Five Star Quotes case study
A quote-qualification workflow with internal operator controls.
Five Star Quotes turns low-context fence leads into estimate-qualified project requests. In 8 days, the build connected homeowner quote intake, contractor onboarding, configurable pricing, email delivery, optional managed setup, and internal operations tooling in one lean production system.
- Timeline
- 8-day build
- System
- React/Vite, Vercel, Neon/Postgres, Mailgun
- Operations
- Internal MCP tooling for CRM, campaigns, email, and support
- Core pattern
- Quote workflow plus contractor SaaS plus operator controls
The problem
Generic lead forms do not give contractors enough context.
Fence contractors need more than a name, phone number, and message. Useful follow-up depends on property location, approximate footage, material, height, gate count, project timing, and a way to route the lead to the right inbox.
Homeowners need the opposite experience: something fast enough to use before they are ready for a formal site visit. Five Star Quotes turns that mismatch into a structured intake workflow.
Product insight
The useful unit was not a lead. It was an estimate-qualified request.
The product collects project context before treating a visitor as a lead. A homeowner enters an address, draws fence segments, selects material and gates, and sees a ballpark estimate before submitting contact details.
That changes what the contractor receives. The lead package has enough context to support a better follow-up, and the platform has enough structure to become a repeatable SaaS product.
What we built
The build connected the visible product to the operating layer behind it.
- Homeowner quote workflow with address entry, map drawing, footage estimation, material selection, gates, timing, contact capture, and estimate range.
- Contractor SaaS workflow with checkout, account access, settings, brand controls, lead routing, service area, and embed setup.
- Configurable pricing logic for materials, heights, gates, minimum project price, and location adjustments.
- Mailgun-backed quote emails, contractor lead notifications, internal notifications, inbound handling, and event webhooks.
- Optional done-for-you setup with encrypted credential capture and controlled support access.
- Separate internal operations tooling for CRM, campaigns, reply review, suppressions, dashboards, and support workflows.
Internal operations
The public product was only half the system.
Launch and growth required CRM, campaigns, replies, suppressions, support links, dashboard access, and safe email operations. A separate Next.js MCP server gives operators tool-based access to those workflows while the server enforces scopes, confirmations, suppressions, and send controls.
The work was not to make a demo look autonomous. It was to make the operating workflow explicit, reviewable, and supportable.
Safeguards
External actions were designed with deliberate gates.
The internal tooling returns previews until the correct confirmation value is supplied for externally visible actions. That pattern keeps speed in the operator workflow without turning email, campaign, or support actions into unchecked automation.
- Confirmation strings for email sends, campaign launches, support links, and campaign edits.
- Global suppressions, complaint handling, unsubscribe handling, and permanent-bounce controls.
- Domain-sticky reply behavior and per-contact response caps.
- Hashed MCP keys, hashed access tokens, hashed support grants, and encrypted setup credentials.
Architecture
A practical stack for a product that needed to move quickly.
The architecture stayed conventional where conventional was enough: Vercel-compatible APIs, React/Vite for the public app, Postgres-compatible persistence, Mailgun for email, and a separate Next.js app for internal MCP operations.
Address, map, fence, gates, contact, estimate
React/Vite quote flow and contractor pages
Vercel routes for quote, checkout, settings, tracking
Neon/Postgres-compatible lead, contractor, and analytics paths
Mailgun quote, lead, outbound, inbound, and event handling
Internal MCP tools for CRM, campaigns, replies, support
Cost discipline
The cost story is about scope control, not a universal promise.
Development platform costs were kept in the low $100s, and baseline ongoing infrastructure is roughly $100/month before usage-driven scaling. That wording matters: labor, acquisition, email volume, map usage, database growth, traffic, and payment processing can all change the operating profile.
The point is disciplined architecture and practical scoping, not a fixed-cost guarantee.
Eight-day build
The work moved from quote flow to operations readiness.
- Day 1 Scope the homeowner flow, contractor setup requirements, and stack.
- Day 2 Build address, map, drawing, material, gate, and estimate logic.
- Day 3 Add quote submission, payload normalization, Mailgun delivery, and lead notifications.
- Day 4 Add contractor checkout, account creation, persistence, and settings access.
- Day 5 Add pricing settings, embed setup, managed setup capture, and encrypted credential storage.
- Day 6 Build the internal operations layer for CRM, campaigns, dashboard access, and support tools.
- Day 7 Add inbound handling, suppressions, reply review, campaign pause behavior, and confirmation gates.
- Day 8 Verify build paths, deployment configuration, environment requirements, and runbooks.
What this proves
A repeatable pattern for real workflow software.
Five Star Quotes demonstrates the kind of work sammartin.ai is built for: product scoping, full-stack web development, integrations, geospatial UX, email operations, internal tools, human review gates, and cost-conscious deployment.
This is a software and product case study. It is not a testimonial and does not claim customer outcomes, conversion lift, market traction, or revenue impact.