What Goes Into a Build
How a build is priced, what you get when it's done, and what it costs to keep it running afterwards. Nothing here starts without your yes.
A build comes after the plan, and starts only after a separate yes. The plan says what's worth building, what it should do, and how we'll know it works. The price or cap for the build comes out of that plan, and nothing starts until you've agreed to it. If the plan says something shouldn't be built, it isn't. The whole route, from the first conversation on, is on How an Engagement Runs.
Which one depends on whether the scope can be pinned down before the work starts.
A fixed price, once the plan is done
When the plan has pinned down exactly what gets built, you get one fixed price for that result. You pay for the finished thing, not for how long it takes me. There's no fixed price before the plan, because a price on an unknown scope is a guess one of us ends up paying for. The packages on the home page work the same way: their scope is set in advance, so their price is too.
Hourly with a cap, when the scope can't be known yet
Some work can't be sized before it starts, like exploring an idea or picking up a system nobody can see inside yet. Then it's hourly with a stated cap, and the cap is a ceiling, not a forecast. Every hour is logged against a label for that piece. Either of us can stop at any time, you pay only for the hours logged and keep what's written so far, and anything billed past the cap is refunded.
Either way
A fixed price is its own agreement, separate from any hourly one, so the terms you started under never change partway through. Billing runs weekly or piece by piece, never in one lump at the end. Time spent waiting on answers from your side stretches the calendar, never the bill.
What every build carries
Working pieces land as they're ready, in your own environment. These are the parts each one comes with.
A pilot first
The first piece is small, and it's checked against the before-number from the plan before the rest goes ahead. Whether to carry on is your call.
Built in your own accounts
Everything lands in your accounts, not mine. Your monthly software and AI usage bills come to you directly and stay separate from my price. The plan estimates them in plain words, per month.
What runs on its own, and what waits for a person
Written down before anything is switched on: which account it runs from, what it reads, what it writes, what it sends without asking, and what it logs. Steps you've approved, like a reminder to your own staff, run on their own. Anything that leaves your business or changes a record waits for a person's yes.
The awkward cases, handled
Weekends and holidays, a late entry, a missed one flagged and followed up, with every check recorded on the date it was actually done.
Failure alerts
So you hear when something breaks, instead of finding out weeks later.
A how-to your staff can follow, and a walkthrough
Written for the people who'll use it, then walked through on their real work.
Records about people wait for a written agreement
If the build would touch health, client or other personal records, nothing touches them until we've agreed in writing how they're handled. I don't give legal, licensing or compliance sign-off; your own adviser does.
Written criteria for done, a small test set with a pass mark for any AI part, and your sign-off, recorded.
What you have once a piece is signed off, and what the build price does and doesn't cover.
30 days of fixes
Anything that falls short of the written criteria in the 30 days after sign-off, I fix at no charge. New work isn't a defect, and neither is a change forced by a provider, like an AI model being retired or a connected app changing how it works. Those are priced before I start them.
A handover guide that's yours
It names who owns the system on your side, where provider notices go, which AI model it uses and when that model is due to retire, the cost alerts, what to do by hand if it stops, and how to re-run the test set. Somebody else could pick it up from there.
The build price covers the build
Not running it afterwards. From here you can run it yourself with the guide, keep me on for upkeep (below), or move to the seat, where I run it as part of your operation.
AI providers retire their models on a schedule, and connected apps change how they work. A system nobody looks after breaks on that schedule. Upkeep is someone keeping it working, month to month.
Light
$150 a month, 2 hours included
For one small build, like a single workflow.
Standard
$400 a month, 6 hours included
For several workflows, or anything with an AI model in it.
What upkeep covers
On a build with an AI model in it, moving to the new model when the provider retires the old one, and re-running the test set before it goes live. Watching the failure and cost alerts. Fixing breakage when a connected app changes. Small adjustments that don't change the scope.
Extra hours are $50 each. Unused hours don't roll over. You can cancel with 30 days' notice. Your own software and AI bills stay separate, and new workflows are priced on their own. A build that runs on fixed rules with no AI model in it may not need upkeep at all, and if yours doesn't, the plan says so.
A build starts with a plan, and a plan starts with a free conversation. Tell me the one workflow eating the most time right now, and we'll work out together whether it's worth building at all.
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