Engagements
Three shapes, in the order they usually happen. Every one of them has a defined end, and none of them requires you to guess what you need before you begin.
A short, fixed-fee piece of work: we look at the process as it is actually run, the tools you already pay for, and what your team does day to day. You get the decision — build, buy, integrate, replace, or leave alone — with the reasoning and a rough cost for each option.
When: The right start when nobody is yet sure what the problem is worth fixing. It is also the cheapest possible route to being told to do nothing.
A defined piece of work with a price agreed before it starts, delivered in stages you can see running rather than in one reveal at the end. Scope changes are repriced openly rather than absorbed and resented.
When: When discovery has established what should exist. You own what we build for you.
Some systems genuinely need running: exceptions handled, data reconciled, rules kept current as the business changes. A monthly fee has to correspond to monthly work, and we will tell you when it does not.
When: Never attached automatically to a build. Plenty of what we deliver should simply work and be left alone.
On pricing
A number published before anyone has looked at your process is either padded to cover what we do not know, or wrong. Neither helps you compare us to anybody.
What we can commit to before a first conversation: discovery is a fixed fee agreed up front, a build is priced before it starts, and a monthly fee only exists where there is monthly work to correspond to it. If we think the honest answer is that you should spend nothing, you will hear that during discovery rather than after a build.
Anything built for you is yours, including the source. Where a system depends on a third-party tool, you hold that account rather than us. We would rather hand over something small that runs than something ambitious that needs us permanently.
Managed operation is month to month. If the work stops being worth what it costs, the correct outcome is that it stops, and we will say so before you have to.
Next step
Describe the problem in plain terms. You will get an honest view of the right approach — including when that approach is not us.