FAQ

Question 1

We sit inside HIPAA, bar, or FINRA rules — can you actually work with us?

Accepted Answer

Yes — those are the buyers we are built for. We work on top of the platforms you already vet (your PMS, EHR, CRM, or case-management system) rather than asking you to onboard a new tool, and regulated data stays inside those platforms. Every quarter we deliver a written AI audit covering drift, model changes, escalations, and reply-log review, alongside OpenAI model-change notes forwarded the same day — the plain-English memo a compliance officer, insurer, or regulator will ask for on first contact. The audience names — HIPAA, bar, FINRA — describe who buys from us; we don’t claim certification we haven’t earned.

Question 2

If we hire you, do we end up locked into a new platform or vendor?

Accepted Answer

No. You own every account we touch and every line of code we write. We build automations against Zapier, Make, or n8n on top of the tools you already pay for — there’s no Cogsmith-branded platform to renew when the engagement ends. The handover doc hands ownership back to your team in plain language, so the work survives past the engagement window instead of living on a subscription only we can administer.

Question 3

How is Cogsmith different from an offshore reseller or white-label shop?

Accepted Answer

The same operator is on the discovery call, the build, and the quarterly audit — there is no junior-producer handoff in week three. We work in your timezone, in US business hours, and we cap the roster at roughly fifty accounts so the founder stays on the work. We sell three named verticals — dental clinics, independent real-estate brokerages, and small law firms — so the recommendation you get is one we have shipped before, not a first attempt.

Question 4

What does the $500–$5,000 retainer actually buy us each month?

Accepted Answer

Three retainer shapes live inside that band, tier by tier: the discovery sprint sits at the top of the band ($2.5K–$5K) for two weeks of shadowing, interviews, and a ranked automation backlog; the automation package sits in the middle ($500–$2.5K) for ongoing builds and integrations on top of your existing stack; the chatbot + governance tier sits at $1.5K–$5K for a deployed assistant plus the quarterly audit cycle. Setup is billed separately, between $3K and $15K depending on the surface area. Most clients start with the discovery sprint and graduate into one of the other two once the backlog is signed off.

Question 5

What happens after the build is delivered — do you disappear?

Accepted Answer

The build ships with a governance template covering access, escalation, and model-change logging, so your team has the operating doc in hand on day one. After handover, the chatbot + governance retainer (and the audit it produces) is the path most regulated buyers stay on — a quarterly written review of drift, escalations, and reply-log review, signed and dated, that you can hand to a compliance officer or insurer without translation. We do not auto-renew silent support contracts; the work continues only while it is still useful to you.

Five questions careful buyers ask before signing.

The questions behind the question.

If your backlog has more than four hours a week, it’s worth a call.