Constructing
PRCPricing
Building the thing is a few months. Running it is every week afterwards — and that is the part nobody sells you, because it is the part that requires still being there. Below: what it costs to open, and what it costs to keep it working.
Ways in
Open for business
You are trading. People can find you, believe you, and get in touch.
You have an idea, or a business that exists everywhere except online.
Taking money, keeping customers
You are getting paid without chasing, and nothing falls down the back of the inbox.
The business is real and the admin is now the bottleneck.
The thing itself
The idea exists as a product people can sign up to, log into and pay for.
The idea is the product — software other people use, not a site about you.
Somebody whose job it is
It keeps working, keeps improving, and there is somebody to call when it doesn't.
Launching is an event. Running the thing is every week afterwards: the update that breaks something, the payment that fails on a Sunday, the idea you have in the shower that ought to be built. You launched. Now it has to be run — and it isn't going to be run by you.
What that buys
A month's notice, no exit fee, and the keys were always in your name. It has to be worth renewing every month, which is the only version of this that works.
Most interesting projects don't. Tell us what you're trying to do and we'll propose the structure — project, phased programme, or retainer.
Talk it through →Because we did the specifying, so getting it wrong is our problem, not a change request with your name on it. You get one number, in writing, before anything starts — and it is the number you pay.
How the work runs →Build your stack
Select the pieces. Watch the coordination problem grow — then watch what one partner does to it.
5
Components
10
Relationships
≈ 4–8 weeks
Indicative timeline
That's 5 moving parts and 10 relationships to keep coherent. Matter makes it one project.
The brief pre-fills the project form. Nothing is sent yet.
Money questions
Because a website with three pages and a website with a portal, CRM and automation are different animals wearing the same word, and a number next to the word would be a guess dressed as a price. The tiers show the four states you can be in and what each one buys; your proposal shows a fixed figure for your actual scope — before you commit to anything.
A short scoping conversation, then a written proposal: deliverables, timeline, assumptions, exclusions and a fixed investment. No discovery-phase invoices to find out what it costs.
No, and you can leave one whenever you like — a month's notice, no exit fee, and the keys were always in your name. We say plainly that the ongoing relationship is the part we care most about, which is exactly why it should never be a trap. It has to be worth renewing every month.
That is the normal case, not a problem with you. Work out what it is — that is our job, and it happens before any number does. You describe it however it comes out, we come back with what we think it actually is, and only then does anyone talk about money.
We do. The fixed figure is fixed because we did the specifying; if we misjudged what it took, that is our misjudgement to absorb, not a change request with your name on it. That is the actual reason we can hold a fixed number when others quote day rates — not because we are cheaper.
Milestone-based for projects — typically on kick-off, mid-build and launch. Retainers bill monthly. Exact terms live in the proposal and the service agreement, in plain English.