By Tyler Shea · 2026-10-16

Picture a plumber finishing a job at 6 pm. Nine unread emails are waiting: two quote requests, a customer who wants to move Thursday's appointment, and a few that can wait. He'll answer them tonight at the kitchen table. By then, one of those quote requests has already heard back from somebody else.

Large companies solved this years ago. They use AI to read incoming messages and draft replies, and they paid for it with big budgets and teams of engineers. Nobody built that for a shop with three trucks and one inbox. That is why I started Shea AI Labs.

What it does

When a customer emails, the assistant reads the message, checks it against your own price list and rules, and drafts the reply you would have written. You read it on your phone, change anything you like, and tap approve.

Customers hear back in minutes instead of days, and every reply sounds like you. It never invents a price, it flags emergencies for you, and nothing goes out without your approval.

Why it doesn't cost much

I spent more than a decade in finance and business software, most recently building AI tools for large companies. The hard part isn't the technology anymore. It's making it simple enough for someone who has never thought about AI.

A small business doesn't need a giant system. It needs one job done well, and a focused assistant is far cheaper to build and run than the enterprise projects I used to work on. So plans start at $59 a month, plus a low one-time setup fee.

To put that in perspective, if you spend five hours a week on quote emails and your time is worth $50 an hour, that is about $1,000 a month of your own time. Winning back even a little of it, or one job you would have lost to a slow reply, pays for the assistant. Your numbers will differ, and I'd rather work them out with you than guess.

Want to see it for your business? Book a free 30-minute call. If it isn't a fit, I'll tell you, and you'll leave with a few ideas either way.