No hype. Just what works.
Free tools, buyer guides, original research, the blog, and AI prompt packs. Written by the team that ships the work, for the operators who run the business.
Run the numbers. Find your first move.
Free, in your browser, no email required.
AI Readiness Assessment
Score your readiness in 5 minutes and get the specific moves to make next.
AI Use Case Canvas
Brainstorm AI use cases across every function, then plot them on value vs. effort to find what to do first.
AI Maturity Model
Find your rung (crawl, walk, or run) on the five principles of scaling AI, and the next one to climb.
AI ROI Calculator
Estimate the hours and dollars automation could give back, and the return against what it costs.
Value-at-Stake Calculator
Turn an improvement into annual value, EBITDA impact, and equity created, in CFO and board language.
Private LLM Decision Tool
Six questions on whether a private, self-hosted model is worth it for your business, or overkill.
Go deeper.
Buyer guides
In-depth guides on custom software, modernization, AI, and automation, plus criteria-based guides for choosing a partner.
AI use cases by role
Where AI and automation fit depending on your seat: owner/CEO, COO, CFO, sales, marketing, HR, IT, legal, and more.
By industry
Where software and AI move the number in your operation: logistics, energy, healthcare, financial and professional services, and more.
What custom software costs
Typical budgets and schedules by type of project, and how we handle your money.
Table Stakes roundtable
A free, invite-only peer roundtable for middle-market operators.
FAQ
Plain answers on what we do, who we work with, pricing, process, security, and results.
Original research and recent reading.
The State of AI in the Texas Middle Market
Our 2026 report: the adoption gap, why most projects stall, the PE push, and a Texas sector-by-sector view of where the value is.
The Guest Experience Gap
Original field research: our 2026 study of 50+ location-based entertainment venues.
The Guest Experience Gap: A 2026 LBE Field Study
Frogslayer deployed trained researchers to 50+ location-based entertainment venues as real guests. This is what breaks — and what it costs operators. Free PDF, no gate.
How Much Does Custom Software Cost in 2026?
Real ranges from a firm that publishes its prices: $20K–$75K for a utility, $120K–$750K for modernization, $600K+ for a custom ERP. What moves the number, and how to start for $3,500.
Does Custom Software Qualify for the R&D Tax Credit?
Often, yes. The federal R&D credit covers a lot of custom software work, and it can return a real share of what you spend. The four-part test in plain language, what qualifies, what does not, and what changed in 2025.
How to Claim the R&D Tax Credit on a Software Project
The process from first conversation to filed return: who does what, the documentation the IRS expects, the form, the payroll-tax option for young companies, and the Texas credit. Written from what we have seen working alongside clients' tax partners.
What Your Software Firm Should Hand You for an R&D Credit Claim
A checklist of what a software firm should be able to produce for your tax partner, what we provide as a normal part of an engagement, and what we do not do. From working alongside clients' CPAs and credit specialists on their claims.
Signs You Have Outgrown Your Software
How to tell when QuickBooks, the spreadsheets, an off-the-shelf ERP, or a vendor's platform has stopped keeping up with your business, and what to do about each one.
Practical prompts by function.
Copy, paste, use today. One pack per function, written for the work your team actually does.
AI prompts for finance teams
Operator-grade prompts for finance teams — statement analysis, board memos, cash forecasts, covenant checks, M&A diligence, and PE sponsor reporting.
AI prompts for leadership teams
Operator-grade prompts for owners and senior leaders: framing decisions, board and investor comms, people and culture, synthesis, and personal effectiveness.
AI prompts for operations teams
Operator-grade prompts for weekly reviews, customer health, workflow analysis, decisions, people, and vendors — drawn from real client patterns.
AI prompts for sales teams
Operator-grade prompts for pre-call prep, discovery, proposals, pipeline review, expansion, and lost-deal analysis.
AI prompts for marketing teams
Operator-grade prompts for marketing — competitor scans, campaign briefs, content repurposing, email and landing-page drafts, and clean monthly reporting.
AI prompts for research & strategy
Operator-grade prompts for research & strategy — market scans, competitive analysis, strategic-options memos, win/loss synthesis, scenarios, and build-vs-buy.
AI prompts for HR & people ops
Operator-grade prompts for HR & people ops — JDs, screening rubrics, interview guides, onboarding, reviews, policies, and engagement analysis.
AI prompts for IT teams
Operator-grade prompts for IT — postmortems, documentation, runbooks, ticket triage, vendor evaluation, access reviews, and tech-debt assessment.
AI prompts for customer service teams
Operator-grade prompts for customer service — reply drafts, escalation triage, KB articles, ticket-theme analysis, churn-risk flags, and QA review.
AI prompts for project & program management
Operator-grade prompts for project & program management — charters, risk registers, status reports, notes-to-actions, RAID logs, and retrospectives.
Results that actually moved.
ROI-positive in month one from freight operations intelligence
A national freight provider turned fragmented operational data into real-time intelligence — ROI-positive in the first month.
$24M in new revenue, untangled in two months
After an acquisition stalled on tangled systems and data, we untangled it fast — protecting $24M in new revenue in two months.
Scaling K-12 test prep from 350K to 800K+ students
Modernized the platform behind a K-12 essay-scoring service so it could scale from 350,000 to more than 800,000 students without breaking.
Partner, not vendor.
They were really good at listening. They actually offered up things I’d never thought of and helped me improve the look and feel of the app.
We started the development process to solve a problem and we ended up transforming the efficiency and profitability of our entire business.