Pricing

01How we price

We quote a fixed price for a defined scope. You know the number before we start, and it does not move unless you ask for something new — in which case we estimate that separately and you decide.

We can do this because we spend real effort on scoping first. A vague brief turns into an honest range; a written scope turns into a fixed figure. Anyone who gives you a precise price for a vague brief is either guessing or padding.

We do not sell hours by default. Hours measure how long we took, which is our problem to manage, not yours to pay for. The exception is small out-of-scope work for existing clients, billed at an hourly rate.

02Three ways to work with us

03What things typically cost

Real ranges from the work we do. “Typical” is where most projects of that kind land; the starting figure is a genuinely small version, not bait.

Smaller fixed-price pieces, useful when you want to test us before a big commitment:

04The discovery sprint

When a project is bigger than a website, we usually start here. One week, $1,500, and at the end you own a document that any studio could quote from: the scope, what is deliberately out of it, an architecture, the risks, and a fixed price from us.

If you go ahead with us, the $1,500 comes off the first invoice. If you do not, you keep the document and we part on good terms. It is the cheapest way to find out whether your idea costs $15,000 or $60,000 — and occasionally the cheapest way to discover it should not be built at all.

05What moves the price

Pushes it up:

• Many user roles, each seeing something different.
• Integrations with systems that are old, undocumented, or owned by someone slow.
• Migrating real data from a live system without downtime.
• Several languages and currencies, or regulated requirements such as invoicing rules.
• Design from a blank page rather than an existing brand or system.
• A deadline that forces more people onto the work than it naturally needs.

Pulls it down:

• A written brief, or at least a clear idea of who the first users are.
• One decision-maker who can approve within a day or two.
• Content and data ready when the build reaches them.
• Accepting sensible defaults instead of custom everything.
• Launching a focused first version, then growing it on a retainer.

06What is always included

• A written scope and a fixed price before any work starts.
• Weekly demos and a staging link you can open at any time.
• Automated tests on the paths where a failure would cost you money.
• Documentation and a recorded handover session.
• Your repositories, your cloud accounts, your domains — in your name from the start.
• Ownership of the custom code on final payment, per our Terms.
• A review period of 10 business days per milestone, and a 30-day warranty after acceptance.

No charge for project management, status emails, meetings about the project, or the Friday demo. That is just how the work is done.

07Invoicing and terms

• Quotes are valid for 30 days.
• A typical project schedule is 40% to begin, 30% at the midpoint milestone, 30% on delivery. Retainers and care plans are invoiced monthly in advance.
• Invoices are due within 14 days unless your agreement says otherwise.
• We invoice in USD, EUR or VND — see payment instructions for the accounts.
• Prices exclude tax. Applicable taxes are added where the law requires.
• Third-party costs — hosting, domains, licences, paid APIs — are billed to you directly by the provider, or passed through at cost.

The full commercial terms are in our Terms of Service; the clauses on fees are in section 04.

08Why we are not the cheapest

You can have this work done for less. There is a large market of agencies and freelancers who will quote a third of our number, and for a simple brochure site they may be the right call.

What you are paying for here is a senior team that has shipped over forty products in ten years, that writes the scope down before starting, that demos every week so you can change your mind cheaply, and that hands over a codebase another team can pick up. The expensive part of software is rarely the first build — it is the second year.

If the budget genuinely is not there yet, say so. We will tell you what a smaller first version would cost, or recommend someone better suited. That is a better outcome for both of us than a project nobody can afford to finish.