Trade playbooks

Overview

A playbook is a free, Setell-curated starter setup for your trade. Applying one shapes how Setell behaves for you from the first conversation: the questions Studio asks before drafting a quote, a set of structure-only starter quote templates named for your kind of work, placeholder hints in your shop's vocabulary, and nudges toward the connections that matter (like QuickBooks).

The one thing a playbook never contains is prices. Every price field starts unset. Day one it gives you your trade's structure; connect QuickBooks and Setell learns from what you actually paid and charged — and shows its work on every line. See how the pricing engine learns.

The four playbooks

Each playbook covers a trade cluster, not a micro-niche — the fine-grained specialization comes later, from your own jobs.

What applying one does

• Teaches Studio your intake. Studio learns the price-driver questions for your trade — what a drawing, a size class, or a site condition changes — and asks them before drafting.
• Creates starter quote structures. Named templates with your trade's line items in the right order (for example, a machine shop gets material, setup and programming, run time, finishing, and inspection as separate lines). Structure only — no prices.
• Fills in profile hints. Your shop-profile fields get placeholder suggestions in trade language, so you know what's worth telling Setell about your machines, materials, and processes.
• Shapes your proposals. When you build a full proposal, its sections lean into what your trade's buyers care about — highlighting only facts from your own data, never adding any.
• Suggests the next connections. An ordered set of nudges — connect QuickBooks so pricing learns your real costs, wire inbound email so requests land as drafts, and so on.

Where you can apply one

• Onboarding. New accounts get a playbook picker — choose your trade and the setup happens before your first quote.
• Studio. Ask in plain language: "set me up with the HVAC playbook." Studio applies it and tells you what changed.
• Your own agent (MCP). If you drive Setell from Claude, ChatGPT, or another MCP-aware agent, call setell_list_playbooks to see what's available and setell_apply_playbook to apply one.

What a playbook doesn't do

• It doesn't price anything. There are no rates, no unit prices, no "typical ranges" — a playbook is structure only. Pricing suggestions start once Setell has your data: connect QuickBooks and it mines your recent invoices for pricing signal, and every quote you send and sign sharpens it from there. The pricing engine shows its work on every suggested line.
• It doesn't lock you in. The starter structures become your templates — rename them, add or remove lines, change units, or delete them.
• It doesn't replace your judgment. Studio still drafts, you still review; the playbook just means the draft starts in your trade's shape.

Applying it again later

Re-applying a playbook is safe. Setell returns a report of what it applied and what it skipped — anything you've already edited (a renamed template, a changed profile field) is skipped, never overwritten. Switching playbooks works the same way: additive, with a report.

FAQ

• Do playbooks cost anything? No. Applying a playbook is free — it's the starting scaffold for your account, not a paid add-on.
• My trade isn't listed — can I still use Setell? Yes. Playbooks are a head start, not a requirement. Setell learns any trade from your own QuickBooks history and signed quotes.
• Can I see what a playbook contains before applying it? Yes — each playbook page on the marketing site lists its intake guidance, starter structures, and nudges, and setell_list_playbooks returns the same summary over MCP.

Related

• docs/getting-started/first-quote · docs/connect-quickbooks · docs/meet-studio · docs/import/quickbooks-history

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