A looping demo of the Substrate agent across three conversations. First it prices a 4 by 8 double sided outdoor banner, quotes $226.60 itemized, drafts the customer email, sends it on approval, and sets a follow-up. Second, it explains how channel letters are built in plain English and hands back a customer-ready description. Third, it runs the day's overview, flags a lobby-letters install due Friday whose proof is unapproved, and chases the approval.
Stop putting out fires.
Start running your shop.
Every lost work order, guessed price, and quote that goes out three days late is another little fire. Substrate puts pricing, quotes, jobs, and customers in one place, so you ask in plain English and send the quote before they hang up.
Trusted by modern sign and print shops
A looping demo of Substrate setup. The agent asks a shop owner five quick questions: business name, trade, town, crew size, and hourly rate. Then it opens the finished shop for Bayline Signs and Graphics in Bend, Oregon, loaded with industry-standard sign pricing tuned to an 85 dollar shop rate.
Set up in minutes
Setup takes about two minutes. And then it just… works.
Substrate already knows how a sign shop runs. Industry-standard pricing, materials, and production steps come loaded before you sign up, so there’s nothing to build from scratch.
Create an account, answer a few quick questions, and the agent tunes all of it to your shop: your rates, your trade, your town. Two minutes later you’re quoting real jobs, not staring at an empty screen.
- average setup, signup to ready
- 2:10
- average setup, signup to ready
- quick questions, plain English
- 18
- quick questions, plain English
- to your first real quote
- 1 min
- to your first real quote
You didn’t start your shop to fight spreadsheets.
Life in the spreadsheet
- Copying numbers between spreadsheet tabs
- Estimates that look different every time
- Jobs slipping through the cracks
- Quoting after close because the day got eaten
Life on Substrate
- One source of truth for every job
- Repeatable pricing your customers trust
- Fewer mistakes, fewer surprises
- More time for real work
Price a banner while they're still on the phone.
Size, material, hems, grommets, pole pockets. Pick them and the price is live before you finish the sentence, with every line item spelled out. No mystery math.
When something’s missing, Substrate says so. No material picked yet? You get an honest range and exactly which choice locks it in.
Every price shows its work.
A Substrate quote reads like a receipt. Every material and every operation on its own line, so you can see exactly where the money is. Price the same job twice, get the same answer to the penny.
Open any line and the math is right there: material, labor, and finishing, each with its own number.
Know who's holding the ball.
Every job tells you whose move it is. Waiting on the customer’s art? On a vendor? On you? One look and you know what needs you today, without digging through your inbox.
Get paid without the awkward phone call.
Send the quote, take the deposit, collect the balance, all in one place. The job doesn’t start until the money’s real, and you’re not the one chasing it.
Run your shop from…
…Anywhere.
The app in your pocket does everything the computer at the shop does. Quote a banner, send it, take the deposit, approve artwork, and see where every job stands, from anywhere.
Price a banner from the supply run. Approve a proof from the couch. Take a slow lunch knowing nothing at the shop is on fire. When something needs you, the app finds you. When it doesn’t, it stays quiet and keeps working.
You should know
who built your software.
A lot of shop software is legacy code built by developers who have never quoted a sign, or a vibe-coded reimagining of that same software with no human behind it you can actually reach. So before you scroll any further, here is exactly who we are and why we built this.
Michael Riley
Co-founder · 30 years on shop floors
Design, fabrication, project management, and every rush job in between. Michael has spent 30 years in shops, and every opinion baked into Substrate comes from that time.
Bryant Gillespie
Co-founder · Writes the code
Bryant builds the software, but he came up in signs first, 25 years of it. He and Michael run Better Sign Shop, and Substrate is what years of podcast and newsletter conversations with shops kept pointing at.
We owe this industry
Signs gave us our careers and friendships that outlast the work. Substrate is everything two shop careers taught us, codified into an app with no setup and no learning curve.
It runs on real trade knowledge
Under the chat bot is a knowledge base built from 30 years in shops. Ask about vinyl over rivets or grommet spacing and it answers like a production manager.
It is a system, not a wrapper
Plenty of tools right now are a chat window stapled to a template. Substrate is a full operating system for the shop, engineered to hold up under real volume.
You can reach us
Write in and a founder answers. We built this to give something back to the trade that built us, and that only works if we stay close to the shops using it.
Full transparency on how we use AI.
It works like a personal assistant that knows your shop inside and out, on a very short leash. It never guesses at pricing, and it shows the math on every number it gives you. If it doesn’t know, it says so, and asks you, never your customers.
What it can see
- Your pricing rules and products
- Jobs and customers in your shop
- Your materials and rates
- Nothing outside your shop
Where it helps
- Builds quotes faster
- Drafts customer replies
- Flags bottlenecks early
- Answers shop questions in plain English
What it never does
- Never changes your prices
- Never takes payments
- Never messages customers without approval
- Never trains on your shop data
Three plans. Every price shows its work.
No setup fees, no contracts, cancel anytime. Every plan starts with a free trial, no credit card required.
Build
$399/mo
The backend and full API access. You build your own front end on top.
- Pricing engine and quote API
- Jobs and customers over the API
- Bring your own front end
Core
$499/mo
The full Substrate app, with pricing and products set up for your trade.
- Everything in Build
- The Substrate app for your whole shop
- Pricing and products pre-set up
Max
$799/mo
Everything in Core, plus the agents and integrations.
- Chat agent, on a leash
- Slack agent
- Integrations and Chrome extension
Not sold? Book a demo.
Bring your shop’s stickiest real job and we’ll walk it through Substrate live, pricing it while you watch. You’ll see your shop’s setup, your trade’s pricing, and the questions answered by a founder, not a sales team.
No demo needed? Jump straight in, setup takes about two minutes.
Ready to get quoting?
Join the sign shops quoting more and stressing less.
No credit card · Set up in about two minutes · Cancel anytime