2026-10-09 ยท All notes
The free draft model, explained
Why the site is built before any money changes hands, and what the free part does and does not cover.
The offer at Chairside is a bit backwards from most website vendors, so it gets read as a scam, a loss-leader, or a mistake. It is none of those, and it is worth one page explaining why the order of operations matters so much.
What is free, precisely
Generating the draft, and reading it. You send the practice name and a link to your listing. We read the listing, build the real finished site from it, and put it in your portal where you can open it on your phone. You have not paid anything, there is no card on file, and there is nothing to cancel later. The whole process is here.
What is not free
Keeping the site. Once you have read it, the site itself is $249, or $399 hosted on your own domain, or $499 with the studio work added. Nothing else is free. Nothing recurs at the build tier, and nothing is billed before you say yes.
Why the order is flipped
Most website purchases are made against a promise. The pitch happens, something is signed, and the finished site arrives months later, at which point the practice's leverage is nearly zero: the money is paid, the contract is signed, and the vendor holds the files. Every change after that is a conversation about scope.
Building first reverses the order in a way that protects both sides at once. The practice judges a real site on its own phone instead of a proposal, and we do not have to sell: the site either is good enough for a practice to keep or it is not, and no means no. A proposal is worth nothing. A finished site is worth looking at.
The question that always comes next
If we build first and you can walk away, do we not lose money on most practices? No. The build is cheap once the model is in place, because the draft is generated from the listing automatically and checked by a person. The economics only work when the build really is low-cost, which is also why nothing here is a subscription for the site itself. The pricing is laid out plainly.
What happens if you say no
We close the preview, delete our copy, and that is the entire interaction. There is nothing to refund, because there was no charge. Other common questions are in the FAQ, and the start form is two fields.