Pricing
Clear numbers, before you ask.
Most consultancies make you sit through two calls to find out whether you can afford them. Here are the actual ranges. Every engagement gets a written scope and a fixed number before any work begins.
Build engagements
Automation, integration & backend work
Scoping call
A working conversation, not a sales pitch. We map where the time goes, identify candidates, and give you a written recommendation afterwards.
- Workflow discussion
- Feasibility read
- Rough effort and value estimate
- Written follow-up, yours to keep
Fixed-scope pilot
Typically 2–6 weeks · fixed price
One skill, one integration, or one endpoint — built to production standard, not as a throwaway. You know the number before we start.
- Working software, deployed
- Tests and evaluation suite
- Documentation and runbook
- Handover session with your team
- Two weeks of post-launch support
Build partnership
Minimum 3 months · ~8 days/month
Ongoing delivery across several workflows, or embedded alongside your engineers. Shared backlog, sprint cadence, code review included.
- Continuous delivery
- Architecture and code review
- Standards your team keeps
- Priority response
- Reduced effective day rate
Audit & roadmap
1–2 weeks · fixed price
For when you don't yet know where AI helps, or you need something written for a board or budget conversation.
- Prioritised opportunity list
- Effort and value estimates
- Risk and data-handling notes
- Sequenced 6–12 month plan
- Leadership presentation
Cost & latency audit
2 weeks · fixed price
For teams whose AI bill or response times went sideways. Frequently pays for itself inside the first quarter.
- Traffic and token analysis
- Cache and routing optimisation
- Prompt audit and cleanup
- Changes shipped as reviewable PRs
- Spend dashboard and alerts
Day rate
For work that resists fixed scoping
Advisory, unblocking, vendor review, incident support, or exploratory work where a fixed price would be guesswork.
- Billed in half-day minimums
- No minimum commitment
- Reduced rate inside a retainer
Coaching & enablement
Training your people
Per-session pricing, not per-seat. A workshop costs the same whether four people attend or fifteen.
Starter workshop
Half day · up to 15 people
- Hands-on, own work
- Reference guide
- Starter prompt library
- Follow-up Q&A session
Confidence programme
6–8 weeks · up to 12 people
- Weekly 90-min sessions
- Between-session support channel
- Role-specific tailoring
- Internal champion coaching
- Leadership summary
Executive briefing
90 minutes · leadership team
- Sector-specific
- Vendor-claim guidance
- Risk and policy overview
- Written summary
1:1 coaching
Block of 4 × 60 minutes
- Entirely role-specific
- Private and confidential
- Set up in your own account
- Flexible scheduling
Train-the-trainer licensing is available for organisations over 100 people — usually far cheaper than repeat delivery. Non-profit, education, and registered charity rates available on request.
Principles
How we price, and why
- Fixed price wherever the scope is knowable. You should not carry the risk of our estimation error. If we scoped it wrong, that's ours to absorb.
- Scope changes get flagged when they happen. Not discovered on an invoice. If something new appears mid-project, we stop and agree what it means before continuing.
- No charge for the scoping call, and no charge for saying no. If the honest answer is "don't build this", you get that for free.
- Model and infrastructure costs are yours, billed by your providers. We don't resell tokens or take a margin on your cloud bill. We'll estimate the running cost as part of scoping.
- No referral fees, ever. We take nothing from any vendor. Every tool recommendation is what we'd choose spending our own money.
- You own everything. Source, docs, and prompts, in your repository, under your licence. No runtime dependency on us and no proprietary layer you have to keep paying for.
What's always included
- Written scope and estimate before work starts
- Weekly written progress updates
- All source code and documentation
- Handover session with your team
- Two weeks of post-launch support on build work
Payment terms. Fixed-price work: 40% to start, 60% on delivery. Retainers and partnerships: monthly in advance. Coaching: on invoice, net 14. We're happy to work through procurement, and we can complete standard vendor security questionnaires.
Prices shown are typical for a well-defined scope and exclude tax. Unusual constraints — on-premises deployment, regulated environments, heavy compliance documentation, tight deadlines — will move the number, and we'll say so before you commit rather than after.
Money questions
Asked and answered
What will the AI itself cost to run?
Usually far less than people expect, and it's billed to you directly by whichever provider you use — we take no margin on it. A well-engineered internal tool serving a department often runs to tens of dollars a month, not thousands. High-volume, customer-facing systems are a different conversation, and we model the per-request economics during scoping so there are no surprises after launch.
Can we start smaller than a pilot?
Yes. A single day at the day rate is enough to properly assess a workflow, build a proof of concept, or unblock something specific. Several clients have started with one day and expanded from there — that's a perfectly sensible way in, and we'd rather that than an oversized first commitment.
What if the pilot doesn't deliver what we hoped?
The written scope defines what "delivered" means, agreed before we start — so this is rarely ambiguous. If we miss the agreed outcome, we keep working until it's met at no extra cost. If the outcome turns out to be the wrong goal, we'll say so early rather than building something we know won't help.
Do you work with startups or small teams?
Regularly, and often at the day rate or a smaller fixed scope rather than a full pilot. Small teams tend to get more out of one focused day than a large discovery exercise. If budget is genuinely tight, say so at the scoping call — we'd rather shape something affordable than send a proposal you were never going to accept.
Is there a minimum engagement?
Half a day. There's no retainer requirement, no minimum term on anything except the build partnership, and no auto-renewal on any of it.
Get a real number for your project.
Thirty minutes and you'll have a written recommendation with an effort estimate — whether or not you go ahead.