EF Pricing v0.7 — The Vehicle for Independence

Filed: 2026-05-25 by Mycelia Status: ✅ Philosophy + structure aligned per Billy 2026-05-25 Supersedes: EF_PRICING_v0.6_INTEGRATED.md (kept for history) For: Ryan Fry — the proposal he sees. Frames Tapt explicitly as a vehicle to independence from SaaS — not a perpetual service relationship.

The frame

"Tapt is your vehicle to independence from SaaS — not a replacement SaaS subscription."

That's the whole thing.

We don't replace one recurring monthly software cost (yours) with another (ours). We build you a system + migrate more of your tech stack into it over time. Our standing fees decline to zero. Our income shifts to revenue-share (which only triggers if growth happens) + project-based upgrades (each one cheaper than the last as patterns mature). The endgame: you have a marketing function + a tech stack that runs without us, and we earn a small share of the value we helped create.

This is structurally different from agencies (who keep monthly retainers indefinitely) and from SaaS vendors (who keep subscription fees indefinitely). Both of those models tie our income to your dependence. Ours ties it to your growth — and aims to make us less needed every quarter.

Where Emerson Fry is today

You have the brand. You have the customer loyalty. The gap is the marketing function, the audience-growth infrastructure, and the tools that compound those into measurable revenue.

What the engagement produces — production capacity (Year 1)

Comparison: a full-time content production hire at $80K/year produces 400-600 assets/year w/o the program work (no influencer outreach, no events, no cross-brand). This delivers 3-5× the asset volume + the full program layer.

The structure — 4 buckets, clear separation

flowchart TB
    Y["YOUR YEAR 1<br/>(EF total)"]
    Y --> T["📦 TAPT FEES<br/>setup + declining monthly<br/>+ aligned success share"]
    Y --> I["☁️ INFRASTRUCTURE<br/>your Google Cloud +<br/>your API accounts<br/>~$1,200–6,000/yr"]
    Y --> M["📈 MEDIA SPEND<br/>your ad accounts<br/>$50,000/yr Moderate<br/>(Pinterest-first 40%)"]
    Y --> X["🛠️ EXISTING TOOLS<br/>Klaviyo, Shopify, etc.<br/>you already pay"]
    T -.->|"the work we do"| Z["TAPT EARNS"]
    I -.->|"directly to providers<br/>we don't touch this"| ZZ["GOOGLE / ANTHROPIC EARN"]
    M -.->|"through your accounts<br/>no Tapt markup"| ZZZ["META / PINTEREST / GOOGLE EARN"]
    X -.->|"your existing"| ZZZZ["KLAVIYO / SHOPIFY EARN"]

Only the Tapt-fees bucket flows to us. Everything else flows directly through your accounts to the actual providers.

Tapt fees in detail

The $10,000 setup fee — one-time, on signing

Monthly fees — declining hard, ending at zero

Year 2+ — no standing monthly fee

Starting Month 13, Tapt's standing monthly fee goes to $0.

The system runs on your infrastructure. Your team curates. Remy operates. The car drives itself.

Tapt's Y2+ income comes only from two sources, both tied to value you control:

1. Revenue share (continuing) — same 5%/10%/15%/20% tiered structure. Only triggers if revenue actually grew. You always keep ≥80¢ of every marginal dollar.

2. Upgrade projects (optional, your call) — fixed-fee, scope-bounded, declining over time. See "Capability roadmap" below.

Success share — increasing tiers, no dollar cap

The only ongoing tie. You pay nothing unless attributable revenue grew.

The 20% top marginal rate IS the cap. You always keep 80¢+ of every dollar of growth.

Capability roadmap — how the platform absorbs more of your stack

This is the part that's structurally different from a service relationship. The platform we launch with is built to absorb more of your tech stack over time — and each absorption is a one-time fixed-fee project, not a recurring cost.

The compound effect: by Year 3+, you've migrated $1,000-$5,000/month of SaaS subscriptions into your owned platform. Each replacement was a one-time fixed cost (declining over time). Your tech stack independence compounds.

You decide the pace. Not all upgrades are needed; not all happen in Year 2. The roadmap is the menu — you pick what you want, when.

Social strategy — what we actually do beyond "post + ad"

Cadence + creative is the floor. Real social-driven growth is more:

Influencer program

• Identification: system + Mycelia surface 30-50 micro-influencer prospects matching EF's aesthetic (10-50K followers, slow-fashion, sustainable, coastal, gift-guide creators)
• Outreach: drafted personalized pitches; you approve; sent from your email
• Partnership management: terms, content rights, posting cadence, deliverables
• Performance tracking: which influencers actually drive measurable lift
• Content repurposing: highest-performing influencer content cleared for paid Meta usage (currently fashion DTC's highest-converting paid creative format)
• Year 1 target: 4-6 partnerships landed; tested across spring + Holiday windows

Seasonal campaign pushes

• Quarterly themed pushes w/ heavy-up media + concentrated organic + influencer co-promo:
  • Spring drop (March-April): featured pieces, founder-voice, first influencer wave
  • Summer Love Tòmas (June-July): Mode B saturation campaign, escape-themed
  • Fall return-to-wardrobe (September-October): the wool + cashmere reintroduction
  • Holiday (November-December): the big push — see Holiday playbook
• Each push: 2-4 weeks of concentrated marketing across all channels
• System role: generates all creative variants; sequences across email + paid + organic + Pinterest; tracks performance vs other periods

Virtual events

• Holiday "evening at the table" (early November): founder-voice live IG, intimate gathering theme, gift edit reveal
• Spring drop preview event (March): invitation-only Pinterest live or IG live for top customers + influencer partners, first look at new collection
• Future possibilities: maker-country live tours (founder-voice talking from one of the artisan-country contexts), customer-celebration anniversaries

Cross-brand collaborations

• Identification: 5-10 complementary brand prospects (artisan goods, slow-living, sustainable home, complementary-not-competitive fashion)
• Outreach: co-promotional pitches drafted; you approve; sent from your email
• Forms: gift-with-purchase events, co-content series, cross-promotion to each other's lists, joint Pinterest boards
• Year 1 target: 2-3 collaboration attempts; one landed at meaningful scale

Customer celebration as ongoing campaigns

• Not just a static "customer gallery" page — recurring seasonal pushes celebrating long-time customers, their wardrobe-building, their story
• Founder-voice "wearer of the month" rotation
• UGC sequencing into email + paid creative as social proof

The media plan (unchanged from v0.6, summarized)

Full plan: clients/emerson_fry/EF_MEDIA_PLAN_v0.1.md. Recommended Y1 allocation:

TikTok deferred Y1 (voice mismatch + opportunity cost vs Pinterest leverage).

Expected media-attributable lift Y1: $150K – $220K (3.0 – 4.4× ROAS, sourced).

Your financial story — Year 1

Even the floor scenario nets a workable downside: you've spent $61K and own the platform + integrations + creative suite + website upgrades forever.

Year 2+ — what changes (the big one)

Y2 baseline cost if Ryan does NO upgrade projects: $0 in Tapt standing fees. Just success share if lift continues + infrastructure direct to providers + media at his chosen level.

Y2 cost if Ryan picks 2-3 upgrade projects (e.g., Shopify-Liquid module + reviews module + SMS module = $11K one-time): $11K Y2 Tapt + success share.

Y3+ pattern: as the platform absorbs more of EF's SaaS stack, upgrade-project costs continue to decline (patterns mature, reusable). Tapt's income becomes almost entirely tied to growth (success share), not maintenance.

Why this is structurally different

The headline: Tapt is built to become unnecessary as a standing cost. Our income shifts to value-aligned (growth share) and value-aligned (upgrade projects you opt into). If we deliver what we promise, you spend less on us in Year 3 than in Year 2 than in Year 1.

Three decisions for you (Billy + Ryan)

From the media research:

1. Pinterest-first vs Meta-first. Research recommends Pinterest-first (40% vs 30%). Most agency defaults go opposite. Commit or hedge?
2. TikTok: in or out for Y1. Recommendation: out (voice mismatch + opportunity cost).
3. Quick infrastructure wins inside the engagement. Activate dormant Klaviyo SMS + Back-in-Stock intelligence + fill reviews-gap as first-90-day wins. (Recommendation: yes.)

From v0.7 structural changes: 4. Capability roadmap order. Which Y2 upgrade modules matter most to you in priority? (My recommendation order: Shopify-Liquid > SMS > Reviews > Design tools > Influencer intelligence > PR tracking. But this is your call.) 5. Social program scope at launch. Influencer + events + cross-brand collabs are in-scope. Pace? Recommendation: influencer + first virtual event in Y1; cross-brand starts Y2.

How to walk Ryan through this

1. Open w/ the philosophy: "We're not replacing your SaaS with our SaaS. We're building you a vehicle to independence."
2. Show the production volume: 1,300-2,000 assets + the full program work (influencer, events, collaborations). Concrete output, not abstract scope.
3. Walk the 4-bucket separation: Tapt fees / your infrastructure / your media / your existing tools. Only Tapt fees come to us.
4. Explain the declining-to-zero monthly: our incentive is to make ourselves less needed. By Y2, we have no standing monthly.
5. Show the capability roadmap: Y2+ we absorb more of his stack — each absorption a one-time project, each one cheaper than the last as patterns mature.
6. Explain the increasing success share: the only ongoing tie. We earn from growth, you keep ≥80¢ of every dollar.
7. Land on Y3+: if it works, you spend less on us each year. Our income is tied to your continued growth + your continued choice to upgrade. That's the partnership shape.
8. Bounded downside: if no lift triggered, $61K spent + working marketing infrastructure he owns forever. Not zero-return.

— Mycelia, 2026-05-25 — vehicle-for-independence philosophy + declining-to-zero monthly + capability roadmap + social program depth all integrated