Comparison
9x12 Tools vs 9x12 Agency CRM
This is the closest comparison on the site: both products are built for this exact business, both sell a real checkout, and neither takes a cut of your ad revenue. The honest differences are narrower than either of us would like to pretend.
Feature by feature
| Capability | 9x12 Tools | 9x12 Agency CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Integrated advertiser checkoutBoth products do this properly. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something. | Built in — spot flips to Sold on payment | Built in — self-service booking with Stripe or PayPal |
| Platform fee on your ad revenueNeither platform takes a cut of what your advertisers pay you. | 0% | 0% |
| How your payment account connectsObserved in their own Payments settings on a free trial, 31 August 2026: the numbered instructions say to reveal your Stripe secret key and paste it in. A restricted key is offered underneath as an alternative. Anyone can verify this the same way we did, by starting their trial. | Stripe Connect onboarding — we never see an API key | You paste your Stripe API keys into a settings form |
| What the platform holdsStripe classes a secret key as unrestricted permissions on all Stripe APIs and no longer recommends them for new integrations. | Nothing — there is no credential of yours to store | Your API credentials, encrypted at rest |
| Disconnecting the platformWhether leaving is something you do, or something you have to remember to undo. | One click in your own Stripe dashboard | Rotate your API keys |
| Where the charge is createdBoth are direct. Neither platform holds your advertisers' money or pays you on a schedule of its own. | Directly on your own Stripe account | Directly on your own account, using the keys you supplied |
| PayPalTheir advantage, and a real one if your advertisers ask for it. | No — Stripe only | Yes |
| What it costs to tryBoth let you try before paying. Their public demos require no account. Our free tier requires an account and lets you build your own campaign; publishing and advertiser checkout require a paid plan. | Free to build and preview your own campaign — access currently by invitation | Four live demos, plus a 14-day trial with no card |
| USPS EDDM route planningObserved inside their product on 31 August 2026. Both campaigns end up carrying routes; the difference is whether the software selects them, counts the households and prints the paperwork, or whether you do that on usps.com first and copy the answer across. | Pick routes on a map — live carrier routes, household counts, cost per door, paperwork | Manual — type the routes in, or paste them from the USPS site |
| Finding the businesses to callBoth products track prospects. The question is whether the list arrives, or whether you build it first. | Generated from your routes the moment you save them, scored and ranked | Not publicly advertised as generated for you |
| Advertiser self-service workspaceBoth have one, and both are the right answer. | Magic link — intake, artwork, proof approval, refund requests | Advertiser portal |
| Automated advertiser emailDifferent shapes of the same promise: you do not write the follow-up by hand. | Sent on the business fact, keyed so a retry cannot mail anyone twice | Configurable sequences — receipts, reminders, review requests |
| TrainingTheir advantage. We do not sell training and do not intend to. | No — we are a tool, not a course | Free, eight lessons |
| Monthly priceWe are the expensive one, by a lot. The route data, the generated list and the payments architecture are what the difference buys. | $97 founding · $149 · $249 | $59 ($590 a year) |
Where 9x12 Tools is the better fit
- Your Stripe account connects through Stripe's own onboarding, so there is no key of yours on our servers and no key of yours to rotate when you leave
- Charges are created directly on your account and you keep a full Stripe dashboard, which is what makes disconnecting us a single click on your side
- Real USPS EDDM route data with household counts, cost per door and printable paperwork, inside the product
- The list of businesses to call is generated, scored and ranked from your routes rather than assembled by you first
- Server-rendered campaign sites with per-site metadata and structured data, so local search and answer engines get real HTML
- Free to build the entire campaign — you only pay when you publish and switch on checkout
Where 9x12 Agency CRM leaves you holding it
- Connecting payments means handing over API credentials. Stripe describes a secret key as unrestricted permissions on all Stripe APIs, which is every charge, every refund, every customer record and your payout settings
- Because Stripe is not told a platform is connected, there is nothing to revoke — leaving means remembering to rotate the key yourself
- A key on someone else's server cannot carry the access policy Stripe recommends putting on every live key
- Routes are typed in or pasted from the USPS site, so the mail side of the campaign is planned somewhere else and the software only records the answer
- The prospect list is something you bring; the CRM is there to track it once you have
Sources
Every claim about 9x12 Agency CRM above comes from their own published pages, read at the time of writing. Products change — if something here is out of date, tell us and it gets corrected.
Straight answers
Before you ask.
Still not covered? Ask directly and you will get a reply from a person who runs these campaigns.
What does it cost to get started?
Nothing. You create an account, build the card, pick your routes and price your spots without entering a payment method. A plan only starts when you publish the campaign and turn on checkout — the point at which the site can actually take an advertiser's money.
Whose customers are these — mine or yours?
Yours. Your domain, your Stripe account, your advertiser list, exportable whenever you want. We are the tooling underneath your business, not a middleman standing in it.
I already have a site somewhere else. Can I move?
Yes, and you keep your domain — you point it at your new campaign site and it carries on working, so nothing you have printed or handed out goes dead.
Can I cancel?
Any month, from your billing settings. Campaigns that already sold spots stay readable and your advertiser records stay exportable — cancelling stops new selling, it does not lock you out of your own history.
Your next card starts here. Get the invitation.
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