Our cutting-edge technology and platform expertise are available to you with transparent pricing to ease your budget and technology planning. Our approach to pricing is designed with your success in mind, ensuring that every dollar you invest is predictable, manageable, and aligned with your project’s goals. Here’s how our pricing practices, including fixed prices, client-controlled custom work caps, and software licensing, empower teams and stakeholders to plan web projects with confidence.
Fixed Prices
At the heart of our pricing model is fixed pricing, a foundation upon which budget predictability is built. It may seem strange to worry about unpredictable costs or marvel at any approach that promises to protect us from such things; after all, shouldn’t prices be set and predictable anyway?
Amazingly, we have found (as you likely have by now), that some clients are often charged differently than others, and that many projects get stuck with “surprise invoices” for work that stakeholders thought they had already paid. Our approach eliminates these irritations and removes the guesswork from financial planning and project budgeting, by providing clear, upfront information about actual costs:
- A Tale of Two Prices: Everything we do has two prices, an “Implementation Price”, and a “Care and Maintenance Price”. The former applies to the work that goes into creating the feature you are ordering, while the latter covers ongoing maintenance of that feature. Sometimes, one of these prices will be zero ($0), but we’ll still declare every price to you, in advance, so there are no surprises.
- Modular Project Implementation: Every feature and capability we deliver is managed as a distinct module (or “App”) that has standard pricing. Instead of shoving features and capabilities into your project (like calendars, forms, stores, etc), as though it were some sort of big bucket with a fluctuating cost, each of these is handled independently and connected carefully to the project overall. Your invoices will actually list every App in your project and the price of each will be clear, freeing you from ever wondering what you’re paying for. Or why.
- Consistent Pricing Practices: You pay exactly the same price as every other client does for the Apps that you want. No more learning that your neighbor’s uncle’s dog walker’s brother paid less than you did for the same feature because he went to the same fraternity as your web provider.
- Membership Has Its Benefits: While you do indeed pay the same starting price as everyone else, you are also protected against unpredictable price hikes. After all, predictability and reasonable pricing are our objectives! Therefore, as long as your project remains in our care (and in good standing), price increases are capped by fully disclosed and predictable increase limits, as described below (see “Price Increase Limits”).
Imagine embarking on a project, knowing precisely what financial commitments lie ahead, enabling smoother project flow and clearer communication among team members and contributors. This is the reliability our fixed prices offer, making them a key value proposition for our clients.
Scope and Spending Caps
The unique nature of web projects, especially when focused on security and other sophisticated goals, is such that occasionally, there may be a need for additional custom work. In terms of pricing, such needs can certainly disrupt budgets and planning.
To help reduce or avoid such risks, we offer caps and timers:
- Project Cap: Before any custom work begins, you’ll have an estimate (with as many guarantees as possible) and an official scope and caps set to prevent runaway production spirals.
- Monthly Cap: Limit production pace to whatever monthly goals (or subgoals) you deem appropriate so that you can control the rate of spending while also having visible progress that you can share with your stakeholders.
Price Increase Limits
Technology resources increase in price over time, as do resources in virtually every industry. However, as reasonable and minimal as these changes often are, any unexpected increase can derail even the best-planned projects. To counter this, we’ve instituted price increase limit guarantees:
- Quoted Implementation Prices: Every estimate or quote we provide is valid for an explicitly declared period of time (usually no less than 30 days and no more than 1 year).
- App Care and Maintenance: As license costs increase and we have to pay more for the tools and materials we use, your cost will also be affected. However, your monthly care costs, per App, will never go up more than once per contract cycle, and never more than 18% (over the last four years, our average increases have hovered between 0% and 10% per App, with an effective overall increase of between 7% and 8% per 3 year period). Contract cycles are typically set for 1, 2, or 3 years, and you are certainly free to request the longer options for additional pricing guarantees.
- Zero Penalty Drops: Should an App become too expensive for your stakeholders to justify, we can drop it from your project with no penalty.
Your project’s success depends heavily on its technical features, but financial well-being is also a critical factor. With these guarantees, we can help you protect that aspect of your success.
The Bottom Line
Fixed prices, client-controlled scope and spending caps, and price increase limits all combine to reduce risk and planning complexities that could otherwise decrease from the effectiveness of your project:
- Predictability: Knowing the cost from the outset of the initial buildout, as well as every expansion project you may eventually need, means you can plan your budget more effectively, without worrying about overruns.
- Equality: Fixed prices ensure fairness, as everyone pays the same for the same services, and you’ll never be stuck subsidizing someone else’s pet project.
- Streamlined decision-making: With clear cost structures, decisions can be made swiftly, without the need to renegotiate prices at every turn.
- Change management: Even if project scope does indeed change, you’ll never be subject to the uncertainties that arise from rolling attempts to balance monies committed with features sought.