Stuck on a Canvas version you can’t upgrade? Inherited tech debt from a build that never got finished? Want to extend Canvas with AI - without a $20k discovery deck first?
By an ex-Airdev engineer who shipped Canvas apps inside the agency - and now operates Ohana, a Stripe-featured marketplace.
Apps on v5 or older can’t upgrade to v6 - you’d have to rebuild on the new template. Every Canvas release widens the gap and the agency’s answer is “start over.”
Bubble doesn’t let Canvas import style variables. Every theme tweak ripples through the app by hand, and the design system that was meant to save time is now the bottleneck.
Reusable elements that should be central become copy-pasted everywhere. Privacy rules drift. The agency’s answer to “why is this slow?” is a new SOW with another discovery phase.
Every meeting billed. Every PM check-in billed. Every clarification email logged against your budget. White-glove pricing for templated work you don’t need a project manager to relay.
Whichever mode you start in, the first step is the same - a real look at your Canvas app from someone who’s built them.
For Canvas apps that are stuck, broken, or quietly bleeding.
Audit the existing build, untangle the tech debt, fix the broken bits, and document what’s actually there. We’ve seen every Canvas pattern - good and bad - from the inside.
For Canvas apps that work - but need to do more.
Ship new features inside your existing Canvas app without breaking what works. Reusable elements done properly. Workflows that respect the framework instead of fighting it. The shipping cadence you wanted when you signed up.
For Canvas apps that want to ship AI features without a rewrite.
Connect your Canvas app to Claude, GPT, or any model via OpenRouter. Chatbots that know your data. Automations that run in the background. AI-powered search. Inside your existing Canvas build - no platform migration required.
For Canvas apps that have outgrown Bubble entirely.
Sometimes the rescue verdict is: this app needs to leave Bubble. Same six-phase migration playbook we use for any Bubble app - but with someone who knows Canvas patterns inside-out, so the migration doesn’t carbon-copy the framework’s quirks into the new codebase.
See the full migration playbook →Airdev is a serious agency that built important things - including Canvas itself. But when you’re a $5k - $200k client of a 1,000-project agency, you’re paying for things you may not actually need.
Account manager, project manager, designer, developer, QA. Every layer is a cost line. Every cost line is a meeting you’re billed for.
You pick the agency. The engineer assigned to you varies by project, by quarter, by whoever’s available. Quality varies with them.
1,000 projects shipped means a process designed for repeatability. Great for them, often great for you - but not when your build needs a real engineer’s judgment.
How we’re different
You talk straight to the senior who’s writing your code. No PMs, no account managers, no meetings billed to your account. Fixed scope, fixed cost, named engineer - the same engineer who shipped Canvas apps inside Airdev.
~50%
Typical saving
And the price tag
Boutique practice, not a 1,000-project agency. No PM layer, no account-management overhead, no internal handoffs to bill against your project. The same senior engineer scopes, builds, and ships - which is where the cost savings actually come from.
Comparison based on quotes shown to clients who came to us after receiving an Airdev quote for the same scope.
Low-commitment first step. We earn the bigger engagement through the audit - not before.
We look at your Canvas app together - live - and you tell us what hurts. No NDA. No slide deck.
Two-week paid audit: tech debt, upgrade path, performance, the parts the agency never told you about. You walk away with a written report.
Prioritised, costed, sequenced. Rescue work, new features, AI extensions, or migration - whichever the audit recommends. Phase-by-phase pricing, no surprises.
Proof we ship serious systems
Canvas is one of several frameworks we’re fluent in. The standard we hold ourselves to is “production code we still want to ship to a year from now” - whether it’s Canvas, plain Bubble, or a fully custom code stack.
Read the Ohana case study →30-minute call. We look at your app live. Tell you honestly what we see - what’s wrong, what’s salvageable, what we could ship in a week vs. what needs a rescue plan.
No NDA. No slide decks. No meeting billed to your account.
