Business automation, built and managed for you
Understudy builds the systems that do your repeat work — the follow-ups, the scheduling, the reporting, the chasing — and then runs them for you. Built by an operator who runs them on his own businesses first.
No pitch deck. Tell us what eats your week and we’ll answer within one business day.
The work that doesn't need you
Every business runs on a handful of jobs that repeat, never finish, and quietly decide whether this month is a good one. They're the first roles we cast.
Who this is built for
The work underneath is the same. What it's called, and what it's worth, is not. Pick the room you're standing in.
Track one
Restaurants, shops, trades, clinics, studios — anywhere the phone, the calendar and the follow-up are the business.
Track two
Agents and teams losing hours to coordination that a system should be carrying — not the selling, the scaffolding around it.
Track three
Small teams where everyone is doing three jobs and the ops work lands on whoever has the least leverage to refuse it.
Demo · an illustration
Pick a job you recognise. This demo walks through the steps an Understudy takes for that job. It's an illustration: the timings and results shown are examples, not measurements from a real customer.
Demo · example timings
These are illustrations, not recordings of a customer's job. The cold-lead reply is live on this very page — it's the system that answers every application, in seconds, and you can test it yourself below. Missed-call and invoice systems are built to order, on the same pattern, for each engagement.
How it works
Nobody should sign a retainer for a system they haven't watched work. So we start with one job, prove it, and go from there.
We pick the single task that costs you the most time or the most money, and we take it off your desk. Fixed scope, fixed price, no retainer.
Once one works, we map the rest — built around how you already operate, not a template you have to bend yourself into.
Automation nobody watches is a liability. Monthly means it's monitored, it's kept current, and when it breaks it's already being fixed.
One example build · ready now
A 24/7 assistant on your website, voice or typed. It answers questions from your own business info, takes leads and booking requests, and emails them to you. It always says it's an AI. We set it up, host it and keep it updated. Law and medical offices get an intake-only version that takes details and never gives advice.
One is running on this page. Ask it anything about Understudy.
$500setup
$75a month
Includes up to 300 conversation-minutes a month, about 100 calls or chats. 20¢ per extra minute.
One rule for calls and typed chats: a conversation counts for as long as it lasts, from the first message or ring to the last. A two-minute chat is two minutes.
Seeing your usage: ask any time and we'll send you the month so far.
Going over: extra minutes are 20¢ each. If you're on track to go over, we'll tell you before the month ends, so an overage is never a surprise on a bill.
Checked, not claimed
This category is full of people who finished a course last month. So instead of a list of promises, here is a panel that pings the systems we run, live, every time you load this page.
This panel isn't a screenshot. Your browser just asked our server to ping each host and waited for the answer.
How this company runs
Most businesses in this category would rather you didn't know how few people are behind them. We'd rather just tell you, because it's the whole point.
It's also why you won't find "our team is in your timezone" anywhere on this page. There is no team. There's one operator in Arkansas and a system that doesn't sleep — which is exactly how a company this small answers a lead in Singapore at three in the morning, and why it doesn't matter where you are.
Get started
Tell us the job you’d hand off first, in plain words. The more specific, the better we can say what it would take. We’ll answer within one business day.