Vol. III · No. 42 The Sunday Edition Austin, Texas · 14 March 2026

The Torch Reader

Weekend Section · Trade & Industry — A field paper for working businesses — hello@torchsites.com

Why your plumber
doesn't have a website
(and what that costs.)

A short essay on the largest, quietest tax on independent trade businesses in America — and the three-day fix that's already replaced it for a few hundred owners.

Drive through any service neighborhood in Texas and count the trucks: a plumber, an HVAC tech, an electrician, a roofer, a landscaper, a foundation man. Real businesses. Real jobs. Real money. Now ask the owner of any one of those trucks what the company's website looks like, and you'll get the same answer four times out of five: a long pause, a sigh, and a phrase that lives somewhere between embarrassment and exhaustion.

"I've been meaning to do something about that."

It's not laziness. It's not ignorance. It's the perfectly rational conclusion of a trade owner who has, at one point, tried. He paid an agency four thousand dollars in 2019. Two months of kickoff calls. A questionnaire he never finished. A revision cycle that died in his inbox. A finished site that loaded in eight seconds on a phone and looked like a 2014 dental practice. He learned, expensively, that a website is the kind of thing that costs you for a year and pays you back in nothing.

Most agencies were built to sell a project. We were built to deliver one.

That experience — multiplied by hundreds of thousands of independent trade owners — is the largest quiet tax on small American business. Not the project that failed, but the projects that never happened because of that one that did. A search-engine page where your competitor sits at position three and you sit at page four, behind a directory page and a Yelp listing.

Torch is a website agency that exists because of that math. The same math, but solved differently. You send us a paragraph about your business. You don't get on a call. You don't fill out a portal. You don't have a kickoff meeting. Three days later we send you a finished, hosted website. If you like it, you keep it for $199 a month and the first month is on us. If you don't, we shake hands and you owe us nothing.

The thing being sold is the thing being delivered.

That sentence is the entire pitch. It's also the entire reason this works for trade businesses specifically. A six-week agency engagement is a project. A three-day finished website is a tool. You don't need a project. You need calls. You need to be on the first page when someone in Austin types "emergency plumber near me" at eleven p.m. You need a site that loads on a phone in a truck. You need click-to-call and a Google profile that doesn't have a 2018 address on it.

We've delivered the same job, in the same three-day shape, to hundreds of trade owners across the country. The site is custom — a real designer reads your paragraph, a real builder writes your pages — and it's done by Friday. After that, it's $199 a month, edits included, cancel anytime, no contract.

That's the whole essay. The rest of this paper is the proof.

Section II · The Mechanism

The whole offer, on one page.

Three days from paragraph to finished website. The first month free. Cancel anytime. Two plans. No contract. No setup fee. No call required at any point.

The thing being sold is the thing being delivered.

Most agencies sell you a proposal, a slide deck, and a process. We send you a website. There's no abstract layer between you handing us a paragraph and a finished site sitting in your inbox on Friday morning.

On day one we read your details. On day two we draft and build. On day three we email you a live preview link — one click, no login. You decide on the spot. If you say yes within seven days, the first month is on us.

$199/month · First month free · cancel any month
Send your paragraph →
Day 3 · 09:14 AM
From: Torch <hello@torchsites.com>
To: You
Preview for Cedar Park Plumbing & Drain

Hi — your site is built. One link below. Open it on your phone if that's easier. No login required.

If you like it as-is, reply with "go" and we'll go live on your domain today. If you'd like anything swapped, reply and tell us. If you'd rather not, just say so and we'll shake hands.

The first month is on us if we hear back within 7 days.

→ View your site preview

— The Torch shop

Mobile-first · 1.2s load Hosted on torchsites.com
Section III · The Four Steps

From a paragraph to a website, in 72 hours.

There are four steps. Two of them are yours. They take a combined seven minutes. The other two are ours.

Day Zero · 2 minutes
I

Send a paragraph.

Your business name, what you do, where you work, a phone number. A couple of photos if you have them. Email it. That's the entire kickoff.

Days 1 & 2 · We work
II

We draft the site.

A real designer reads your details and a real builder writes your pages. Mobile-first, click-to-call, service pages, your reviews surfaced. Real copy.

Day 3 · Inbox
III

You preview it live.

One email with one link. The whole site is hosted and clickable. Open it on the phone. Show the foreman. No logins, no portals, no calls.

Day 3 · 5 minutes
IV

You decide.

Reply "go" — the site ships on your domain, the first month is free. Reply "no thanks" — we shake hands and you owe nothing. Either way, that's it.

Section IV · From the field
I sent them a paragraph at nine on a Tuesday night. Friday morning there was a finished website sitting in my inbox. I'd been on the phone with two other agencies for six weeks and neither of them had even shown me a draft.
— A working Plumber, East Austin
Section V · The Price List

Two plans. One page. No surprise on the bill.

No setup fee. No contract. Cancel any month by replying "cancel" to any email. The first month is free if you sign within seven days of receiving your preview.

Plan One
Foundation
$199 PER MONTH
NO SETUP FEE

The working website. The plan most trade owners are on. Everything you need to bring in calls.

  • Custom 4-page website, built from your paragraph
  • Mobile-first, fast, click-to-call & click-to-text
  • Your own domain — you always own it
  • Hosting, SSL, backups, monitoring
  • Unlimited small edits by email · same week
  • Google Business profile sync & cleanup
  • Honest monthly performance email
Begin Foundation →
+ Leads
Plan Two
Growth
$349 PER MONTH
NO SETUP FEE

When you want the site to be a lead engine. Adds the work that turns visits into customers.

  • Everything in Foundation
  • Service-area landing pages per neighborhood
  • SEO content written for you, monthly
  • Lead form → SMS routing to your phone
  • Review-collection automation after each job
  • Quarterly strategy note — no call required
Begin Growth →

First month free · valid if you sign within 7 days of preview · cancel any month · same-day cancel confirmation · no clawback · no exit fee

Section VI · Asked & Answered

The questions before the paragraph.

Do I really not have to get on a call?

Correct. We've built hundreds of trade websites entirely over email. One paragraph from you is enough to draft a site. You only write back if you'd like something swapped.

Is this an AI-generated template with my name on it?

No. We use software to move fast, but a real designer reads your details and a real builder writes your pages. Custom layout, custom copy, your business — not a swap-out of a stock theme.

Who owns the website?

You own the domain — always. We own the build. If you cancel, the site comes down at the end of your billing cycle and we export your copy and photos so nothing is lost.

I already have a website. Then what?

We replace it. The old one comes down the day you say go. The new site goes live on your existing domain. Most sites we replace are five or more years old and aren't producing calls.

How does the first month free work exactly?

Day one of go-live is free. Day thirty-one is the first charge. You can cancel any time before day thirty-one and owe nothing. The free-month offer is good for seven days from the preview email.

How does cancel actually work?

Reply to any of our emails with the word "cancel." We confirm same-day. The site stays up to the end of your billing month and then comes down. No clawback. No penalty. No exit fee.

What about Google rankings?

A fast, custom site with proper schema and Google profile sync usually moves you up the page within 60 days for your main service keywords. We can't promise position one — we can show you the numbers honestly each month.

Why $199 and not $4,000?

Because we built the production line to move fast and we'd rather have two hundred monthly customers than ten one-shot ones. A fair price for a fair piece of work, with no surprises in your inbox.

Send a paragraph.
Get a website by Friday.

72 hours. No calls. The first month on us.

hello@torchsites.com →