The honest answers,
before you ask.
Plain language. The kinds of questions a small business owner asks before signing — about money, about the agent, about what happens to their customers' data, and about who we are. Some answers below are settled and final. A few are marked “being finalized by our attorney” — that's honest, not evasive. We won't put binding language on this page until our attorney has signed off on it.
What's settled vs. what's pending. Pricing, the trial mechanics, channels covered, who we are, and how we work day to day — all settled and final. The legal-binding language around data handling, insurance, refunds, and our right to refuse a client is being finalized by our attorney. We'll never make a client-facing commitment on those topics that hasn't been reviewed first.
The money questions.
How much does Candor AI cost?
Three packages. Customer-Facing is $500/month at the founding rate — up to three bilingual agents on the channels your customers already use. Agent Office is $300/month — up to three internal agents for the back of the house. Business Bundle is $700/month founding — both packages, $100/month less than buying them separately. Full details are on the pricing page.
What's the $150 deposit, and how does the trial work?
Every new client starts with a fifteen business day trial. You put down a $150 refundable deposit, we deploy the agent, and the clock starts. The agent's activity is visible to you in real time — every conversation it handles. At any point in those fifteen days, if it's not the fit you wanted, you tell us and the deposit comes back. No questions, no friction, no winback email three months later.
What if I want my deposit back?
You email us, or text us, or tell us on a call. That's it. We do not argue, we do not ask you to fill out a form, we do not try to talk you into staying. Inside the fifteen business day window, the deposit is yours back.
Refund mechanics being finalized by our attorney
The exact refund mechanics — how long the funds take to settle back, the channel they return on, and the form of confirmation we send — will be spelled out in our Refund Policy. That document is in attorney review and will live on this site before the first founding client signs.
Can I cancel after the trial?
Yes. There's no minimum term. If the trial works for you, full monthly billing begins thirty days after the trial ends. If at any point after that you want to stop, you tell us and we stop. No contract fight, no minimum-term clause.
What is the “founding rate,” and how long does it last?
The first clients who sign with us keep their rate for the period stated in their signed proposal. After that, annual adjustments are capped at the lesser of five percent or CPI. The founding rate is personal — it stays with the client who signed, not the business if it changes hands.
Do you charge by message volume?
No. If your shop has a busy month, we don't charge you for it. If volume rises permanently and we need to tune the agent for that pattern, we tell you — and the tuning is covered by the monthly fee.
Is the Spanish-language setup a separate charge?
No. English-only and English-plus-Spanish cost the same. The second language is not a premium. It is who we are.
What about voice — phone calls?
Voice is an add-on: $450 one-time setup. The voice infrastructure is genuinely different from text, so that one we charge for, and we say so on the pricing page rather than burying it. Same agents, same monitoring, same CIPA-compliant disclosure — spoken at the start of the call rather than printed in a chat.
What it does,
and what it won't.
Who actually builds my agent?
Alex Escobar — Candor AI's founder — builds each agent personally, using the company's internal build system. Not a freelancer, not an offshored team, not a wizard you fill out. The reason the client cap is forty is so that each agent gets this kind of attention.
What channels does the agent cover?
Customer-Facing package includes: Instagram DM, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, website chat, SMS, and Google Business messaging. Voice is a separate add-on. Agent Office runs internally — document intake, scheduling, and the back of the house — and is architecturally isolated from anything that touches a customer.
How long does it take to go live?
From the discovery call to a working agent: usually two to four weeks. That includes the discovery interview, build, internal testing, your own review, and the deployment to your channels. The fifteen business day trial begins after the agent is live in your environment, not before.
Will it sound like me?
That's the work. During discovery we ask how you talk to customers, what you say to a regular versus a first-timer, what topics you handle warmly and what topics you stay short on. The agent is built from that — not from a template. You see drafts before it goes live, and you sign off.
What if the agent answers something wrong?
Two layers catch it. First: a second AI agent monitors every conversation the first one has and flags anything unusual to us in near-real-time. Second: you have a direct line — when something looks wrong to you, you reach us, and we answer. The monthly tuning pass closes the loop so the same mistake doesn't repeat.
What does the agent do when it doesn't know?
It says so, and it offers to route the question to a human. The agent is built to flag rather than guess — that's an architectural rule, not a preference. A customer talking to your agent will never get a confidently made-up answer about your pricing, your hours, your services, or anything else the agent isn't certain about.
Can I see what the agent is saying to my customers?
Yes — in real time. Every conversation is visible to you. During the trial this is how you make the decision about whether the agent is a fit. After the trial it's how monthly tuning works: we look at the conversations together, find the moments that could be sharper, and adjust.
Does the agent replace my staff?
No, and the company is built on that not being the pitch. The agent handles the after-hours questions, the repeat questions, the intake before the appointment, the follow-up after — the work that buries small businesses and that nobody enjoys. Your team still does the work that's actually about relationships. Technology in the middle, supporting — never replacing.
How we handle
what gets said.
This section is being finalized with our attorney. The plain-language answers below describe how we operate. The formal Data Processing Agreement and Privacy Policy — the documents with binding language — are in attorney review and will live on this site before the first founding client signs. If anything on this page conflicts with those documents once published, those documents govern.
Where does my data live?
On infrastructure operated in the United States. Conversations, the customer information your agent collects, and the tuning data we use to improve the agent all sit on US-based services with encryption applied both in transit and at rest.
Specifics being finalized in our Data Processing Agreement
The exact vendors we use, the data residency guarantees, and the retention windows are listed in the Data Processing Agreement that our attorney is finalizing.
Do you sell or share my customers' data?
No. We do not sell customer data, we do not share it with advertisers, and we do not use one client's conversations to train an agent for a different client. That's a behavioral commitment we control, and we're saying it in plain language because it should be plain.
What law governs how Candor AI handles data?
California's Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA / CPRA) apply to every Candor AI client by default — Candor AI is a California company. For clients in regulated industries (tax preparation, accounting), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act applies in addition. For clients who handle protected health information, we don't take that work — Candor AI is not a HIPAA business associate.
What about CIPA — recording disclosure?
California's Invasion of Privacy Act requires disclosure when a conversation is recorded or logged. Every Candor AI agent — text and voice — has CIPA-compliant disclosure built into its first message. It's not optional, and it's not a checkbox. It's how the agent opens.
What insurance do you carry?
Pending policy confirmation with our insurance broker
Candor AI is in the process of finalizing Errors & Omissions, General Liability, and Cyber coverage with a licensed California broker. We will publish the specific coverage on this page once the broker has confirmed the policy in writing. We won't make claims about coverage amounts before that confirmation is in hand.
What happens if there's a data incident?
We have an internal incident response plan that covers detection, containment, client notification, and post-incident review. California law (and the CCPA / CPRA notification requirements) governs the timing and form of notification — those obligations are not optional, and we follow them.
Client-facing notification language being finalized
The specific notification timing we'll commit to in writing — beyond what California law requires — will be in the Data Processing Agreement.
Can Candor AI refuse to take a client?
Yes. Candor AI maintains a written framework for when we will and won't take on a prospect — based on whether we can serve them well, whether the business is one we have the expertise to support, and whether the engagement is consistent with how we run the company. Refusals are not based on protected characteristics; they're based on fit.
Framework in attorney review
The full framework — including the specific criteria and the way refusals are communicated — is in attorney review. Once finalized, it lives in our Terms of Service.
Where are the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy?
Being finalized by our attorney
Both documents are in attorney review. They will live on this site before the first founding client signs anything. We will not ask you to sign an agreement we haven't already shared with you in full.
Who we are.
Who runs Candor AI?
Alex Escobar — founder, builder, and the person who answers the phone. Born in Guatemala, raised in San Bernardino, sixteen years in Pomona, casino dealer by trade. The clients Candor AI serves are small business owners in the community Alex grew up in. There's more on the about page.
Why a forty-client cap?
Because doing this right takes time per client that doesn't scale. Forty clients is roughly the number that one builder can know well — well enough to remember the trade, the regulars, the voice, the edges. Past that, the work becomes generic. Generic is what Candor AI is built against. The cap is the feature.
Why only English and Spanish?
Because we will not ship a language we cannot stand behind. English and Spanish are the two languages Alex and the community around him speak fluently — and the Spanish in every agent is reviewed by people from the communities your clients come from before it goes live. Other languages will come when we can hold them to the same standard. Not before.
Where is Candor AI based?
Pomona, California. We serve small businesses across Southern California — that's the geographic scope right now. Out-of-region clients are not on the founding-cohort path.
What if my trade isn't on your list?
Tell us anyway. Some trades fit our current build system right away; others need scaffolding we're still finishing; a few are outside what we're set up to support honestly today. Either way, the answer is straight — and if we can't take it on yet, we'll say why and what would change that. There's a note on the industries page about how this works.
Are you hiring?
Not yet. The company is early enough that hiring will come from the relationships built during the founding cohort. If that changes, it'll be said here first.
How is “candor” not just marketing?
It's the architecture, not the slogan. The agent is built to flag rather than guess. The trial is refundable without argument. The pricing has no hidden surcharges and we wrote down the line items that don't exist. The client cap is honored. When the lawyer hasn't reviewed something, we say so on this page. Candor only counts when it costs us something.
Ask us directly.
This page covers the questions we get most. It does not cover every question — and the questions that are specific to your trade are usually the most useful ones to ask out loud. Send us a note. We will reply personally, and we will tell you honestly whether we're a fit before we ask you to do anything.
Send us a questionFounding cohort is open now.
Send us a note. Tell us what you do, and what you wish you spent less time on. We will reply personally — and tell you honestly whether we are a fit. The trial is real; the deposit is refundable; nothing is locked in until you decide it is.
Email us