Hospitality
Hospitality
Own vs. rent
Custom apps for restaurant groups — scheduler, online ordering, food cost, reservations — priced to pay for themselves in year one, then yours forever.
01 — The number
Scheduling app. Reservations. Online ordering — plus the commission on every order. Invoice processing. The website subscription. A typical four-unit group pays $2,000–4,000 a month renting software. The rent never stops, the price goes up every renewal, and your operation bends to fit the software instead of the other way around.
You rent, per year
$34,320
Typical four-unit group. $2,860 a month. Every month. Forever.
Own the same stack, once
$26,750
Pays for itself in about 9 months. After that the bill stops — you keep the software.
Five years out
$171,600
Five years of rent — against $26,750 paid once, plus real hosting at cost. Year six of owning: $0.
Your numbers will be different. The Subscription Audit finds your real figure →
02 — Who's building it
Thirty years in restaurants — dishwasher to director of operations for an eight-unit group. The last three, I've worked alongside dozens of Michigan food and beverage owners, including through the SBDC. When I couldn't find compliance software that fit how a restaurant actually operates, I built my own: 86paperwork.com — concept to paying customers, shipped by an operator. The same is true of every tool on your back-office shelf. You could own it, built for your operation, for about what a year of rent costs.
"I'm not a vendor handing you a product. I sit on your side of the pass and we build it together — your stations, your rules, your call."
John O'Meara · Lansing, MI
03 — The next move
The Subscription Audit is $1,500 flat, whatever your group size. You fill out a short questionnaire with what each tool costs you — no logins, no P&L, nothing we don't need. One week later you get your number and a plan.
You fill out the subscription questionnaire — every tool, every monthly line.
We work it through with someone on your team who actually uses the tools.
Inside a week: what you pay, what's worth owning, what's worth keeping, what you're under-using — and anything you're missing. Fixed quotes on whatever we'd build. The fee credits toward your first build.
Start the audit.
No payment now — John invoices after a short fit call.