Discuss a problem

What this costs

No day rate and no tiers. A written scope comes before any number, and the number does not move after it is agreed.

Start free. Discover with intent.

The first meeting is free. It is for getting to know you, the business context and the high-level requirements. If we both agree to continue, discovery begins at USD 150.

the first steps

Scroll to follow the work.

  1. 01

    USD 0

    Initial meeting

    Get to know the client, business context and high-level requirements.

  2. 02

    USD 150

    Discovery

    A proposed solution and up to two feedback rounds are included.

  3. 03

    Agreed hourly rate

    Further feedback

    Applies only after the two included feedback rounds.

Discovery turns the conversation into a proposed solution and a written direction. The USD 150 fee includes up to two feedback iterations, so we can improve the proposal together before a build is agreed.

Feedback beyond those two included iterations is billed at the agreed hourly rate. We confirm that rate before any additional work starts.

Three shapes an engagement takes

  1. Discovery

    1 to 2 weeks

    The paid step after the free meeting. USD 150 covers a proposed solution and up to two feedback iterations. Further iterations are billed at the agreed hourly rate. You leave with a written direction that is useful even if the build goes to somebody else.

  2. Fixed-scope build

    6 to 8 weeks, typically

    The common shape. A written scope, a fixed price agreed before anything is built, and payment at 40% to commence, 30% on design approval, 30% on completion. Anything larger we would rather break into phases you can stop after than sell as one number.

  3. Retained engineering

    Monthly

    For systems already in production, whether we built them or not. Evaluation runs on a schedule, prompts and retrieval configs move as models move, and someone is accountable when a provider retires the version you depend on. It can also cover a named response time during agreed hours, hosting in our accounts or in yours with us on call, and feature work against a monthly allocation you approve. Priced against that allocation, not an open-ended promise. Ownership of everything built stays with you either way.

  1. ClarifyWeek 1
  2. PlanWeeks 2-3
  3. Build and verifyWeeks 3-7
  4. Learn and adjustWeek 8 onward

Payments

  1. to commence
  2. on design approval
  3. on completion
A typical six to eight week build. The dates and the price for yours are in the proposal before anything starts.

What moves the number

The state of your material
Roughly half the AI projects we are asked about turn out to be data projects first. Records in four systems that disagree, no owner for the definition of a customer. If that is where you are, the honest quote covers fixing it, and that is usually the larger half of the number.
How wrong an answer is allowed to be
A system that drafts an internal summary and a system that posts to a ledger are different engineering problems at the same surface area. The second needs evaluation, approval gates and a rollback story, and that work is most of the difference between the two prices.
How many systems have to agree
One source and one destination is a clean build. Six, two of which have no API and one of which is a spreadsheet somebody maintains by hand, is a different project. Integration count moves a quote more reliably than model choice does.
Whether it has to run without us
Handing over code, prompts, evaluation sets and a runbook your team can operate is part of every engagement. Where you need us to also train the team that will own it, that is real time and it is quoted rather than absorbed.

Why there is no price list

A published day rate gets compared against another day rate, and the day is never the expensive part. The expensive part is the week nobody costed, where it turns out the documents need work before the model does, or that two systems disagree about who a customer is.

So we scope first and quote once. The number that comes out of discovery is the number on the invoice, and if we got the scope wrong that is our problem rather than a change request. That only works if nobody is quoting before they have looked.

Start with the free meeting

Send a paragraph about the business problem. We reply within two working days with questions and a time. The first meeting is for understanding each other, not for asking you to arrive with a finished specification.

Discuss a problem