Founding Trio: all 3 Digital Empire compliance monitors, $299 for a full year.

The math, plain

Each product is normally $99 per month on public pricing. Three products, 12 months, at the standard rate is $3,564 ($99 times 3 times 12).

Founding Trio is $299, one-time, for the same 12 months of access to all three. That is $3,265 total saved — an effective $272.08 off per month for the full year, if you look at it that way.

No trial. No auto-renewal at some surprise higher price. One payment, 12 months of everything, and when year one ends your renewal option is still $299 per year for as long as you stay a customer. That is what “permanent grandfathered pricing” means: the founding-cohort rate is written into your Stripe metadata and survives every future price bump.

What you get, product by product

Live counter, no theater

Cohort slots one through 5 are numbered in Postgres. The count on this page reads straight from the portfolio.founding_trio_cohort_count table. Right now it says 0 of 5 taken — that is the real number, not a marketing dial. When it flips to 5, this page closes the checkout button and switches to a waitlist for the standard per-product pricing.

The counter also flows through a Supabase Realtime channel, so if someone else grabs a spot while you are reading this, the number here re-renders on your next navigation. There is no fake urgency; the constraint is real, and if the number is zero-of-five it will honestly say zero-of-five instead of “3 already taken” social-proof theater.

Terms — the actual promises

• One-time $299 for 12 months. No monthly billing, no auto-renewal, no surprise charges. Renewal at month 12 is opt-in at the same $299 per year — you get an email, you either renew or you don't.
• Only 5 spots — permanent grandfathered pricing. When public prices go up (and they will as usage climbs) your renewal stays at $299 per year for as long as you keep the subscription active.
• Full refund within 30 days. Email hello@argushq.ai; refund is processed same business day. After the window closes, $299 is non-refundable but you keep all 12 months of access.
• Early-adopter direct access to the founder. Andy's real email. When something breaks, when you want a rule added, when you want a feature — you email him, not a queue. One-business-day response floor; usually same-day for anything customer-facing.
• 60-second video testimonial after 30 days of use. Phone camera fine, no script. If the products did not earn a testimonial, tell us honestly and we still honor the pricing — that signal is worth more than an inflated one.
• Cross-product access shipped immediately. Feature flags on all three products flip the instant Stripe confirms payment; welcome email includes the account link for each. No manual onboarding queue.

Claim one of the 5 founding spots

One payment of $299, 12 months of all three products, permanent grandfathered renewal pricing. Refundable in the first 30 days.

Frequently asked

Is this a subscription that auto-renews?

No. It is a one-time $299 charge for 12 months of access. It does not auto-renew. At month 12 you get an email with your renewal option at the same $299 per year — you have to actively opt back in. No surprise charges, ever.

What happens after the first 5 spots are taken?

The offer closes for good. Only 5 customers will ever hold this SKU. Everyone else pays the public per-product rates ($99 per month each, or roughly $89 per month each on annual). The whole point of a founding cohort is that it is actually founding — there is no slot 6, no “just this once” exception, no back-door for a late request.

Can I get a refund if it isn't a fit?

Yes. Full refund within 30 days of purchase, no questions asked. Email hello@argushq.ai and it is processed the same business day. After 30 days the $299 is non-refundable but you keep all 12 months of access — the trade is fair.

What does “permanent grandfathered pricing” actually mean?

When public pricing goes up, your renewal stays at $299 per year for as long as you keep the subscription active. The founding-cohort rate is written into your Stripe customer metadata and survives price-list changes. If you cancel and re-subscribe later, you re-enter at public pricing — the grandfather is tied to continuous membership, not to your email address forever.

What is the testimonial commitment?

After 30 days of actively using the products, you agree to record a 60-second video testimonial (phone camera fine, no script required). If the products did not earn a testimonial, tell us honestly and we still honor the pricing. The honest signal helps every future customer decide — a bad-but-honest “these three didn't click for me because…” is more useful to us than a fake 5-star anything.

What is “early-adopter direct access”?

Founding customers get the founder's (Andy Gaber's) real work email. When something breaks, when you want a rule added, when you need a feature shipped — you email Andy directly, not a support queue and not a form. Response floor is one business day; anything customer-facing usually gets same-day treatment.

Who this is for

You are a Shopify merchant spending real money on Meta ads, and your product catalog also has regulated categories in it — kids' goods that hit CPSC, or metal-content SKUs that could get caught in the Section 232 derivative-article net. Or you are an agency running that mix for multiple clients and one $299 charge is cleaner than three separate SaaS lines.

The three products don't depend on each other technically — each ships alone, each has its own free scanner, each has its own paid tier. The Founding Trio just makes the “buy all three because I might need all three” decision a five-minute checkout instead of a three-vendor evaluation.

If any single product isn't relevant, the math still works — $299 is less than four months of any one product at public pricing. Two products for 12 months, or one product for the full 12 months plus 20 months into month 32 of another, both beat the standalone rate.

Why 5 and not 50

Founding cohorts get diluted the moment they scale. Five is small enough that Andy can actually know every customer, run every rule request personally, and thread every testimonial into the next month's roadmap. Fifty would be a marketing gimmick with the same word slapped on top.

The tradeoff is honest: if you are customer number six you pay $99 per product on public pricing. That is not manufactured urgency — it is a real ceiling with a real constraint (Andy's time to personally onboard every founding customer). Once slot five is taken, this page auto-flips to “All 5 spots taken” and the checkout button turns off.

What happens after you click Claim

Stripe Checkout opens with the $299 price attached. You pay by card or Link (Stripe's one-click wallet). Stripe posts back to our webhook, which does five things in one transaction:

1. Inserts a row into portfolio.founding_trio_cohort with the slot number Stripe reserved.
2. Flips feature flags on PixelProof, EntryProof, and TariffWatch so your email is authorized on all three.
3. Sends a welcome email with the login link for each product and Andy's direct email.
4. Bumps the aggregate counter so the “N of 5” on this page recomputes.
5. Notifies Andy so he can hand-onboard you personally within a business day.

No manual queue, no “we'll get back to you within a few days.” The whole point of capping at five is that human time can meet the volume.