Frequently asked questions
Cafe website questions answered: what is included, revisions, articles, the AI receptionist, speed and search, hosting, domains and billing.
What exactly do I get for the monthly fee?
A custom-coded website built for your cafe, coffee shop or bakery, with a menu page that switches by daypart, weekly management, and hosting, all inside one plan. Morning Shift covers the site fully managed. Full Shift adds the AI Engine for answering routine visitor questions. Open to Close adds the Content Engine, which is 3 researched articles a week instead of 2. A one-time $647 build fee applies on every plan, invoiced only after the site is live and approved.
How long until my site is live?
7 days on Morning Shift, 10 on Full Shift while the AI Engine is trained on your hours and menu, and 15 on Open to Close with the Content Engine running from day one. The clock starts at the onboarding call, not at purchase, so the sooner the onboarding form is in, the sooner the launch date is set.
Do you write my menu copy for me?
We write the surrounding pages, the daypart structure and the SEO copy, but the menu items, prices and descriptions come from you, since only you know what is actually in the case today. Send us the list in the onboarding form or as a revision and we lay it out on the page.
What happens straight after I buy?
You fill in the onboarding form and submit it. It asks for your menu, your hours by daypart, your brand, your domain and where inquiries should land, and it takes about 15 minutes. If something is missing, submit anyway: you can send the rest by email or raise it as a ticket in your client portal, and it will not hold up the build. We then run one onboarding call to fill any gaps and agree the launch date.
What is the client portal?
It is your account with us, and you get it the day your site goes live. From the portal you request revisions, raise a support ticket for anything that needs attention, send us files you still owe us, and message our team directly. Everything to do with your site runs through it, so nothing gets lost in an inbox. You never log in to the website itself; we handle that side.
What do you need from me to build the daypart menu switcher?
Three lists: what you sell in the morning, what carries through the afternoon, and what leads in the evening, plus the times each stretch starts and ends. If your shop does not really change by daypart, tell us and we build a single standing menu instead. Either way it is set up during onboarding and adjusted afterward as a normal revision.
What counts as a revision, and what happens after five?
A revision is any change request you send, and there is no limit on how much goes into one. Swapping the seasonal pastry photo, updating holiday hours, adding a new drink to the afternoon menu: each is one revision. So is something much larger. "Build a wholesale page and update the evening menu, here is the copy" is one revision, not two. 5 are included every month. After the fifth, each additional revision is a flat $20, with no cap on how many you can buy and no hourly billing anywhere. Every revision is completed within 2 to 5 working days, whatever the size.
How do I actually request a change?
Raise it in your client portal. You describe the change, attach anything we need such as a new photo or price list, and it lands with the team as a tracked request so you can see where it is. You can also email us or reply to any thread with our team, and we log it for you. Unused revisions do not roll over to the next month.
Can a revision change the daypart times themselves?
Yes. If your morning rush now runs until 11:30 instead of 11:00, or you add a fourth daypart for a weekend brunch menu, that is a standard revision, turned around within the usual window.
Why would a cafe need weekly articles at all?
Most searches that lead someone to a new cafe are specific: "coffee shop open early near [neighborhood]", "gluten-free bakery [city]", "cafe with outdoor seating [area]". A page written to answer one of those directly, in real depth, ranks in ways a homepage never will. Morning Shift and Full Shift include 2 articles a week; Open to Close includes 3 through the Content Engine, each 2,500 to 3,200 words.
Do I need to write or approve the articles myself?
No. Topics are chosen for your neighborhood, your hours and your kind of menu, and articles are researched and written for you. You can request a specific topic at any time through your client portal, and any factual detail specific to your shop, like a seasonal item or an event, is treated as a revision to keep it current.
What does the AI Engine actually answer?
It answers the routine questions people ask before they call or walk in: are you open right now, do you take reservations for a group, is there parking, do you carry oat milk. It is trained on your hours, menu and policies, and is billed at AI usage cost on top of the Full Shift or Open to Close plan fee, which is why those show "plus usage" next to the price.
Will the AI Engine give food safety or allergen advice?
No. It answers from what is published on your site and routes anything about allergens, ingredients or food safety to a person rather than guessing, because that kind of advice has to come from you, not from an automated tool.
What does the AI receptionist do when the phone rings?
On Full Shift and Open to Close, it answers calls your team cannot pick up, in your shop's name. It handles routine questions such as hours, parking and custom-order lead times, takes the caller's details for anything that needs a person, and can book appointments like a cake consultation or catering tasting. You review its script before launch.
Can customers text us and get an answer?
Yes, on the AI plans. The messaging agents answer text messages with the same knowledge as the chat, take order or inquiry details and book appointments. US business texting needs carrier registration called A2P 10DLC, which we file for you; carrier fees are passed through at cost, and consent and opt-out records for your own messages stay your responsibility.
Is the chat on my website a real person?
No, it is an AI chat trained on your hours, menu and policies, and it says so. It answers routine questions and captures catering and custom-order inquiries, and it hands anything that needs judgment, and anything about allergens or ingredients, to a person at your shop.
How fast will my website be?
We build to a Google PageSpeed score of 90+ on mobile and desktop for the pages we build and host, and fix it at no charge if our work drops a page below that. In practice that means the hours, menu and Order button appear quickly on a phone, even on a weak signal outside your door.
Can a faster site make my ads cheaper?
It can help. Google Ads rates landing page experience as one of the three parts of Quality Score, so a fast, relevant page can help lower cost per click, and fewer of the visitors you pay for leave before the page loads. We do not promise any specific price or percentage, because ad costs also depend on your bids, market and competitors.
What are AEO and GEO, and do I need them?
AEO, answer engine optimization, means writing pages so search engines and voice assistants can lift a direct answer: FAQ blocks, question-shaped headings, short direct answers. GEO, generative engine optimization, means making your business easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to understand and cite. Both are built into every plan. Nobody can guarantee an AI assistant will mention you; we do the work that makes it more likely.
Do you add schema markup?
Yes. Every site gets structured data (JSON-LD) matched to each page: your business and locations, services, FAQ pages and breadcrumbs. Review markup is only added for real reviews. Structured data helps search engines read the facts on a page without guessing and can make it eligible for richer results.
Is hosting an extra cost?
No. Hosting is included in the monthly fee and never billed separately. Your site runs on Cloudflare's global network with SSL, CDN, DDoS protection and unmetered bandwidth included. There is no hosting invoice, no SSL renewal, no bandwidth overage and no surprise line item in month four.
Who fixes the site if something breaks?
We do, as part of the plan. Every site is checked and maintained on a weekly basis, and anything that needs urgent attention can be raised as a support ticket in your client portal at any time, not only during a scheduled check.
Does my website come with a privacy policy and cookie consent?
Yes. Every site includes a privacy policy, terms, a cookie policy and a consent banner that really holds analytics and marketing scripts back until a visitor agrees, plus an accessibility statement. They help you meet common expectations for a US business website; they are not legal advice, and you can have your own advisor review them.
Is the site built to be accessible?
It is built with the ADA and WCAG 2.1 AA in mind: readable contrast, real text rather than text inside images, keyboard access, labelled forms and tap targets sized for a thumb. No provider can guarantee legal compliance, but accessibility is part of how every page is built, not an add-on.
Are the reviews on this site from real clients?
Yes. Every review and case study on this site comes from a real client who agreed to be quoted, shown with their name, role, type of business and city. We show no star ratings or review counts, because none were collected. We do the same on your site: only real reviews from real customers get published or marked up.
Do I have to pay for a domain?
No. One domain is included free for as long as your plan is active, registered in your name through Cloudflare Registrar or Spaceship, so you own it outright. If you already have a domain we point it at the new site instead and nothing changes for people who know your current address. If you ever leave, tell us where to send the domain and we transfer it at no charge.
Can I keep my current email address that uses the same domain?
Yes. Pointing a domain at the new site does not affect email hosted on that domain unless we are specifically asked to change it, so your existing inbox keeps working through the move.
I already have a website. What happens to it?
We rebuild the site from scratch on our stack, carry over the pages worth keeping such as your menu and location details, and set up redirects from your old page addresses to the new ones so links already shared or ranked do not break.
Will I lose the search ranking my old site already has?
Not if the old URLs redirect correctly, which is part of every migration we do. The bigger risk to ranking is usually the old site's slow speed and thin content, both of which the new build is meant to fix rather than repeat.
What do you need from my old site to migrate it?
Send us the current URL and, if you have them, login details for wherever it is currently hosted or built. If you do not have access anymore, we can still rebuild from what is publicly visible on the live pages.
What do I actually pay, and when?
You pay the monthly fee for the plan you choose up front: $117, $247 plus AI usage, or $597 a month. The $647 one-time build fee is invoiced only after your site is live and you are satisfied with it. Domain and hosting are inside the monthly figure.
How do I cancel, and how much notice do you need?
Email us and say you want to cancel. Your message must reach us at least 2 business days before your next invoice date, during business hours, which are 9:00 to 17:00 Central Time, Monday to Friday. A message sent outside those hours counts from the start of the next business day, so a weekend email does not give 2 business days of notice for an invoice due Monday or Tuesday. With valid notice, no further invoice is raised and your site runs to the end of the month you have paid for. With late notice, the next invoice is charged as normal and the cancellation takes effect at the end of that month.
Do you offer refunds?
No. All sales are final, and that includes monthly fees, the build fee, extra revisions and any cost we pass through at what our providers charge us. We do not refund for a change of mind or for a month you did not use. The one exception is a duplicate or incorrect charge made by our billing: tell us within 30 days and we correct it within 10 working days. The build fee is charged only after you have approved your site, which is exactly why it is not refundable afterward.
Can I switch plans later, say from Morning Shift to Full Shift?
Yes. Moving between Morning Shift, Full Shift, Open to Close takes effect on your next billing date, so you finish the month you have already paid for on your current plan before the new price and features start.