Pressure Test.

What it is

Pressure Test is a newsletter and a price directory for home-service contractors. Two issues a week cover the AI tools being sold to roofing, HVAC, plumbing and electrical shops: what they cost once the fees are added, what the contract does to you after you sign, and a straight call on whether to buy. The site also holds a lookup directory of the tools and a four-question grader for your own shop.

Who it's for

The owner of a roofing or HVAC company who gets three sales calls a week about "AI" and has already been burned once. They are not eager. They want the price, the clause that costs money later, and what other owners actually said, before they get on another demo.

Why I built it

The trade newsletters that already exist are sponsored by the vendors they would need to review, so none of them can say "skip it." I run a roofing company, I get the same pitches, and I wanted the version of this that reads the pricing page and the complaint record for me. Skepticism with receipts, not a news feed.

How it works

Every price in the directory is read off the vendor's own page by a person, with the date it was read and the source link kept next to it. A robot re-checks the page and flags a change, but never edits a price. Each tool gets one of four verdicts: worth a look, ask first, skip, or not yet called. Issues are written from a research pipeline, published on the site as an archive, and sent through Beehiiv. Signup is double opt-in and the site sets no cookies. Nobody's name appears on it by design.

What's next

Keep the issue cadence, grow the directory as new tools show up, and let the shipped issues replace the placeholder verdicts one at a time.