SideNote Pro

SideNote Pro costs $49 one-time for one user on two devices, so an agency can equip a five-person delivery pod for $245 instead of stacking another per-seat AI subscription on top of provider bills the team already pays. The Business plan at $349 monthly covers 10 licences with centralized purchase and coordinated issuance, which turns onboarding a client's Windows 11 staff into a procurement line item rather than an IT project. The catch is that clients must bring their own OpenAI, Ollama, or LM Studio keys, so the resale ceiling is low and the real agency margin sits in configuration work, not licence markup.

SideNote Pro only makes sense when the client already funds an AI provider account and runs Windows 11 across the team. The tool ships with no bundled AI usage, so every prompt bills against the client's own OpenAI, Ollama, or LM Studio key. That single condition decides whether a rollout is profitable or a support burden. A five-person law firm on Windows 11 with an existing OpenAI account is a clean fit: configure the docked panel, index the contract library, and bill a $1,800 Starter Rollout over 16 hours of setup. A mixed Mac and Windows shop with no provider account fails the gate, because you would be selling API provisioning and OS migration instead of document workflow. Run the gate before quoting: Windows 11 only, provider key already active, and at least one recurring text or document task worth automating. Pass all three and the $49 per-seat licence stays a rounding error against the retainer.

The productivity tool is the visible artifact a client can buy in 90 seconds; the billable value sits in the process design wrapped around it. Agencies that sell the artifact compete on price against a direct checkout page, while agencies that sell the surrounding workflow (intake rules, meeting-to-brief handoffs, calendar routing logic, retention policy) keep the retainer. The framework asks one question per engagement: what percentage of the fee survives if the client cancels the subscription tomorrow? If the answer is near zero, the work is resale, not consulting. A concrete test: map a client's meeting capture flow from booking through brief distribution, then price the redesign separately from the seat licenses. Forrester's 2027 predictions series warns that AI's financial grace period is ending and CMOs must show P&L impact rather than pilot activity, which makes process-level reporting the defensible deliverable.

AI productivity tools are the visible artifact in a client engagement, but the billable work is the process design that surrounds them. Clients can buy Calendly or Google Workspace direct in 90 seconds, so reselling the license captures almost no margin. The Billable Process Envelope framework asks agencies to define the workflow redesign scope first, then position the tool as the proof of that redesign. For example, a scheduling layer like Calendly becomes the artifact inside a six-week client intake redesign that includes routing logic, qualification forms, and handoff rules. The envelope is the billable engagement; the tool is the receipt. Forrester's 2027 predictions warn that AI budgets will face harder ROI reviews, so agencies that sell licenses without a process envelope will lose the retainer when the client audits the line item.

Deploy SideNote Pro only after the client confirms Windows 11 coverage and hands over working API keys, then scope the engagement as a fixed-fee rollout rather than a resold subscription.

Price the productivity tool as a visible artifact inside a workflow redesign scope, never as a resold license.

IF your delivery team runs Windows 11 and already pays for an AI provider account (OpenAI, Ollama, or LM Studio), THEN the $49 one-time SideNote Pro licence for one user on two devices is a low-risk test because it adds no bundled AI subscription and keeps conversation history on the machine. IF you need to equip 10 staff, THEN the Business plan at $349 monthly covers 10 user licences with centralized purchase and coordinated licence issuance, but only makes sense once the single-seat trial proves the docked-panel workflow saves real delivery time. IF clients cannot supply their own API keys or run macOS, THEN skip entirely, because SideNote Pro ships with no bundled AI usage and is a native Windows 11 application.

A fixed-scope engagement that puts SideNote Pro's docked Windows 11 assistant onto client workstations for document review, selected-text rewriting, and local folder indexing, with the client's own API keys and no conversation history leaving the machine.