Command Document
Money
Rendered as a real command-center page. Source notes remain in the repo for agents, but navigation uses pages and real files.
Money To Spend
This is a planning budget, not accounting advice.
Bare-Minimum Paid Beta Budget
- SC LLC filing if chosen: about $110.
- Retail License if required: up to about $50.
- EIN: $0 direct from IRS.
- Domain: about $10-$20/year.
- Business email: about $7-$14/user/month.
- Code signing: about $129/year minimum for OV reference pricing, but practical signing storage can raise the first-year total.
- Legal review: budget $500-$2,500.
- Tax/accountant consult: budget $200-$750.
- AI provider budget: start with at least $50-$500/month if not BYOK.
- Stripe: processing fee baseline is 2.9% + 30c per successful domestic online card transaction.
Practical Cash Recommendation
Do not try to public-launch with $0. A realistic small paid beta reserve is $1,000-$3,500 before ad spend. That covers entity/tax/legal basics, domain/email, signing path, early AI usage, and a few unexpected setup costs.
Margin Warning
Hosted AI before BYOK can erase profit. Before setting price:
- Estimate average sessions per user per month.
- Estimate voice minutes and screenshot/camera usage.
- Put hard caps in the product.
- Price so one heavy user cannot wipe out several normal users.
- Add BYOK quickly to reduce hosted model exposure.
Example Price Math
At $25/month, Stripe domestic card fee is roughly $1.03, leaving about $23.97 before AI, support, tax, and overhead.
At $49/month, Stripe domestic card fee is roughly $1.72, leaving about $47.28 before AI, support, tax, and overhead.
This does not include international card fees, disputes, refunds, chargebacks, state/federal taxes, or AI provider spend.
| Item | Category | Cadence | LowUSD | HighUSD | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SC LLC Articles of Organization | State filing | One-time | 110 | 110 | User files with SC Secretary of State if LLC chosen |
| SC Retail License | Tax/license | One-time | 0 | 50 | May be needed if taxable retail sales apply; confirm with accountant/SCDOR |
| IRS EIN | Federal tax ID | One-time | 0 | 0 | Free directly from IRS |
| Domain | Brand/web | Annual | 10 | 20 | Cloudflare at-cost or registrar of choice |
| Business email | Support/ops | Monthly | 7 | 14 | Google Workspace Starter/Standard or Gmail workaround |
| Code signing certificate | Release trust | Annual | 129 | 508 | OV baseline plus possible hardware/cloud signing costs |
| Stripe processing | Payments | Per transaction | 0 | 0 | Budget 2.9% + 30c domestic online card baseline |
| Attorney review | Legal | One-time | 500 | 2500 | Privacy/terms/EULA/refund/subscription review |
| Accountant/tax consult | Tax | One-time | 200 | 750 | Sales tax, entity, bookkeeping, income tax setup |
| Bookkeeping software | Ops | Monthly | 0 | 35 | Can start spreadsheet, upgrade later |
| Website hosting | Web | Monthly | 0 | 25 | Cloudflare Pages/static can start free |
| AI provider budget | COGS | Monthly | 50 | 500 | Required if BYOK is not first launch |
| Support tooling | Ops | Monthly | 0 | 30 | Start Gmail labels, upgrade to helpdesk later |
| Design/video tools | Marketing | Monthly | 0 | 50 | Can start with repo assets and free tools |