Pricing
How we scope and quote
We quote every engagement after a short call, and we do not publish a rate card. What follows is how we scope, what actually moves the number, and what we deliberately do not bill you for.
Every deployment is scoped and quoted after a short call
Two shapes of engagement
Nearly everything we do is one of these. Which one you need is usually obvious within ten minutes of talking.
A retainer — fractional CIO
Ongoing, month to month, no minimum term. Month one is an assessment; after that it is the work the assessment found, plus keeping the plan current. Priced on the scope of the company and the decisions in front of it, not on hours. How the engagement runs →
A fixed scope — integration project
A defined build with a defined end. Scoped in writing before anything starts, so the number is a quote rather than an estimate we would have to walk back. What integration work involves →
What actually drives the number
Four things, in roughly this order of impact.
1. How many systems are touched
One system is a project. Four systems that disagree with each other about the same customer is a different project, and the difference is not proportional.
2. What condition the data is in
The most common reason an AI project costs more than expected is that it was a data project nobody scoped as one. We would rather find that in week one and say so.
3. How many people have to agree
A change one manager can approve moves quickly. A change three departments have to live with needs reviews, and those are real work rather than overhead.
4. Whether anything is load-bearing on day one
Something that can fail quietly for an afternoon is cheaper to build than something that answers your customers. Both are fine; they are not the same job.
What we do not bill you for
You hold the vendor accounts — model providers, telephony, automation platforms — in your own name, and you pay those vendors directly at what they actually charge. We take no margin on licences, seats, or model usage. We do not touch them, mark them up, or resell them. That is also why we can tell you honestly when the right answer is a cheaper vendor, or none.
What drives your quote
Why we quote instead of publishing a rate card
A 60-person firm and a 900-person firm are different engagements. Publishing one number would be wrong for both of them.
A short scoping call covers all five. You get a real, itemized quote — flat managed monthly plus a one-time setup — not an estimate, and not a number we'd have to walk back.
The quote itself
What a quote actually contains
Nothing we build is sold off a rate card, because no two companies are wired the same way. You get the scope in writing before you get the number, so you can tell whether we understood the problem. A quote has a recurring part and a one-time part, and both are itemised.
The recurring part
A flat monthly fee fixed to the scope we agreed — our hands on the work, not a licence you rent from us. It does not include vendor costs: those go straight to you at what the vendor charges, in accounts you hold. Month to month, no minimum term.
The one-time part
A scoped, one-time fee to design, build and deploy inside your environment, on the systems you already run. Quoted once we understand what it touches — never before.
Every quote is a real, itemized number rather than an estimate. Tell us what you were asked to solve and we will scope it properly before quoting anything.
Ask us before you have to answer
You do not need a budget or a decision to talk to us. Tell us what you were asked to find out, and we will tell you what it would actually take — including when the honest answer is that you should not do it yet.
Common questions about cost
Why don't you publish a rate card?
Because a published number would be wrong for almost everyone who read it. A 60-person firm with one legacy system and a 900-person firm with four business units are not the same engagement. We scope on a short call and send an itemised quote in writing, so you can see what we think the work is before you see what it costs.
What's the minimum commitment?
For a retainer, month to month with no minimum term. That is deliberate: if the work is not worth the fee you should be able to stop, and we should have to earn the next month. A fixed-scope project ends when the scope is delivered.
Do we pay you for the AI usage?
No. You open the vendor accounts in your own name — model providers, telephony, automation platforms — and pay those vendors directly at what they actually charge. We take no margin on licences, seats or model usage, and we do not want to. It is the thing that lets us tell you honestly when a cheaper option is the right one.
What actually drives the number?
Four things: how many systems are involved, what condition the data is in, how many people have to agree on a change, and whether anything is load-bearing from day one. The second one surprises people most often — a lot of failed AI projects were data projects nobody scoped as one.
Can we just buy the assessment?
Yes. The assessment is available as a standalone two-week fixed-scope engagement, and you are free to take the document and build from it yourself or hand it to somebody else. It is also what the first month of a retainer produces, though on a retainer the clock depends on how hard the information is to gather.
How quickly do you respond once we're working together?
We commit to response times rather than uptime numbers. Same business day for anything blocking, and within one business day otherwise. We would rather promise the thing we control than publish an availability figure we have no monitoring to prove.
Can you support HIPAA requirements?
A Business Associate Agreement is available on request. We don't have one executed today, and we'd rather say so up front than discover later that it mattered. If protected health information is part of the work, tell us early and we will scope it explicitly before quoting anything.
Do you have a channel partner program?
Yes — a referral program for MSPs, VoIP resellers and technology advisors, at 18% evergreen commission on invoiced amounts, with one Leverage invoice to your client. See how the partner program works.