Questions
The questions people ask before they buy a build.
Ownership, hosting, risk, timelines and who we work with. If your question is not here, ask it and we will answer it the same way.
Do I really own it?
Yes. You own the code, the database and the accounts it runs on. In your name, in writing, from the start.
There is no license to renew, no seat count to report and no feature that switches off if you stop paying us. If you hire your own developer next year, they clone the repository and keep going.
What happens if you disappear?
You keep the software and it keeps running. It lives in your hosting account, under your domain, with the code in a repository you control. Nothing calls back to Calkite.
We build for a developer who has never met us: standard tools, no private framework, the setup written down. Any competent agency or in-house hire can take it over.
The care plan is a service you buy from us. It is not the thing keeping the lights on.
Who hosts it?
You do, in accounts opened in your company's name. We set up the hosting, the database and the domain, and we can run all of it for you.
You pay the providers directly, so you see the real bill with no markup from us. If we are running it and you later cancel the care plan, the accounts stay yours and nothing goes dark.
Isn't custom software risky?
The usual risk is paying for something you do not see until the end. We remove that. You click through a working design of the real thing before we build the system behind it, and you get usable pieces as we go instead of one delivery at the end.
For replacement builds, the new system runs next to your current subscription for 30 days before anything is cancelled. If it does not replace what you use today, you do not pay.
The other risk is worth naming. Software you rent can change its price, its roadmap or its owner, and you get no vote on any of it.
Can we run it next to our current software first?
Yes, and we recommend it. Your data is migrated in, your team works in both for 30 days, and you cancel the subscription when the new system is clearly doing the job.
No one has to bet a week of work on a switchover date.
How long does a build take?
It depends on what we are replacing and how much of it your team actually uses. Most tools carry a long feature list that nobody opens, and we do not rebuild those parts.
The free software review is where we scope it. You get a timeline before you commit to anything, not after.
You will not wait until the end to see it either. The clickable design comes first, then working pieces, in short steps.
What does the care plan cover?
Hosting and the accounts behind it, monitoring, backups, security updates, bug fixes, and the small changes you ask for as you work. A new field, a new report, a new email template: those are part of it, not a change order.
Larger pieces of new work get quoted on their own, so you decide whether they are worth it.
It is optional and it is monthly. Cancel any month and you keep the software, the data and the accounts.
Whether any price or range goes on the site, and the build-price formula for the calculator
Can you connect to the tools we keep?
Usually, yes. Accounting, email, e-signature, payroll, phone systems, mapping, listing portals: if it has an API, we connect to it.
Keep what works. The goal is one system your team opens every morning, not a clean sweep of every vendor you have.
If something you depend on has no way in, we tell you before you commit rather than after.
Do you work with startups?
Yes. For founders without a technical team, we are the development team: we build the product and you own every line of it.
For startups that already have engineers, including AI companies, we take the parts they do not have hands for. The ownership terms are the same as for everyone else.
What industries do you work with?
Commercial real estate is where we go deepest. We replaced a Buildout subscription for a brokerage in Dallas with a listing platform, a brochure engine and a CRM that the brokerage owns.
Construction is next, for the same reason: jobs, crews, documents and change orders spread across spreadsheets and apps that do not talk to each other.
Outside those two, the useful question is not which industry you are in. It is whether you rent software that does not fit, or run on spreadsheets and five disconnected apps. That pattern looks the same everywhere.
Still have a question?
Send us what you pay for every month. We will tell you what to keep, what to combine and what to replace.