01
The name
The studio is named for Sand Point, in Huron County, on the Saginaw Bay side of Michigan's thumb. It is a small place on a big lake, which is roughly how we think of ourselves.
About the studio
Small on purpose.
Careful by habit.
Sand Point Studios is an independent software company in Michigan. We design, write and run our own products, from grading tools used in college courses to a euchre game for the kitchen table, and we build alongside a few other small companies when the fit is right.
02
Who we are
The studio started as one person building tools for their own work and teaching. It is now a small bench of engineers, analysts and operators working across everything on this site. Small is a choice: the people who design a product are the people who answer its email.
Sand Point Studios LLC is a Michigan limited liability company. Our education software trades under the name Agoge; it is the same company, so schools deal with one contract and one inbox.
03
How we work
- We run our own machines.
- Most of our AI runs on servers we bought once and keep in Michigan, rather than on a meter that runs every time someone asks a question. It keeps costs honest and gives schools and businesses a real option for keeping their data close.
- Software proposes. People decide.
- Where AI is involved in a judgement, like a grade, a ledger entry or a ticket reply, a person reviews it before it counts.
- We say what state things are in.
- Every product page says whether a thing is available, in beta, in a pilot or still being built. We would rather lose a sale than be caught describing something that does not exist.
- We use most of what we make.
- Our books, our hours, our support desk and our course material all run on software we wrote. If it annoys us, it gets fixed.
- Boring where it works.
- Proven tools by default. New ones only when the old ones run out.
04
Four divisions
Everything we make is built for one of four kinds of people.
- Education · Agoge Grading, advising and tutoring software for college courses, sold under the Agoge name. 5 products →
- Consumer Apps for the kitchen, the calendar, the workshop and the living room. 5 products →
- Commercial Software for running a business: estimates, books, hours, rentals and the road. 5 products →
- Entertainment Games for the table, with friends in the room or across the country. 2 products →
05
Who we build alongside
Some products belong to joint ventures with people who know an industry better than we do. They own the business; we are the development partner.
- OneCut Studios LLC OneCut Shop: Forty-five shop tools for woodworkers, and it works without WiFi.
- FinishOps LLC FinishOps: Estimates, bids and schedules for painting and finishing contractors.
06
Working with us
We take on custom work when it suits a small team that writes its own code: a department that wants a tool built around how it actually teaches, or a business whose process lives in spreadsheets and phone calls.
We also make films and explainers, mostly about how AI works, on our YouTube channel.