On 22 October we typed into Google’s AI Mode the question a customer would type: “find me web design companies in Johannesburg”. It answered at length: eight agencies, their Google ratings and suburbs, what each is best for, and a table to choose between them. OwnerPilot wasn’t on it.
Our own Command Centre had already predicted that answer. It asks AI assistants the questions our buyers ask and counts how often we are named: 0 times out of 24. We sell that measurement to our clients, so it seems only fair to publish ours.
Then we asked about OwnerPilot by name
Named directly, it knew us. It said we don’t appear on the curated lists of top Johannesburg agencies, which is true. It described OwnerPilot as a productised service for owner-run businesses: the website and its search-engine work in one, on a month-to-month subscription instead of a big build fee and a retainer.
Then we asked whether our sites are any good. It looked at two of them, Rivonia Premier Lodge in Sandton and The Block in Craighall, and rated them 8.5 out of 10 for service and hospitality businesses. Its reasons: fast, professional on a phone, with the booking, call and WhatsApp buttons always in reach. Its one reservation: the sites share a framework, so a brand that wants a one-off, experimental design should look elsewhere.
What it got wrong
Our price
It said R1 500 a month, the figure our own introduction video still shows. Our price is R6 500 once-off, then R1 800 a month, as our home page says.
Our client list
It said we don’t publish one. We do: eight businesses, live, on Our work.
A client’s size
It gave Rivonia Premier Lodge 44 rooms. It has forty-five.
An assistant builds its answer from everything written about you, including old pages, videos, listings and other people’s sites. It states the wrong facts with the same confidence as the right ones. The price was ours to fix, in our own video.
The cost, worked out again at the right price
It also compared OwnerPilot with a typical mid-tier Johannesburg agency over two years. For the agency it assumed R20 000 to build, R750 a month for hosting and maintenance, and R3 500 a month for SEO. Here is its sum, with our real price in it:
OwnerPilot, first year: R28 100
R6 500 once-off, then twelve months at R1 800, covering the website, hosting, support and Search-fitness scored every night.
OwnerPilot, two years: R49 700
Twenty-four months at R1 800, plus the R6 500 once-off.
Agency with SEO, first year: R71 000
R20 000 to build, then R750 and R3 500 a month.
Agency with SEO, two years: R122 000
The SEO retainer is most of it.
Without the SEO retainer, the agency costs R29 000 in the first year and R38 000 over two, which is less than us by the second year. The AI’s verdict on that option: the site becomes a digital business card instead of something that brings in customers. The agency figures are the AI’s, not ours; ask any agency for its own quote. Our prices have no VAT added: we are not VAT registered.
What to do about your own business
What happened to us happens to every business an assistant is asked about. Four steps, half an hour:
Ask it cold
Type the question your customer would type, without your name, and see who is named.
Ask about you by name
Check every fact it states: price, address, hours, what you offer, who you serve.
Fix the source, not the answer
Find the page, listing or video carrying the old fact and correct it there.
Ask again in a month
Assistants re-read the web, so a corrected source takes a while to come through.
Want it measured for you?
See what Google — and AI — see when they look at your business.