Automation, custom CRM and AI agents for San Francisco service businesses.
Orium Studios, Sacramento, California, an hour and a half up the interstate. Built for companies that work on steep streets, inside managed buildings, and for customers who found them on their phone.
By Eugene Romanov·Published
Orium Studios, Sacramento, California, builds the Client Acquisition System for San Francisco service businesses: an AI receptionist for the hours the crew is on a ladder, a custom CRM with follow-up, and the pages that turn a search into a call. The studio is in the same state, the same time zone and the same contractor licensing regime, ninety miles up Interstate 80. Work starts with a free check, then a $750 Client Acquisition Blueprint; websites run from $1,200 for a one-page landing and from $2,500 for a site with a page per service and city, and custom CRM starts at $4,500. We build it, you own it.
Areas covered
The Mission · SoMa · Noe Valley · The Castro · The Richmond · The Sunset · Bernal Heights · Pacific Heights · The Marina · Bayview-Hunters Point · Excelsior · Potrero Hill
SHT-02Site conditions
What the work looks like here.
The job is in a building that has its own rules
A large share of residential work in San Francisco happens in multi-unit buildings with a homeowners association or a property manager between the customer and the trade. Before anyone arrives there is a certificate of insurance naming the building, a window the building allows for noise, and an entry arrangement someone has to confirm. Most companies carry that in a text thread and an owner's memory. We make the building a record: its manager, its certificate and its expiry date, its hours, and the jobs inside it inherit them. A job cannot move to scheduled while the certificate has lapsed, because the alternative is a crew standing on Market Street with nowhere to park and nobody to let them in.
California writes the form of a contract, and that is a specification
The Contractors State License Board sets the down payment cap on home improvement work, puts the licence number in advertising, and requires a written contract with a defined set of clauses. We treat all of that as a specification for what the system generates rather than as a page in a binder. The deposit field cannot be pushed past the rule, the licence number lands on every estimate, invoice and web page on its own, the mandatory clauses live in a template nobody can trim, and every version of a contract is kept. You and your lawyer decide the rule; our part is that it cannot be bypassed by accident.
Old housing stock means the first visit is an inspection, not a quote
A great deal of what gets worked on here was built before the trades that now maintain it existed: knob-and-tube behind lath, galvanised supply lines, foundations that predate the seismic rules, soft-story buildings under a retrofit programme. The honest first visit produces findings rather than a number, and the number comes a day later. A pipeline built for same-day quoting treats that day as a lost lead. We build the inspection as its own stage, with photos and findings attached to the job, the quote generated from the findings rather than retyped, and a follow-up that goes out because the quote was sent, not because someone remembered.
The customer is on a phone, in a hurry, comparing three of you
People here find a plumber, a cleaner or a mover the way they order dinner: on a phone, between two other things, reading the first three results and calling the one that answers. A line that rings out during a job is a job given to the next result. The AI receptionist we build is for those hours: it takes the name, number and reason, reads the number back, and gets a person in front of the lead while it is still warm. A missed call is logged as a lead rather than a voicemail nobody plays, and the follow-up starts from the call rather than from the next morning.
A call is recorded only with everyone's consent
California is an all-party consent state for recording conversations. In the systems we build that is a default rather than a setting: recording is off, and it is switched on deliberately together with a notice at the start of the call. The AI receptionist can run the conversation and keep the structured replies without keeping the audio at all. Which of the two you want is decided in the written scope before the build, not discovered after it.
What this page will not claim
This page names no San Francisco client, and we would rather say so than invent one. What exists and can be checked: three CRMs in production, 3,152 automated tests in the newest system, 424 database migrations, 30 guard tests written to fail against the exact bug they guard, and a studio an hour and a half up the road. One of the systems in production belongs to a sauna builder in California. That is the accurate answer, and it is available before you pay anything.
SHT-03Scope
Three things, and they are one system.
Custom CRM
A system shaped around how the business already works, instead of a subscription it has to bend to fit.
AI agents
A voice agent with a handoff to a person, reply classification, and follow-up that keeps going on business days.
Websites
A site that hands the lead to the system instead of to an inbox nobody reads on a Saturday.
SHT-03AThe system
The Client Acquisition System, for San Francisco businesses.
Three stages, Diagnose, Build and Run, and each one has a page of its own. Diagnose finds where the business leaks customers. Build puts up the pieces that stop the leak: the AI receptionist, the CRM with follow-up, and the pages that convert. Run works the channels every week for a flat fee. Any stage can be bought on its own; nothing is a condition of anything else.
- 01
The free check
Where the business is losing customers today: not found, nobody answers, nobody follows up. A written answer, the same day, with no call required.
- 02
Client Acquisition Blueprint, $750
Five business days inside how the business gets customers, and a written plan of what to build and in what order. Paid upfront as its own piece of work.
- 03
AI receptionist
For the hours the crew cannot be on the phone: takes the name, number and reason, reads the number back, and hands the lead to a person while it is still warm.
- 04
CRM and follow-up
One record per customer, follow-up that keeps going on business days, and a Monday report of leads and booked jobs by source.
- 05
The pages that convert
Pages that hand the lead to the system instead of to an inbox, with the phone number, the price and the next step where a visitor looks first.
- 06
Run retainers, $750 to $1,500 a month, multi-location from $2,500
One channel worked every week, or the full path from ad to booked job. A flat monthly fee, never a share of ad spend; the media is paid to Google or Meta directly.
SHT-04Quality assurance
What is actually running.
Three CRMs in production, 3915 automated tests across the three systems, 424 database migrations, and 30 guard tests written after a bug that types could not catch. On a build, the client owns the code and the database from the first commit.
3915
automated tests
424
migrations
30
guard tests
3
CRMs in production
SHT-05Trades
Where this gets used most.
SHT-06General notes
The questions people actually ask.
- N01Who builds custom CRM systems and AI receptionists for San Francisco service businesses?
- Orium Studios, Sacramento, California, ninety miles up Interstate 80 from the city. We build the AI receptionist, a custom CRM with follow-up and the pages that convert, as one system or one piece at a time. Custom CRM starts at $4,500 and takes 30 to 45 days; websites run from $1,200 for a one-page landing and from $2,500 for a site with a page per service and city.
- N02Can we meet in person?
- Yes, and it is a day trip rather than a flight: the studio works from Sacramento, so a kickoff or a walkthrough of your current process in the city is normal. The rest of the build runs remotely on a written scope, in the same time zone, because that is faster.
- N03Can the system hold a building's insurance and access requirements?
- Yes. The building becomes a record with its manager, its certificate of insurance and expiry date, its permitted hours and its access notes attached. Jobs inside that building inherit those rules, and the system blocks scheduling while a required certificate has lapsed.
- N04Can the system hold the California contract rules?
- Yes. The down payment cap becomes a field the estimate cannot exceed, the licence number lands on outgoing documents and on the site automatically, the mandatory clauses are assembled from a template nobody can trim, and every version of a contract is kept. We do not give legal advice: you and your lawyer put the rule in, and our part is that it cannot be bypassed by accident.
- N05Have you built for a San Francisco business already?
- This page names no San Francisco client. What can be checked is the engineering: 3,152 automated tests in the newest system, 424 database migrations, and 30 guard tests, across three CRMs in production, one of which belongs to a sauna builder in California. If a studio shows you a local case study, ask which one and check it.
- N06What does it cost, and where do we start?
- With the free check. Then a Client Acquisition Blueprint at $750: five business days and a written plan, paid upfront as its own piece of work. Website Build runs from $1,200 for a one-page landing and from $2,500 for a site with a page per service and city, and goes live in 10 to 14 days; custom CRM starts at $4,500 over 30 to 45 days, paid half to book the slot and half at launch. After launch, Run retainers from $750 a month are optional and month to month.
SHT-07Nearby
Other cities in the service area.
SHT-08Issued for construction
Start with the free audit.
A founder-recorded review of where the business loses customers, delivered the same day. No automated tool, no obligation.