A field guide
What is custom acquisition & retention software?
Custom acquisition & retention software is one system your company owns outright that both wins customers — paid-ad engines, lead systems, AI SDRs — and keeps them — onboarding, health scoring, renewals — instead of renting the pieces as per-seat SaaS. Shattuck Software builds it and ships a working demo before you pay.
Two jobs, one system you own outright: software that wins you customers, and software that keeps them — built for your business, not rented from a vendor. Scroll to see it, built from the real products we ship.
See how it works ↓The definition
Most companies rent their growth. Owners build it.
Off-the-shelf SaaS rents you a fraction of the job, per seat, forever. Custom acquisition & retention software is one system, shaped to exactly how you win and keep customers — that you own instead of rent. It does two things:
01
Acquisition
The machine that brings customers in — paid-ad engines, lead discovery, outreach and qualification, running and optimising on their own.
02
Retention
The machine that keeps them — onboarding, customer-success ops, health scoring and renewals, so the customers you won don’t churn.
Part 1
Acquisition. The software that wins customers.
It runs the channels that bring people in — and unlike an agency or a SaaS seat, it works 24/7, audits itself, and belongs to you. Here are five we’ve shipped, rebuilt from their real interfaces:
A1
Acquisition command center
A whole ad fleet, run by agents
Gravitational OS runs 30 dealer ad accounts, 100% AI-automated — spend, leads and CPL optimised live, every action logged. This is what a paid-acquisition engine you own looks like while it’s working.
Rebuilt from gravitational.mikee.ai/demo
A2
Paid-acquisition OS
10 agents, auditing ~300 live ads
A mission-control layer over Google Ads & Meta: ten specialised agents sweep negatives, test copy, sync CAPI conversions and cut wasted spend — closed-loop and switcher-first.
Rebuilt from doorloop.mikee.ai
A3
Acquisition analytics
Every stage, measured & tuned
A paid-acquisition engine you own doesn’t just spend — it watches the whole funnel. Impressions to won, every conversion rate tracked live and every leak found and closed automatically.
Rebuilt from a live acquisition-funnel view
A4
Acquisition is also finding
Turn raw data into a qualified pipeline
Acquisition isn’t only ads. This finds and scores cash-flowing multifamily deals across a county — filtered, mapped, ranked — the same way a custom system can surface and qualify your best-fit customers.
Rebuilt from houses.mikee.ai
A5
Acquisition → qualified
An AI rep that qualifies every lead
Finding customers is only half of acquisition — you still have to qualify them. This AI SDR works each inbound lead in real time, scores fit and books the demo. Software you own, not another per-seat tool.
Rebuilt from an AI-SDR qualification flow
Part 2
Retention. The software that keeps them.
Winning a customer is half the job. Retention software runs the operation that keeps them — one command center for success, health, and renewals.
R1
Retention command center
One operating system for keeping customers
A custom platform — 50 data models, 380+ API endpoints — running tasks, a retention pipeline, customer health and a live activity feed. The work that turns a closed deal into a renewal, in software you own.
Rebuilt from os.mikee.ai/app (L&S Command Center)
R2
Retention intelligence
See churn before it happens
Keeping customers means knowing which ones are slipping. A health radar scores every account in real time — healthy, watch, at-risk — so success work lands where it matters and renewals never surprise you.
Rebuilt from a customer-health command view
R3
Retention runs on owned infrastructure
Engines that never sleep — or churn
Lead engines and send engines that discover, verify and reach customers at scale, autonomously — 10,000 emails/day, 38K businesses, 56K verified — with a one-click kill-switch. Owned ops, not rented seats.
Rebuilt from the Cold-Email + OSS Apollo engines
The part that matters
And you own all of it.
Every screen above is real software we built — not a template, not a SaaS seat. When acquisition and retention run on software you own, the leverage compounds and the bill doesn’t. That’s custom acquisition & retention software.
By the numbers
Proof, not promises
Shattuck Software has shipped 47 live products, displaced 28 commercial tools, and replaced about $3,496/mo of per-seat SaaS with software clients own outright — built on 15 years of hands-on acquisition work and $50M+ in managed ad spend, from Damascus, Oregon.
47live products shipped
28commercial tools displaced
$3,496/moSaaS replaced with software clients own
$50M+ad spend managed by the founder
15 yrshands-on, full-stack & AI-native
FAQ
Common questions
What kind of software do you build?
Custom web apps, AI agents, automation systems, marketing platforms, and internal tools — the kind that replaces recurring SaaS costs or unlocks a capability no off-the-shelf product covers. We've shipped 47 live products across real estate, home services, B2B lead-gen, agencies, and more.
Is it cheaper to build custom software or buy SaaS?
Over a two-to-three-year horizon, owned custom software is usually cheaper than a stack of per-seat SaaS, because SaaS recurs forever while a build is a one-time cost that becomes an asset you own. The break-even depends on how many seats and tools you're replacing — we replace about $3,496/mo of SaaS for a typical client. Build when the workflow is core to how you win or keep customers; buy when an off-the-shelf tool already fits.
What is the 1-Day Build, and how does demo-before-you-pay work?
You put down a $100 refundable deposit, we scope your project, and we ship you a working demo — before you commit to a full engagement. Don't want to move forward after seeing it? You get your deposit back, no questions asked.
Do I own the code?
Yes — fully. You get the source code, the repositories, and all IP. We don't retain licenses, usage rights, or vendor lock-in of any kind. Owning it outright instead of renting it indefinitely is the whole point of custom software.
What SaaS or commercial tools can custom software replace?
We've displaced 28 commercial tools so far — CRMs, lead-gen and outreach platforms, ad-automation tools, customer-success and reporting SaaS, and stacks of single-purpose subscriptions. If a tool charges per seat or per contact for something core to your acquisition or retention, it's usually a candidate to own instead of rent.
How is this different from hiring an agency or a dev shop?
A senior operator builds your software directly — no account managers, no offshore handoffs, and no per-seat SaaS we resell you. You get a working demo before you pay, you own the result outright, and the person who scopes the project is the person who ships it. Most agencies rent you a retainer; we hand you an asset.
Ship a working demo before you pay a cent.
We scope it, build it, and hand you something live — within one business day. A $100 refundable deposit is all it takes to start. If the demo doesn't impress you, you owe us nothing.