SaaS is renting.
Build the one you own.
You do not rent your building, your trucks, or your machines. Renting the software your business runs on was only ever the economical choice because custom used to cost ten times what it costs now. That flipped. A tool built to fit nobody is now both worse and more expensive than one built to fit you.
11 systems in production todayYou own 100% of the source & IPPre-qualified BC government supplier
// At a glance
- You own
- 100% source & IP
- Pricing
- Fixed before code
- Break-even vs SaaS
- Year 2.5
- First deliverable
- ~22 days
- Build standard
- WCAG 2.1 AA
- Based
- Vancouver, BC
- You own the source
- Fixed price before code
- Built to WCAG 2.1 AA
- Canadian data residency available
- No subscription
Ten years of rent, next to one build.
Take a single $12,000 a year subscription. Not your whole stack. One tool. Here is where the two paths land.
Keep renting
$120,000
Ten years at $12,000 a year, flat.
- With 5% yearly increases
- ~$151,000
- What you own at year 10
- Nothing
Build it once
$30,000
A $30,000 one-time build, over the same ten years. Hosting is paid to your provider, not to us.
- Break-even
- Year 2.5
- What you own at year 10
- All of it
You are $90,000 to $121,000 ahead by year ten, and the asset is on your side of the balance sheet instead of somebody else's.
Example figures, not a quote. Your build gets one fixed number before any code is written.
Renting made sense when building was expensive.
Subscription software won for a real reason. Fifteen years ago a custom system meant a long project, a big team, and a number most businesses could not justify. Sharing one generalized tool across ten thousand companies was genuinely cheaper, even though it fit none of them properly.
The build cost fell off a cliff. The subscription price did not. It went the other way, every renewal, forever, and it now buys you a product shaped by the average of ten thousand other businesses.
So the trade reversed. Generic software is now the option that is both worse for your operation and, past year two and a half, more expensive. Stock tools are still fine while you are figuring out your process. The day you know it, they become the lid.
Four ways this works.
Same principle in all four: fixed scope, fixed number, and the software ends up yours.
Quick builds and automations
One workflow, one integration, one manual job that eats an afternoon every week. Small scope, short turnaround, quoted flat.
See internal toolsEnterprise builds
Platforms that replace a stack of subscriptions. From $10,000 depending on scope, milestone-billed, and yours at the end.
How engagements are pricedGovernment
Pre-qualified with the Province of BC and the Office of the Auditor General of BC. Fixed price, WCAG 2.1 AA as a build standard, Canadian data residency available.
For public-sector buyersEquity partnerships
For established brick-and-mortar operators digitizing what they already run. Reduced cash plus a minority equity position. Not for startups.
How partner builds workYou deal with the founder.
Eric takes the first call, writes the scope, and stays in the build through handover. There is no account manager between you and the person responsible for the work.
Eric Todhunter
Founder & CEO · Vancouver, BC
What matters in a build is whether the person quoting it has shipped systems that people use every day, and whether they will still be reachable when something breaks at 7am. Both answers are the same person here, and they do not change between the sales call and the handover.
Scope is written by the person who will build it, which is why the number on the proposal holds. Nothing is quoted by someone who then hands the work to a stranger and moves on to the next deal.
BlueStone stays deliberately lean, which is why the overhead of a larger shop does not end up inside your invoice. The firm bids as prime and staffs up on award, with names you approve before anyone starts and their cost already inside the quoted price.
Systems in production today.
Client names stay out of it, on purpose. Every system below is live and running: lease and audit platforms, field-service operations, education apps, and more.
Lease Management System
Track every lease, renewal, key date, and contact. Replaced four spreadsheets and a SaaS tool that did not fit.
- Lease records with renewal + escalation logic
- Document attachments + version history
- Email + dashboard alerts on key dates
Document Repository
A searchable internal vault with version history, access controls, and audit trail. Replaced a shared drive that had stopped scaling.
- Full-text search with smart tagging
- Per-role access controls
- Version history + restore
Compliance & Audit System
Policy library, attestations, audit-ready logs, and evidence collection in one place. Built for teams who get audited.
- Policy library with versioned acknowledgements
- Attestation workflow + reminders
- Immutable audit log with filtering + export
Internal Ticketing System
Request intake, triage, assignment, SLA tracking, and close-out. Built around how the team actually responds, not a generic helpdesk template.
- Custom intake forms per request type
- Triage queue with assignment + escalation
- SLA timers + breach alerts
Move Request System
Desk, office, and asset moves with approvals, scheduling, and crew dispatch. Replaces an email + spreadsheet chain.
- Self-serve move request intake
- Approval routing per request type
- Crew scheduling + capacity view
Electrical Contractor Operations Platform
A full operations platform: quotes, jobs, calendar, inventory, checklists, analytics, upsells, warranties, workers, customers, price book, with AI that auto-classifies line items.
- Quotes, jobs, calendar, dispatch
- Inventory + price book with AI classification
- Workers, onboarding, warranties, upsells
Trades and field service
Where we already know the workflow before you explain it.
Where we already sit on the government side
Three public procurement records, each with a reference number you can check without asking us for anything.
OAG-RFQ-26-068
Runs to 2030-07-07
Pre-qualified supplier to the Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia
Digital Services. Qualified in three categories: Public Cloud Services, Application and System Design, and AI Readiness and Adoption.
ON-003317-03
Pre-qualified, Province of British Columbia Multi-Use List, Service Area 3
Software Development and Testing. The provincial standing list ministries draw from when they scope a build.
BC Digital Marketplace
Registered supplier
Listed on the province’s marketplace for digital opportunities, so BC public bodies can find and invite us directly.
Delivery in progress
We hold an active contract with a Canadian provincial government ministry, client name withheld under contract confidentiality.
To be exact about what the first three are: a pre-qualification is permission to be invited, not a contract award and not a guarantee of work. It means the province has already reviewed us against its criteria and cleared us to bid, so a ministry can go straight to a statement of work instead of running a full open competition.
Insurance and registrations
Bound coverage and registry numbers. Look any of it up, or ask and we will send the certificate.
- Commercial general liability
- $5,000,000
- Professional liability (E&O)
- $2,000,000
- Cyber liability
- $2,000,000
- WorkSafeBC account
- 201966367
Bound and in force.
Bound and in force.
Bound and in force.
Active. Clearance letter on request.
No vague timelines. No surprise invoices.
Four steps from the first call to a system you own.
- 01
Teardown call
Thirty minutes. We walk your current stack and what it costs you, then send a written breakdown of what we would build. You keep it whether you hire us or not.
- 02
Fixed scope and one number
Agreed before any code exists. Public bodies get a clickable prototype before committing budget.
- 03
Build in slices
Weekly check-ins on working software. You watch it come together instead of waiting for a launch date.
- 04
Handover
Source, data, infrastructure, and documentation. We train your people. From that point the software is yours and support is optional.
Then what?
The three questions everyone asks after the word ownership.
- Support is not a retainer
- No flat monthly fee. Take the code and owe nothing, or keep an hourly relationship priced by the complexity of what we built. Critical issues get picked up now and cost more. Small ones land in the next available week.
- Financing that matches your SaaS bill
- If the up-front number is the blocker, we can roughly match what you already pay every month and spread the build across two years. Then the payments stop, which is the part renting never does.
- Migration you barely notice
- Nobody on your team should spend more than about fifteen minutes on the switch. New login, new password, done. Moving the data is our job, not yours.
Rates depend on what we built, so they get quoted with the build rather than published here. The full process is written out here.
Is owning really cheaper than subscribing?
Run it over the life of the tool. A $12,000 a year subscription costs $120,000 over ten years at a flat rate, and closer to $151,000 with a 5% annual increase. A $30,000 build is $30,000, and you own it. Break-even lands around year 2.5. By year ten you are $90,000 to $121,000 ahead, before the hosting and upkeep that vary with the build.
Do we actually own the source code?
Yes. On final payment you own the source, the data, and the IP outright. No licence, no per-seat fee, no lock-in. If you want to hand it to another developer next year, you can, and nothing about it depends on us staying in the picture.
What does support cost after handover?
There is no flat monthly retainer. You can take the code and owe nothing. If you would rather keep us close, it is an hourly relationship priced by the complexity of what we built, and work is triaged by severity. Something critical gets picked up immediately and costs more. Something small lands in the next available week.
What if we cannot fund a build up front?
We can roughly match what you already spend on the software you are replacing and spread the build over two years. At the end the payments stop, which is the part a subscription never does, and the software is yours.
How disruptive is switching off our current system?
Nobody on your team should spend more than about fifteen minutes getting set up: a new login, a new password, done. We move the data. Cutover is planned around your calendar, not ours.
How much does a build cost?
It depends on scope, and we quote one fixed number before any code is written. A single automation is a small project. A platform that replaces a stack of subscriptions starts at $10,000 and scales with what it has to do. We do not publish a price list, because a price list would be a guess about your requirement.
Thirty seconds. Five questions.
Tell us where you are and we will point you at the right next step: a call, a small pilot, or a free teardown. No sitting through a pitch to find out.
// Step 1 of 5
How big is your team?
Start with a teardown of what you are renting.
We go through your current tools and what they cost, mark what a build would replace, and tell you plainly when the answer is to keep paying the subscription. You leave with the written breakdown either way.
Not ready for a call?
Leave an email instead
We will send a short, specific teardown of where owning beats renting for you. Add a phone number if you would rather we call.
A real person reads every one. No spam, no sharing your info, ever.