The Hatch alternative you own outright.
Forge Built AI is the Hatch alternative for home service businesses that want to own their follow up instead of renting it. Hatch automates outreach and re engagement on a monthly subscription. Forge builds that same follow up engine into a back office you own outright, wired to your dispatch and your data, in six weeks for one flat price. Backed by a $50,000 revenue guarantee.
Hatch rents you your follow up.
Hatch automates customer follow up and outreach for home services, texts, calls, and re engagement. Useful work. It is also a subscription you never own.
Your speed to lead, your re engagement sequences, and the contact history all live inside Hatch. Stop paying and the follow up stops. We build that same follow up engine into a back office you own, wired to your dispatch and your data, so it keeps working whether or not you keep paying anyone.
Own the whole system.
Forge builds you a custom back office in six weeks. You own the code, the data, and the integrations. Built to your shop, not a template you bend yourself to fit.
You own it
All the code and all the data are yours. Modify it yourself, hire any developer, or export everything and leave. No license expires. No monthly dependency on us.
Built to your shop
We build around how you actually run jobs. Lead intake, dispatch, follow up, upsell, reporting. Need something the platform does not offer? We build it in instead of waiting on a vendor roadmap.
One flat price
$25,000 for the build. Optional $3,000 a month if you want us handling updates and support, and you can cancel anytime. No forced upgrades, no surprise price hikes.
Rent versus own.
Hatch is a monthly subscription, priced by usage and plan. Approximate 2026, not a quote.
| Forge Built | Hatch | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $25,000 one time | Monthly subscription, priced by usage and plan (approx 2026) |
| Five year cost | $25,000 | tens of thousands over five years, and you own nothing |
| You own the engine | Yes, code and data | No |
| Built to your shop | Yes, custom | No, shared platform |
| Leaving later | You own it, take it anywhere | Sequences and history stay on their platform |
Optional maintenance with Forge is $3,000 a month and you can cancel anytime, so your long term cost is your call, not a locked contract.
What Hatch does well, and where owning wins.
Honest line, because that is what earns the read.
Hatch is good at fast, automated follow up, and if you just need that turned on this week, it does the job. Owning wins when you want follow up built into the system that also runs dispatch, quoting, and reporting, all owned, instead of paying monthly for one piece forever.
One shop. One year. Real numbers.
This is one anonymized build, a roughly $3M per year HVAC shop, measured year over year from 2025 to 2026. One shop's results, not an industry average.
Jobs: 159 to 283
Up 78 percent in a year. Same market. The difference was owned data, faster follow up, and a system built to how they run.
Customers: 168 to 256
Up 52 percent. When you can see and track every customer, you stop letting them fall through the cracks.
$26 cost per lead
Their best performing ad creative hit $26 per lead, at a 4.12 percent click through rate, roughly twice a typical contractor rate. This is one creative in one market, not a benchmark for every shop.
A 7x tracking fix
Their Meta pixel was undercounting real conversions by seven times. Because they owned the system, we caught it and fixed it the same day, instead of filing a ticket and waiting.
$50,000, or we keep working.
Within 12 months of your system going live, we guarantee it generates at least $50,000 in new revenue. If it does not, we keep working at no charge or refund the difference. It is a floor, not a ceiling, and there is no other timeline attached beyond that 12 month window.
Hatch, answered.
Is Forge a Hatch replacement?
Forge builds the same follow up and speed to lead capability into a back office you own, plus dispatch, quoting, and reporting. We scope exactly what you need on a call.
What do I own that I do not with a subscription?
The follow up engine, the sequences, and the data. Change it, hire any developer, or move it. Nothing expires.
Why build this instead of renting Hatch?
Because you pay every month forever and never own the system chasing your leads. An owned build is one flat price and it is yours.
What does it cost?
$25,000 flat, six week build, optional $3,000 a month maintenance, cancelable. Backed by a $50,000 revenue guarantee.
Does faster follow up actually matter?
Yes. In the one build we point to, faster owned follow up was part of taking jobs from 159 to 283 in a year. That is one shop, but speed to lead is real.