We usually start with a conversation, and that always costs nothing. What normally follows is a proper look at how your business works today and what it actually needs. Development work comes after that, if it turns out to be the right answer.
Three things. Most engagements use one or two of them, and the first conversation is usually what decides which.
Deciding what gets built, in what order, and what to leave alone.
Working out how the work actually flows today, before anything is designed.
Where a machine can genuinely carry part of a job, and where it cannot yet.
It starts with a conversation, and that costs nothing. Tell us what you are trying to do and we will tell you whether we think there is a piece of work in it.
Then the questions, and they are not about software. We run a structured discovery, shaped around the business in front of us, and it opens on how the company makes money — what it sells, how it is priced, and where the margin actually is — well before anything about a system.
What comes out of it is a written recommendation that you keep. It is allowed to say do not build this. That is not a hedge; it is the reason the exercise is worth doing, because the cheapest software is the piece nobody had to write.
If the recommendation is to build, that is a separate decision and a separate quote. Taking it to another supplier and having them build it is a legitimate outcome, and nothing in it is written to make that awkward.
Every engagement is priced in writing before it starts, and the price does not change unless the scope does.
We do not publish a price list. The scope is what moves the figure, and a single number printed here would be wrong for most of the people reading it. Tell us what you are considering and you will have a fixed fee in writing before any work starts. Getting to that figure costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
