Who is Porchlight for first?
Owner-operators and small sales or ops leads at sauna, hot tub, swim spa, cold plunge, outdoor living, deck, pergola, outdoor kitchen, and similar specialty product or installation businesses.
Is this a CRM or field-service suite?
No. Porchlight should not replace Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, invoices, dispatch, inventory, or crew operations. It wins earlier in the funnel: lead capture, qualification, booking, and conversion improvement.
What's included in v1?
Website agent, vertical qualification, consult or site-visit booking, lead inbox, notifications, knowledge base, onboarding, billing, and the first growth cockpit recommendations.
Does Porchlight build my whole website?
No. The default path is to embed Porchlight on an existing site. Lead pages and custom-domain landing pages are activation tools, not the main product.
How does Google Business Profile fit?
The growth cockpit treats Google Business Profile as a local discovery and trust surface. Porchlight helps improve profile completeness, photos, reviews, booking links, services, service areas, and measurement when those actions feed the booked-consult loop.
How much does it cost?
The early offer is a free personalized audit or preview, then a paid pilot from day one. The first pilots can start at $99/month for 60-90 days, with normal pricing moving toward $179-$299/month after proof.
Does the agent pretend to be a person?
No. The agent is transparent and sets asynchronous expectations when a real person needs to follow up. It should capture context, not create a fake live-chat experience.
What calendar should it use?
Cal.com is the preferred first integration because it is fast and clean. Google Calendar comes next, Outlook later, and a lightweight Porchlight availability fallback covers teams without a usable calendar.