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Founding Churches programme

Decision (John, 2026-10-06, "founding churches"): ten founding churches get the Website plan free for twelve months; churches choosing Phone or Complete get their first three months free instead of the 14-day trial. Prices after the free period are unchanged ($29 / $79 / $99 a month, per cwa-three-plan-pricing.md). Half-price agents were considered and rejected: voice has real per-call cost; free months keep the margin intact after the period.

Why this shape and not a price cut: the 2026-10-02 decision is one number for every product and no number on a page that a buyer is not charged. A founding programme is a counted bundle of free months with conditions, not a new price list. What the company needs from its first ten churches is their names, their sentences and their links, not $29 a month.

The offer, exactly as the site states it​

  • "Ten founding churches. Your first year of the Website plan is free. After that it is $29 a month, and you can leave any time." For Phone and Complete: "Founding churches get the first three months free, then $79 / $99 a month."
  • Three conditions, shown before sign-up, agreed with a checkbox: (1) a short testimonial at 90 days (one sentence or a 30-second video) that we may publish with the church's name; (2) a link from the church's site to churchwiseai.com (the Pro Website template places it in the footer by default; the church may remove it, in which case the condition is met by the testimonial alone); (3) permission to name the church as a case study.
  • A live counter: "N of 10 taken", computed from real redemptions (see Implementation), never typed by hand. When the tenth is taken, or on 2026-12-31, the offer disappears from every page and the checkout refuses the code.
  • Eligibility: new churches only. Existing customers keep their rate (grandfathering stands). One per church.

Where it appears​

  • /pricing: a founding banner above the three plans with the counter and the conditions; the plan buttons carry the founding checkout when the offer is open.
  • /pro-website (the trial landing page): the same banner replaces "14-day free trial" copy while the offer is open; afterwards the page reverts to the standard copy automatically.
  • /chat, /voice: one line pointing at /pricing.
  • Cold email T2/T3 (the free-tool sequence in ai-company-os/tasks/AUTONOMOUS-QUEUE.md) may mention it only while the offer is open; the email reads the same counter.
  • product_knowledge: one row so the chatbot and the voice sales agent answer "founding churches" correctly, with the same conditions and the counter wording ("as of today N of 10").

Implementation​

  • Stripe (live account acct_1SSPz2FaoK5IPzNo): one coupon FOUNDING-WEBSITE-12 = 100% off for 12 months, restricted to cwa_website (+ annual); one coupon FOUNDING-3MO = 100% off for 3 months, restricted to cwa_phone / cwa_complete (+ annual); both with max_redemptions = 10 combined via a single promotion code family or a redemption count check in checkout, and an expiry of 2026-12-31. Live Stripe writes need John's explicit yes (agent-tooling rule); the worker prepares the test-mode coupons and the exact live commands.
  • Checkout (/onboard → the Stripe Checkout session): when the offer is open and the church ticks the conditions, the session applies the coupon and skips the 14-day trial (free months replace it). Stores founding_church = true, founding_conditions_accepted_at, founding_number (1..10) on premium_churches.metadata (no new column; verify with information_schema first). Never persist a normalized tier to plan (Rule #23).
  • Counter source of truth: count of premium_churches rows with metadata.founding_number set, cross-checked nightly against Stripe coupon redemptions by the daily audit; mismatch = ops error, not a silent fix.
  • Testimonial follow-through: at day 90 the lifecycle email cron sends the founding church ONE email asking for the sentence or video (an existing customer, so a service email, not marketing); the reply is read by Client Operations and the quote goes live only after John approves the exact words.
  • Case study page per founding church: built only after the testimonial exists.

Acceptance checks (deployed, real host)​

  1. /pricing and /pro-website show the banner with "0 of 10 taken" before any redemption; the three plan prices still read $29/$79/$99; no other number appears.
  2. The founding checkout applies the coupon: a test-mode Checkout session for cwa_website shows $0.00 due today and "then $29.00/month starting <date 12 months out>"; for cwa_phone shows $0.00 today and "$79.00/month starting <3 months out>". The conditions checkbox is required.
  3. After a test-mode redemption the counter reads "1 of 10 taken" on both pages within one minute (ISR or dynamic).
  4. With the counter at 10 (test by setting the limit to 1 in test mode), the banner is gone and the checkout refuses the code with a plain message.
  5. product_knowledge row inserted and validate_product_knowledge() clean; the chatbot answers "do you have a founding church offer" correctly on the demo church.
  6. Playwright on the deployed URL: open /pro-website, click the founding button, reach Checkout with the coupon line visible.
  7. The pricing drift watchdog (api/cron/daily-audit) still passes: no new prices, coupons are not prices.

Out of scope​

Changing any list price; applying the offer to existing customers; the Founding Ministries programme (separate, 5 slots, project_founding_ministries_program); CompareLocal.