Gemini’s model — quoted as produced, unverified by usAn analysis we did not write
Google’s Gemini was asked to compare website platforms on agency unit economics — QuickSites against 10Web (WordPress) and Framer. It concluded QuickSites has the strongest margins for a volume SMB agency. We are publishing it because it is useful, and publishing it with its seams showing because it is not ours.
- Gemini’s figures are quoted as it produced them, marked “Gemini’s model”.
- We did not verify its 10Web or Framer figures, nor its labour-hour estimates. Both vendors now have entries on our comparison pages — sourced by us from their own pricing pages, not from this analysis.
- Two slides exist only to show where its assumptions do not match what we actually charge.
Gemini’s model — quoted as produced, unverified by usGross margin on a $199 retainer
Gemini’s core finding. It holds the client price constant at $199/month and varies only what the platform costs the agency in licence fees and maintenance labour.
QuickSites
91.2%
$181.50 gross profit
10Web
70.6%
$140.50 gross profit
Framer
68.0%
$135.25 gross profit
- The gap is labour, not licence: it modelled 0.5 maintenance hours a month for QuickSites against 1.5 for WordPress.
- Its reasoning: clients edit schema-gated fields, so they cannot break a layout and generate a support ticket.
Gemini’s model — quoted as produced, unverified by usThe website-as-a-service maths
Where Gemini is most pointed: for a $0-down model funded by the agency, the platform decides whether the model works at all.
QuickSites payback
2.8 months
$510 to recover
Framer payback
19.2 months
$2,600 to recover
- Its verdict on the Framer version was “structurally unviable” — a client churning before month 20 leaves the agency at a cash loss.
- That conclusion is about build labour and a per-seat floor, not about design quality. Gemini rates Framer highest for bespoke work.
Our correction — checked against the code that billsWhere its model and our price list differ
Gemini modelled our software cost to an agency at $0. That is true for a site on a quicksites.ai subdomain. It is not true for the configuration it describes — client sites on their own domains, under your brand — which is our Agency plan.
Agency plan, 25 sites
$169/mo
$19 platform + 25 × $6
Founder tier
$140/mo
$15 + 25 × $5, grandfathered 12 months
- Our own pricing page has said this all along; the analysis simply did not use it.
- Correcting it moves the portfolio margin by a little over three percentage points. It does not change which platform comes first.
Our correction — checked against the code that billsYou cannot stack the flat plan and the revenue share
Gemini added a transaction residual on top of the flat Agency plan. Those are two different deals, and our billing code enforces the difference.
- Agency plan: you pay per user and per site, and your merchants pay no per-order platform fee. Flat and predictable.
- Partner route: hosting is free, merchants pay the order fee, and you keep 80% of it for the life of the account.
- A merchant on the Agency plan is fee-exempt in code, so there is no fee left to share. Pick the model that matches how your clients make money.
Our correction — checked against the code that billsThe two versions disagree, and that is worth knowing
We were given two Gemini outputs. The written playbook models a $199 retainer and reports $4,537.50 monthly portfolio profit. The code output models $150 and reports $3,187.50. Same portfolio, different assumptions, no reconciliation between them.
- Neither is wrong; they answer different questions. But a number lifted from one and quoted beside the other would be.
- If you are building a business case, set your own retainer and labour rate first, then run the comparison.
QuickSites’ own claimThe parts we will put our name to
Stripped of the modelling, three claims about QuickSites are ours to defend, and one is not yet.
- Hosting is genuinely free, including on the free tier with a quicksites.ai subdomain — no card to start.
- Clients edit fields, not layouts, so a client cannot break the responsive design. That is the design, not a marketing line.
- The partner revenue share is 80% of the platform fee for the life of the account, and it is computed by the ledger, not by hand.
- ⚠️ Not yet ours to claim: Gemini calls our white-label “100% vendor invisibility”. Branding, domains and login are ours end to end, but transactional email still sends from our verified domain until a partner verifies their own. One reseller org exists today. Ask us for the current state rather than trusting a slide.