The Doozer Score — the Stick, the Tower, and the leverage between them

systems/the-doozer-score.md · System · metrics, cost, value, digest, telegram, strategy

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One tracked number for whether Doozer is getting cheaper and more valuable at the same time. Stick = cost of 100 sites, Tower = replacement value of 100 sites, Score = Tower / Stick.

The Doozer Score

Fraggle Rock Doozers build towers out of construction sticks. So do we.

• STICK — what 100 Doozer sites cost to build. Measured from our own ledgers

(ai_generation_history + places_api_calls) over a trailing 30 days, never estimated.

• TOWER — what those same 100 sites would cost the owners if a human web developer

built them. Replacement cost at doozer_score_site_value (default $750/site, a conservative floor for a small-business one-pager).

• DOOZER SCORE = TOWER / STICK — leverage. How many dollars of delivered work every

dollar of spend produces. It rises when cost falls or value rises, which is exactly the pair of things worth watching together.

First reading (2026-08-22): Stick $24.66 · Tower $75,000 · Score 3,041x. Network at replacement value: $2.70M across 3,602 sites.

Where it appears

includes/doozer-score.php, dz doozerscore [days=30] [record=1]. A row lands in doozer_score_daily every time the pulse or digest runs, so the trend is measured rather than recomputed from memory. Rendered in:

• the Telegram pulse (doozerScoreLine()), deliberately right next to the spend line

so cost is never read without value beside it;

• the operator edition of the Doozer Digest (doozerScoreHtml()).

It is never shown to subscribers. The digest email goes to real people who followed a local business; they get their neighbourhood news, not our unit economics. The score is attached only when $userId === null (the un-personalized network edition).

The honesty rules — this number is flattering and could rot into vanity

1. TOWER IS REPLACEMENT COST, NOT REVENUE. It is what the work would cost to buy

elsewhere. Nobody paid it. realized_usd reports actual revenue separately and the two are never blended. Today realized is $0, and the digest says so out loud.

2. The rate is an assumption and is always stated wherever the score is shown.

Change doozer_score_site_value, change the number.

3. STICK is marginal production cost only — AI plus Google APIs. It excludes hosting

and operator time, and says so.

Why it exists

Doozer got a $1,300 surprise bill because cost was invisible. The reflex fix was a spend cap, which controls cost but tells you nothing about whether the spending is worth it. The Score is the other half: it makes "we got cheaper" and "we got more valuable" a single line the operator reads every morning.

Moving the writer to gpt-5.4-mini ([[writer-model-and-accuracy]]) took the AI share of a Stick from $3.40 to $0.75.

Related: [[the-flywheel]], [[writer-model-and-accuracy]], [[events-to-machines]].