Public commitments
Our principles
Eight durable commitments about what Cornerstone Contracts will and will not do. Each one says the principle, what it means in practice, and why it matters.
Last revised 2026-04-27. If we ever amend a principle we publish a dated note on this page rather than silently editing — and we email customers when the change is material.
Principle 01
We don't sell to procurement-side buyers.
Cornerstone is a bid-side tool — built for the contractor or estimator on the answering end of an RFP. If you run procurement, your buy is Bonfire, Periscope, or ProcureWare. Saying who we are not for is as important as saying who we are for; otherwise both sides get a worse product.
Why this matters: Repels the wrong ICP before sales conversation. Concentration of focus = sharper matcher and proposal output.
Principle 02
We don't run paid ads.
Every signup comes from an association partnership, an estimator who told a peer, or someone who found a guide we wrote. No paid acquisition. The business has to earn distribution, not buy it.
Why this matters: Holds us to building earned distribution. Differentiator from VC-funded incumbents whose growth is rent.
Principle 03
We don't lock you into annual contracts.
Pro is month-to-month with no early-termination fee. We offer an annual plan at a 15% discount, but it is always opt-in. Cancel any time from the billing portal — the dashboard works through the end of the period you have already paid for, then gracefully downgrades to Free.
Why this matters: Trust signal versus opaque incumbent pricing. Forces us to keep earning the renewal every month.
Principle 04
We don't share your contractor profile or bid history with anyone.
Your trade profile, win history, dismissal patterns, and proposal drafts are yours. We do not sell or share them with third parties, train downstream models on them, or aggregate them into market reports that name individual contractors. Anonymized aggregate signals (e.g. "average match score by trade in BC") may be used for the Tender Intelligence add-on, but no row in those aggregates can be re-identified.
Why this matters: Privacy commitment beyond bare PIPEDA compliance. The data you give us is to do your job, not to be the product.
Principle 05
We don't algorithmically discriminate by company size, ownership, or geography.
Every contractor profile gets the same matcher. Indigenous-owned, women-owned, small-firm, or province-specific signals are inputs to matching when the tender itself requests them — they are never a down-weight elsewhere. A 5-person electrical shop in Saskatoon gets the same scoring path as a 200-person GC in Toronto.
Why this matters: Federal procurement actively prioritizes equity-deserving suppliers. Building those signals into the matcher one-way is the right asymmetry.
Principle 06
We don't draft proposals you can't edit.
Every AI-generated section is editable, exportable, and yours. No watermarks. No co-IP claim. No lock-in to our editor — the output is yours to take to Word, Procore, your client, anywhere.
Why this matters: Differentiator from AI tools that watermark output or claim joint ownership. Your bid is your IP.
Principle 07
We don't auto-renew your Verified Badge without a 30-day reminder.
Annual badge renewals send a heads-up email 30 days before the charge with a one-click cancel link. No surprise charges; no auto-renew you forgot about. If you forget anyway and need a refund, ask us — we honour the spirit of the agreement, not the calendar.
Why this matters: Pre-empts the most common SaaS complaint. Surprise-renewal revenue is brand-corrosive.
Principle 08
We don't take a win fee on contracts we didn't surface.
If you found the tender on your own before signing up, won it through a peer referral, or it came from a board we don't scrape, the 0.25% success fee does not apply. Decline the statement with reason "not attributable" and we close the loop. Win fees are about us earning a slice of the work we genuinely accelerated, not extracting rent on every contract you sign.
Why this matters: Explicit fairness guardrail. Mitigates the most predictable win-fee dispute (audit §6.9 scenario 2).
Hold us to it
If you ever feel we've drifted from one of these — or you want us to adopt a new commitment — write to hello@cornerstonecontracts.com. We read every one. The principle list is more useful as a public mirror than as a manifesto.
See also: Trust & security · Privacy · Terms