Ask an agency what a project costs and you will usually get a day rate and a shrug. We do it differently: fixed prices for defined work. Here is what that means in practice, and why we think it is the only honest way to charge for work in regulated systems.
Four phases, three kinds of price
Every engagement runs through the same four phases: Assess, Architect, Build and Evolve. Each one is priced in the way that fits what it produces.
Assess is a fixed-scope, fixed-price engagement with defined deliverables. You know before we start what you will hold at the end: a diagnosis of the real problem, the regulatory constraints that bound it, and the architectural debt in the way. The price is the price.
Architect and Build are quoted as fixed prices against the blueprint that Assess and Architect produce. By the time we quote Build, the system has been designed on paper and the hard questions have been answered. That is what makes a fixed number possible. The number you see is the number you pay unless the scope changes, and scope changes are agreed in writing before work continues. No surprises on the invoice, no quiet drift.
Evolve runs as a monthly retainer sized to the system. A trading platform under live regulation needs more attention than a quoting engine, and the retainer reflects that. It covers the work of keeping the system current: regulatory updates, extensions, the improvements that only become obvious once real users arrive.
Why not hours?
We do not bill by the hour because hours reward slow work. An hourly model pays the team more when a problem takes longer, which is exactly backwards. It also moves the risk onto you. If a task turns out to be harder than anyone expected, the hourly client pays for the surprise. Under a fixed price, we do.
In regulated systems the expensive part is the thinking. The decision to model a transparency-register check one way rather than another can save a compliance team months. That decision might take an afternoon. Billing it by the hour would make it look cheap, and it is not. A fixed price values the thinking, which is where the value actually sits.
What a fixed price asks of you
A fixed price is only fair if the scope is written down. That is why Assess exists and why we do not skip it. It is also why scope changes are handled in writing, so that both sides can see the scope change shape before the price does.
It also asks for a decision at each phase boundary. Assess ends with a diagnosis you can take elsewhere. Architect ends with a blueprint any competent team could build. If you continue with us, it is because the work has earned it.
The short version
Assess: fixed scope, fixed price. Architect and Build: fixed prices against the blueprint. Scope changes agreed in writing, before work continues. Evolve: a monthly retainer sized to the system.
If you have a puzzle and want to know what it would cost to solve, tell us about it. The first conversation is free, and it usually ends with a clearer question than it started with.