Same sovereign system underneath every tier — you always own the box. What changes is two things: how much we build with you, and who holds it once it's yours. The system can hold you itself — that's the soul — or we can hold it with you. Pick the altitude. (Looking for the feature-by-feature walk? That lives on Product.)
Every tier is the same sovereign system. Forget feature checklists for a second — the only two questions that actually decide your tier are: how much do we build with you, and who holds it once it's running. The system can hold you itself (the soul — Steven plus the rituals), or we hold it with you (a standing relationship). Here's the whole map:
| ↓ Who holds it / Build → | DIY kit | Built for you | Bespoke |
|---|---|---|---|
| The soul holds you Steven + rituals; you own it clean |
① Sovereign Kit you run it |
②b Build + Ship Running we build it to you, it holds you |
— |
| We hold it with you a standing relationship |
— | ②a Build + Support we keep it sharp, monthly |
③ Enterprise SLA-backed, federated |
“It holds you” is the product. The soul is what lets you own it outright and still be held — without us in the loop every day.
Three ways in — and Tier 2 comes two ways, depending on who holds it after we hand it off. The full feature walk lives on Product; what each tier buys is how it's built and who holds it.
What's inside → Product
Get the kitHow the build works → Services
Book a buildThe detail → Product · Federation
Talk to usHonest note: the CRM engine — front door, edge, field, green card, Contact 360, messaging, scheduling — is built and running today. Your own Stripe and your own number are in active build and shipped per engagement. We sell what's real and name what's coming.
Every cell below is sourced. Where an incumbent genuinely wins, we say so — credibility is the wedge, not bravado. The honest contrast: GoHighLevel, HubSpot, and Kajabi are mature, broad, well-supported rented systems. The Steven Project is a young, sovereign, AI-native owned system. What we sell is ownership, coherence, and no rent.
| What a buyer escaping SaaS sprawl cares about | GoHighLevel | HubSpot | Kajabi | The Steven Project |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data ownership / self-host | ❌ Cloud-only, no self-host; data lives on GHL servers | ❌ Cloud-only, no on-prem | ❌ Cloud-only | ✅ Self-hosted on your own box; AES-256 encrypted at rest, your key |
| Who holds your customers | ⚠️ You "own" data legally but GHL holds it; in the agency model the agency controls sub-account data, the end client often doesn't | ⚠️ You own it, HubSpot holds it | ⚠️ You own it, Kajabi holds it | ✅ You hold them. The file is on your machine, opaque base64 on disk |
| Monthly rent at scale | ❌ $97–$497/mo + metered email/SMS + AI add-on | ❌ ~$1,200–$2,000/mo all-in for a small biz + $3,000 yr-1 onboarding | ❌ $89–$499/mo + processing fees | ✅ $0 recurring platform rent — you pay your own hardware + your own API/Stripe/Twilio keys |
| Self-learning / improves over time | ❌ Static product; you adapt to it | ❌ Static product | ❌ Static product | ✅ Steven captures friction, promotes patterns, gets better at your business |
| Life + business coherence | ❌ Business-only silo | ❌ Business-only | ❌ Business-only | ✅ One assistant across business + personal rhythms (single field, not 6 silos) |
| Lock-in / export | ⚠️ Raw export possible; workflows/logic don't port — manual rebuild | ⚠️ Full data export, logic doesn't port | ⚠️ CSV export; course media needs 3rd-party tools, no turn-key migration | ✅ No lock-in — it's already yours; nothing to "leave," nothing to ransom |
Sources: vendor ToS / platform docs & published pricing, 2026 — GoHighLevel, HubSpot, Kajabi pricing & self-host analysis. Full citation list in the Steven Project competitive comparison.
Your data never leaves your machine. The Steven Project is the only platform on this list that runs on your own box — GoHighLevel, HubSpot, and Kajabi are cloud-only and none can be self-hosted.
Source: vendor ToS / platform docs, 2026 [1][2].Zero recurring platform rent. Replace $97–$2,000+/month of SaaS rent with a box you own — you pay only your own hardware and your own API keys.
Source: GHL $97–$497/mo + metered [4][8]; HubSpot ~$1,200–$2,000/mo all-in + $3,000 yr-1 onboarding [5]; Kajabi $89–$499/mo [6].One owned box replaces 5+ rented subscriptions. CRM + course builder + messaging + scheduling + automations + an AI assistant — the typical escaping-sprawl buyer pays for four separate rented logins.
Source: stacked vendor pricing, 2026 [5][6][9].A comparison that only flatters itself isn't honest. Here's where the mature platforms genuinely beat us today. We win on architecture, not catalog size — yet.
GHL and HubSpot have years of edge-cases solved, marketplaces, and templates. Steven is young; we win on architecture, not catalog size — for now.
HubSpot has 1,500+ native integrations; Zapier connects ~8,000 apps. We connect via APIs + flows — we don't have a 1,000-app marketplace.
The incumbents run 24/7 staffed support, SLAs, and account managers. We're founder-led plus the assistant — no call center (Corporate adds SLA-backed maintenance).
Public companies, SOC2, huge install bases. We're new; trust is earned, not assumed. That's exactly why every claim above is sourced.
We built this whole sovereign engine ourselves — from scratch, in production. When Stanford open-sourced a runtime with the same architecture in 2026, it didn't hand us a floor; it proved, independently, that the architecture is right. Anyone can have a bare runtime now. So what are the tiers for?
Tell us about your business — solo, small, or corporate. We'll map your ventures, show you the live engine, and scope the build that fits. You always own the box; we keep it sharp.