Do you charge for the initial conversation?

No. The first conversation, including a rough range for the work you describe, is free. We would rather qualify out early than take a deposit for work that does not fit.

Can you work to a fixed price?

Yes, for work that can be scoped honestly in advance. For exploratory work on an undocumented system, a day rate is more honest than a fixed price that would have to be padded to absorb the unknown.

pricing

Pricing

Most of our work is priced per phase against a scope you have approved, with a stated day rate for exploratory work where the scope cannot honestly be fixed in advance.

Ask for a range

How pricing works

The first conversation is free, including a rough range so you can decide whether to continue.
Larger work is broken into phases, each with its own scope and price, so you can stop at a phase boundary.
Where the scope genuinely cannot be fixed - a legacy system nobody has documented, for example - we say so and work at a day rate instead of guessing.
We do not quote a number we cannot stand behind in order to win the work.

Why there is no price table here

A price table for bespoke software is either so vague it cannot guide a decision, or so specific it is wrong within a month. What matters more is how the price is arrived at and what happens when the scope changes, so that is what this page explains.

Ask for a range on a specific problem and you will get one.

What changes the price

How well the current system is documented. An undocumented system takes longer to change safely, and we will say so before quoting rather than after.
Whether the work is additive or a replacement. Adding to a system that works is usually cheaper than replacing it.
How much of the decision-making is already settled. A project with an agreed scope and a named decision-maker moves faster than one where both are still open.
Whether the work has a hard deadline. Compressing a schedule is possible, and it costs more.

What we will not do to win work

Quote a number we do not believe in order to be the cheapest bid, then recover it through variations.
Start work without an agreed definition of what finished means.
Absorb a scope change silently. Changes are quoted, and you decide whether to proceed.

Questions we are asked

Do you charge for the initial conversation?: No. The first conversation, including a rough range for the work you describe, is free. We would rather qualify out early than take a deposit for work that does not fit.
Can you work to a fixed price?: Yes, for work that can be scoped honestly in advance. For exploratory work on an undocumented system, a day rate is more honest than a fixed price that would have to be padded to absorb the unknown.