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The Empire flagship

Build your digital empire.

The Empire is my flagship build, from $10,000, for resorts, clubs, real estate teams, venues, clinics, and municipalities. When the website has to carry bookings, memberships, events, listings, payments, and portals, it stops being a brochure and becomes infrastructure.

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Six subscriptions, none of which quite fit.

An operation this size rarely has one problem. It has a stack that grew a tool at a time, each one solving the thing in front of it, and nobody has added up what the seams cost. The moment a spreadsheet stops being enough is the same story one size down. The case for a custom CRM covers when buying software stops being the cheaper answer.

  • A booking sits in one system, the guest record in another, and the deposit in a third, so somebody reconciles them by hand every week.
  • Staff hold logins for six tools, and the one person who understands how they connect is not always at work.
  • A guest, member or client cannot do the obvious thing without an email to you first, so the obvious thing does not get done.
  • Every tool is nearly right, which is why none of them ever gets replaced.
  • The reporting question you actually care about takes an afternoon in a spreadsheet, so it gets asked once a year instead of once a month.
  • The subscriptions renew whether the season was good or not.

What the rented stack costs

$
How much of that one system could replace

$10,200 a year, rented.

Replacing half of that covers a $10,000 build in about 2.0 years, and the software bill keeps not arriving after that.

Being straight about what does not go away. Card processing still costs what it costs, and hosting is still a bill. Anything genuinely best in class at its job should usually stay and be connected rather than rebuilt. The saving is the half-fitting middle, not the whole invoice.

Why this matters

For a destination business, the website is the revenue path, not the billboard.

Serious buyers research, compare, and commit online before they ever arrive. Most sites at this scale were never built to carry that. Bookings, events, and payments get bolted onto a brochure site one plugin at a time, and none of them talk to each other. And a generic theme quietly tells a serious buyer the experience might be generic too. The numbers on direct business make the stakes plain.

80%

of travelers now book entirely online

For destination and hospitality businesses, the website is no longer a brochure. It is the front desk, the reservation line, and the first handshake. If it cannot carry the booking, the booking goes somewhere else.

Stratos Jets travel booking data

$519

average direct booking, vs $320 through an OTA

SiteMinder found the average reservation made on a hotel’s own site was worth far more than one booked through a third party. A website that owns the booking owns the margin, not just the guest.

SiteMinder Hotel Booking Trends via PhocusWire

~50%

of online bookings are now direct

Direct bookings have grown to roughly half of all online reservations. Every guest who books on your platform instead of a marketplace is a relationship you own and a commission you keep.

HFTP hotelier booking trends

One owned platform that coordinates the whole operation, built to flagship craft.

Empire is the step after Engine. Engine is a strong website for a business with one location and one audience. Empire is for the moment the site has to do real operational work: more pages, multiple audiences, industry SEO, booking and payment workflows, and portals. Every piece is built to the standard a board would expect of any serious capital investment.

  • A competitor audit, industry positioning, and a digital strategy before a single page is designed
  • Security, performance, and accessibility built in from the first commit, not patched on later

The full deliverables menu lives in the package below, so nothing here is a mystery.

Where the line sits: the Empire includes an admin area for everything the site runs, and in most cases I can wire in the CRM or booking system you already pay for. A custom CRM or internal tool is a bigger build than a website and is priced on its own. Added to an Empire it starts at $5,000, because the accounts, roles, admin shell and design system are already built and paid for. Standalone it is a web app, from $10,000.

The real power is the system behind the page.

At Empire scale, the pages are the smaller half. The systems behind them are where the operation actually runs. I build those custom, around exactly what you need, and you own them.

  1. 01

    Lead capture and follow-up

    Every inquiry from the site captured, routed to the right person, chased, and measured, instead of dying in an inbox. A full CRM is a larger build and is priced separately below.

  2. 02

    Workflows and automations

    Forms, notifications, approvals, and internal admin tools that take repetitive work off your team.

  3. 03

    Inventory, scheduling, and job tracking

    The day-to-day records your staff keep in spreadsheets today, moved into one system with one login.

  4. 04

    Quote pipelines and secure intake

    From first request to signed approval, every step tracked and nothing lost in an email thread.

Clear to Enter is this tier, running in production.

Clear to Enter is my own product rather than client work: a bilingual Canadian immigration platform with eight calculators, verified draw datasets, a 656-entry legal-reference explorer, a public verification ledger with automated source checks, and locale-aware search structure across more than 3,000 generated pages. It is live, and I designed, built, shipped, and still run it.

That is the honest answer to the question behind an Empire quote, which is rarely about price and almost always about whether one person can finish something this size.

See it liveHow it was built

I aim to replace your subscription stack.

Most organizations rent a stack of monthly tools that do not talk to each other and hold your data. I build the pieces you actually use into one system you own.

Before

A booking app, a CRM, a form builder, a scheduler, a membership platform, an analytics add-on. Six logins, six monthly bills, and your data scattered across all of them.

After

One custom system you own, shaped around how you operate, with your data in one place and no monthly fees for features you never touch.

Scope determines what is practical to replace. I will tell you when an existing tool is the better call.

The investment

The flagship build, priced to the scope.

Empire is for organizations where the website becomes the operation. Every build is custom, so the final investment is mapped to exactly what you need, with no ceiling on how far it can go.

The Empire

Flagship

From $10,000

Custom quote. Scope determines final investment.

The full revenue machine, not just more pages.

For organizations where the website coordinates the machine: 7+ custom pages, multiple revenue paths, bookings, memberships, events, listings, products, portals, payments, email, and analytics in one coherent, owned system.

How billing works

The Empire is not on the Own It Monthly plan. Builds this size bill by milestone: you pay as agreed stages go live, and I price the scope before anything starts.

Perfect for

Any organization whose website has to run the operation, with bookings, memberships, events, listings, payments, and accounts, not just describe it.

Delivery: From 8 weeks

The possibilities are endless

A menu of what Empire can include. I scope the right mix to your goals, not a fixed checklist.

  • Competitor audit and full digital strategy
  • Complete brand identity system
  • Full Coverage included: a page for every community you serve
  • Up to 50 SEO pages and guides in total, built to hit your ranking and inbound-link goals
  • High-intent industry SEO across your real markets
  • An admin area where you edit bookings, events, listings and pages yourself
  • Your existing CRM or booking system connected, where the software allows it
  • Member accounts, secure logins, and role-based access
  • Funnels for bookings, memberships, events, products, or locations
  • Online payments, deposits, and paid flows with Stripe
  • Custom calculators, finders, and interactive tools for your audience
  • Automated email, document and PDF generation, and data-driven pages
  • Bilingual or multilingual architecture when you need it
  • Ownership handoff, access cleanup, documentation, and lifetime Lodge access
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Real builds, real owners.

Summit Handyman, a trades platform in Langley, BC, and Family Designs & Creations, a maker site in Castlegar, are real client builds shipped on this same standard. I build from Castlegar for organizations across the Kootenays and beyond.

For Empire-scale work, see two concept builds: City of Silvermere, a municipal platform, and Vale Realty, a real estate platform. Both carry a visible concept build label, because they are demonstrations, not client work.

See the full portfolio

From a real client, on Facebook

Brett from Kootenay Made Digital built my website for my business. He was very friendly and professional, really took my website to a high level. It’s easy for customers to navigate and makes my life a lot easier with all their information on the request an estimate feature. Any minor issues he has been very receptive and promptly fixed! I highly recommend getting your business site built by Kootenay Made Digital!
Brody, sole proprietor of Summit Handyman, Langley BC
Path to launch

From scattered digital presence to an owned operating system.

  1. 01

    I map the build

    Audiences, offers, revenue paths, content, workflows, and competitors, all named before anything is designed.

  2. 02

    I design the system

    Brand direction, page architecture, and the journey behind each booking, membership, listing, or event.

  3. 03

    I build the machine

    The platform, integrations, payments, portals, analytics, and content structure as one coherent build.

  4. 04

    I hand off and stay close

    You get ownership, access, documentation, and training. After launch, my care plans keep the platform healthy.

What I need from you

A build this size moves at the speed of the slowest answer, and the slowest answer is almost never code. It is an export nobody can produce, a login held by a vendor who left, or a rule three people describe differently. Naming these on day one is what keeps a build quoted from eight weeks from quietly running to twenty.

Access to what is running today

  • Admin logins for the booking, member or listing system, or the name of whoever holds them.
  • An export of the data that has to survive the move: members, bookings, listings, past orders.
  • Someone who can tell me what the odd fields in that export actually mean.
  • The domain and DNS, and whoever currently controls them.

Decisions that need one voice

  • One person who can decide, or a group that can meet on a known date rather than when everyone is free.
  • The rules as they really are: deposits, cancellations, member tiers, refunds, who gets comped.
  • What has to stay exactly as it is because a regulator, a board, or a franchise says so.
  • Which of your current tools stay connected and which are being retired.

Timelines count from the day I have these. If something takes a while to find, that is normal and it is not a problem, but the finish moves with it and I will tell you the day it slips rather than at the end.

After launch, my site care plans keep the platform maintained. The full path, payment terms and all, lives on the process page.

Empire is built around the market you actually need to win.

A resort should not be structured like a golf course. A real estate platform should not behave like a municipal site. Here is what the system behind the page looks like for each field.

Resorts and hospitality
Availability, direct bookings, a guest portal, deposits, and occupancy analytics that show what actually sells.
Golf and clubs
Tee times or bookings, memberships, dues and renewals, events, and a member portal in one system.
Real estate
Lead tracking, saved searches, showing requests, a client portal, and listing admin in one place.
Memberships and venues
A member or registrant database, dues, ticketing, event management, and a private resource portal.
Clinics and professional firms
Secure intake, client document portals, matter or case tracking, booking with reminders, and billing.
Municipal and organizations
Service requests, public records, permits and forms, notifications, and reporting departments can rely on.
Multi-location businesses
Per-location pages, inventory or scheduling, role-based admin access, and rolled-up reporting across sites.

What serious organizations ask before the rebuild.

What is The Empire package?+

The Empire is my flagship custom platform build, from $10,000, scoped to your goals. The full menu, pricing, and billing details live in the packages section on this page.

See the Empire package
How is Empire different from Engine?+

Engine is my $6,500 website for a business with one location and one audience. Empire starts where the site has to do real operational work: multiple audiences, bookings, payments, portals, and content at scale. If you are not sure which you need, run the free check-up and I will point you at the right one.

Can Empire take direct bookings instead of sending guests to an OTA?+

Yes, and that is often the point. A direct booking is worth more and keeps the guest relationship and the commission with you. Empire captures the reservation, membership, registration, or inquiry cleanly on your own site.

Does Empire include industry SEO?+

Yes. Empire is built around specific search intent: resort websites, golf course websites, real estate websites, municipal website design, tourism websites, venue websites, membership websites, and regional business infrastructure.

What can I actually change myself after launch?+

Everything the site runs. Bookings, events, listings, members, pages, prices, photos, and text all live in an admin area you log into, so you are never waiting on me to fix a typo or add a date. What stays with me is code and design work, which is what the support plans cover. If you can use online banking, you can use the admin.

Can you connect the software I already use?+

Usually, and that is often the cheaper answer than building something new. Most modern tools such as HubSpot, Jobber, Square, Mailchimp, and the main booking platforms offer an API, which is the doorway that lets your website read and write data inside them. Two honest limits. What comes through depends on the permissions that software allows: some let me request narrow, read-only access, others only issue a key that unlocks the whole account, and a few older systems offer no connection at all. And custom fields you have added yourself often are not available even when the standard data is. I check your specific setup before quoting, so you learn what is actually possible before you pay for it.

Who actually owns the site and the access when it launches?+

You do. Empire ends with a clean handoff of domains, hosting, access, analytics, and documentation, so your team or board controls the asset. Every login sits in your name and the documentation states exactly who holds which key.

Is this cybersecurity or penetration testing?+

No. Empire includes secure-by-default planning, access hygiene, ownership clarity, and a clean handoff, but Kootenay Made does not replace a cybersecurity firm, lawyer, insurer, or penetration tester when that specialist work is required.

If the business is bigger than a brochure, build the Empire.

Start with the free 60-second website check-up, an automated scan of your current site: speed, SEO, security headers, and best practices. Then bring the moving parts, from bookings to memberships to payments, and I will map the build before the first stone moves.

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Already have one?

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Not at Empire scale yet? Compare website packages.

Refer a neighbour who signs, and I e-transfer you $200. Anyone can refer, there is no limit, and it pays out when their first payment clears (second payment for Own It Monthly projects).