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro MAX. That's where your past customers and job history live, and it's what lets each customer get an email about the work you actually did for them. Housecall Pro below the MAX tier doesn't expose enough to run this properly.

How many past customers do I need?

At least 500 records. Below that the math stops working: the monthly fee stays the same but there aren't enough people to earn it back. If you're under 500, the $599 trial is still worth doing, but the full program isn't.

Who owns the email account and the list?

You do, all of it. The Klaviyo account is in your name and you pay for it directly. If you don't renew with us at the end of the year, you keep the account, the list, the templates, the automations, and the workflow triggers. Nothing is held hostage.

Can I see it work before committing to a year?

Yes, that's what the $599 trial is for. We run the program once on your real customer list and show you who booked because of it, pulled from your own CRM. It doesn't credit toward the program, and it isn't meant to. It's there so you can find out cheaply instead of guessing.

Find out what your list is worth first.

One personalized email to your past customers for $599. We connect to your CRM, send it, and show you who booked before you commit to anything longer.

ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, and Klaviyo are trademarks of their respective owners. The Marketing Clerics is not affiliated with any of them. Klaviyo price ranges come from its public pricing calculator as of September 2026 and scale with list size. Prices here are ours and are current as of September 2026.