Overview
What's In This Guide
The 5 tools ranked from broadest to most niche and powerful, with a real money play for each
What to charge for every play. Real numbers, not "it depends"
The exact first move for each tool, including 4 copy-paste blocks you can use today
My exact comment-to-DM flow, the same one that sent you this guide
How the 5 tools chain into one funnel a single client can buy
Which tool to start with based on where you are right now
Before You Start
The One Rule: Pick One Play
These 5 tools are ranked from broadest to most niche and powerful. Every one of them can make you money. And that's exactly the trap.
The people who make money with AI don't run 5 plays at once. They pick one, land one paying client, get a testimonial, and then stack the next layer on top. The people who make nothing bounce between tools for 6 months and never send a single outreach message.
So read all 5. Then pick the one that matches where you are (there's a cheat sheet at the bottom) and ignore the rest for 30 days.
The stack at a glance
1. Claude Code
The BuilderClaude Code is an AI agent that runs on your computer and actually does things instead of just chatting. It builds websites, writes files, pulls data, and connects to your apps. I'm a marketer with zero coding background and it's the tool my entire business runs on.
It's first on this list because it's the broadest. Every other tool in this guide gets more powerful when Claude Code is driving it.
The money plays
Build websites for local businesses
I built my sister's swim lesson business a full website and booking funnel with Claude Code. One organic Facebook post later she had 170 bookings in 16 hours. Most local businesses have a site that embarrasses them. Charge $500 to $2,000 per build. An agency quotes 10x that and takes 6 weeks.
Build lead lists
Point Claude Code at a scraping tool like Apify and it pulls a clean list of local businesses in any niche, with emails, in an afternoon. I pulled 54 qualified leads for one niche in one sitting. Sell the list, or better, use it to sell everything else in this guide.
Automate one repetitive task for a company
Find one task a business does every single week (formatting reports, sorting inbound emails, prepping invoices) and turn it into a Claude skill that does it automatically. Simple one-task automations sell for $1,000 to $3,000 all day.
Your first move
Don't brainstorm. Paste this into Claude Code and let it interview you. It picks your first sellable project, writes the outreach message, and then builds the thing with you in the same session.
Copy-paste prompt: find your first sellable build
I want to make money with Claude Code but I need my first sellable project. Interview me one question at a time about: (1) the businesses I know personally (friends, family, my barber, my gym, anyone), (2) what I'm decent at, and (3) how many hours a week I can give this. Then pick the ONE project from this list that fits me best: a simple website rebuild, a lead list for a specific niche and city, or automating one repetitive task a business does every week. Once we pick, build me a plan: exactly what to build, what to say to the business owner (write the outreach message for me), what to charge for version one, and then help me build the whole thing step by step in this session. Do not let me skip the outreach message.
New to Claude Code? Set it up right first with Claude Code Day One, and wire it to live data with the Apify 101 guide.
2. Higgsfield
The Creative EngineHiggsfield puts 30+ AI image and video models (GPT Image, Nano Banana, Veo, Kling, and more) under one roof. With a little taste, it makes you dangerously good at visual content. Ad creatives, product shoots, UGC-style videos with AI avatars, all from prompts.
Here's why that's money: businesses pay agencies $3,000 to $15,000 a month mostly for creative output. You can now produce a real chunk of that output solo.
The money plays
Ad creatives for local businesses
Fresh ad images every month, on brand, with the headline baked in. Charge $500 to $1,500 a month per client for a monthly creative package. The business gets agency-grade output, you spend a few hours in Higgsfield.
Product shoots without a photographer
A real product photoshoot runs $1,000 to $2,000. Higgsfield generates studio-quality product shots from a photo of the product. Sell a 10-image pack for $250 to $500 and everyone wins.
UGC-style videos
Brands pay per video for UGC-style content. Higgsfield's avatars and video models make presenter-style clips without hiring creators for every cut.
The multiplier
The real trick is connecting Higgsfield to Claude. Once Claude can drive it, the whole thing nearly runs on its own: I have a workflow where I paste one business website URL into Claude, it reads the brand, writes the ad copy, then renders finished ad creatives through Higgsfield in about 5 minutes.
The exact setup is in my Higgsfield MCP Playbook, and the full URL-to-ads workflow is the Local Ad Engine guide. Both free.
3. GoHighLevel
The Marketing EngineGoHighLevel is the all-in-one platform local businesses run their marketing on: email, texts, funnels, booking calendars, pipelines, and a CRM, in one place. It's the machine behind thousands of small marketing agencies.
This is where the list starts tying directly to revenue. When you run a business's follow-up and booking, you're not a "marketing expense." You are the reason the phone rings. That's why businesses pay well for it, and keep paying.
The money plays
Set up a CRM for a business that has none
There are seven-figure businesses running with no CRM at all. Leads live in a notebook and follow-up is vibes. Setting up GoHighLevel with pipelines and automated follow-up is a $3,000 to $5,000 proposal all day. (That number comes straight from Corey Ganim's playbook, linked in the credits below.)
Let Claude write the sequences, load them into GHL
The hard part of follow-up systems was always writing all the messages. Claude writes an entire nurture machine in one session (prompt below). You load it into GoHighLevel, connect it to their lead form, and their follow-up runs itself.
White-label it and charge monthly
GoHighLevel lets you rebrand the entire platform and resell it as your own software. The client pays you monthly for "your" system. That's recurring revenue on top of the setup fee: $300 to $1,000 a month per client is the standard range.
Your first move
Start a free trial and build your own pipeline first, because your own setup becomes the demo you sell with. Then paste this into Claude to generate a complete follow-up machine for your first client:
Copy-paste prompt: the follow-up machine writer
You are a follow-up sequence writer for a local business. Ask me: the business type, the main service, the average job value, and what happens today when a lead comes in and nobody responds. Then write me a complete follow-up machine I can load into GoHighLevel: (1) an instant "we got your request" text and email, (2) a 5-touch nurture sequence over 14 days (text and email, short, human, zero marketing speak), (3) a 3-touch reactivation sequence for old leads who went quiet, and (4) a review-request message for after the job. Write every message in full, ready to paste. Keep every text under 160 characters. The goal of every message is one reply or one booked call, nothing else.
4. ManyChat
The DM MachineManyChat automates Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook conversations at scale. Someone comments a keyword on a post and it replies, DMs them a link, delivers a freebie, or books a call. Automatically, 24/7.
Here's the proof it works: this exact guide reached you through ManyChat. You commented MONEY on my video, and a flow I set up in about 2 minutes did everything else. Every big creator you follow runs this. Almost no local business knows it exists. That gap is the business.
The money plays
Set it up for creators
Any creator giving away freebies or selling anything needs comment-to-DM. Most know they need it and never set it up. The whole build takes you an afternoon the first time and an hour once you've done it twice.
Set it up for local businesses
Restaurants, gyms, med spas, salons: they get comments and DMs every day and answer them hours later, if ever. ManyChat answers instantly with a booking link. Speed-to-lead is the whole game for these businesses.
What to charge
$500 to $1,000 for the setup, $100 to $300 a month to keep it running and tweak the flows. Stack 10 of those monthly clients and this "small" tool quietly becomes real income.
Your first move
ManyChat has a free plan. Build one flow on your own account first. And you don't have to guess what the messages should say, because here is my exact flow, the same one that just delivered this guide to you:
My exact comment-to-DM flow (steal it)
COMMENT REPLIES (rotate these 3 so Instagram doesn't flag you as spam): 1. Thanks! Check the DMs 2. Sent you a DM! 3. Nice! Just DM'd it to you OPENING DM: Hey there! Click below and I'll send you the guide 👇 [Button: Send me the guide] FOLLOW GATE (only sent if they don't follow you yet): Nearly there! The guide is especially for my followers. Right after you follow me, I'll send you the guide so you can level up your AI game! 🚀 [Button: Following] LINK DELIVERY: Thanks! Here you go 😎 [Button: Get the guide below → your link] FOLLOW-UP (30 minutes later, only if they never clicked): If you still want the guide, don't forget to tap the link 🔼🚀
5. Retell AI
The Phone AnswererRetell AI builds voice agents that answer real phone calls and sound like a real person. They pick up, hold a conversation, answer questions, and book appointments on a calendar. This is the most niche tool on the list, and the most powerful.
Because here's the thing about local businesses: the phone is where the revenue actually lives. An 8pm call comes in, the owner is at dinner, it goes to voicemail, and by morning that customer hired whoever picked up. Every missed call is money the business already lost. You sell the fix.
The money plays
The 24/7 receptionist
Build a voice agent for a plumber, HVAC company, dentist, or chiropractor that answers every call, qualifies the caller, and books the appointment. Charge $500 to $2,000 for the setup and $300 to $1,000 a month to run it. The pitch writes itself: "How many calls did you miss last week?"
The interviewer agent
Corey Ganim's team sells $1,000 AI assessments to small businesses, and a Retell voice agent named Annie now does the discovery interviews. Business owners call a number whenever they want, talk to Annie for 20 to 30 minutes, and the transcript pipes to Claude, which builds the report. They removed themselves from the calls entirely. That's a real productized service running on this exact tool today.
Your first move
Retell gives you free credits to start. Build one agent for an imaginary dental office, call it yourself, and feel how good it is. Here's a receptionist agent prompt to start from. Swap the placeholders, paste it into Retell, and you have a working demo to show any business owner:
Copy-paste agent prompt: the 24/7 receptionist
## Identity
You are Sam, the virtual receptionist for {{business_name}}, a {{business_type}} in {{city}}. You answer when the team can't get to the phone. You sound warm, quick, and human. Short sentences. One question at a time. If someone asks if you're an AI, be honest and friendly about it.
## Your job on every call
1. Greet: "Thanks for calling {{business_name}}, this is Sam. How can I help?"
2. Find out what they need: new appointment, a question, or an emergency.
3. New appointment: get their name, phone number, what they need done, and their preferred day and time. Offer the two closest open slots.
4. Emergency: tell them you're marking it urgent, collect name, number, and address, and tell them someone will call back within 15 minutes.
5. A question you can't answer (pricing edge cases, medical or legal advice, complaints): take a message with name and number and promise a same-day callback.
6. Before hanging up, repeat the appointment or message back to confirm it.
## Rules
- Never guess prices. Quote only what's in your knowledge base.
- Never diagnose anything. You book appointments, you don't give professional advice.
- Keep the whole call under 5 minutes.
- If the caller is angry, don't argue. Apologize once, collect the details, escalate. Put It Together
The Stack Is One Funnel
These aren't 5 separate businesses. For one client, they chain into a single machine:
Claude Code
Finds the leads, builds the website, builds the automations.
Higgsfield
Makes the ads and content that bring attention in.
ManyChat
Catches every comment and DM that attention creates.
GoHighLevel
Nurtures every lead and books them onto the calendar.
Retell AI
Answers the phone so nothing that calls in ever slips away.
That's why you start with one play. The client who buys a $500 ManyChat setup is the same client who needs the follow-up sequences, the ad creatives, and the phone agent. Land one layer, then sell the next. That's how a $500 project becomes a $2,000-a-month account.
The Cheat Sheet
Which One Should You Start With?
Never sold anything before? Start with ManyChat.
Cheapest to learn, fastest to deliver, and the result is visible to the client the same day. Perfect first yes.
Already make content? Start with Higgsfield.
Your taste is the moat. Creative packages sell on the quality of the samples you can generate this week.
Want recurring revenue? Start with GoHighLevel or Retell.
Both are systems businesses pay for monthly, forever, because turning them off costs the client real revenue.
Want maximum flexibility? Start with Claude Code.
It's the one tool that can deliver any of the other four plays, plus a hundred plays nobody's named yet.
Whichever you pick: one play, one client, 30 days. The second half of 2026 is long enough to build a real income line if you start this week, and short enough that waiting until January costs you the whole window.
Credit Where It's Due
Sources
The $1,000 AI assessment play, the Annie voice agent story, and the $3,000 to $5,000 CRM setup pricing come from Corey Ganim's interview on Chris Koerner's podcast, The Koerner Office. Worth the full watch. Everything else here is what I run myself.