Choosing an engagement model
A decision guide across the four ways to work together, retainers, fixed-price productized services, custom project quotes, and one-off paid consultations.
There are four ways to work together. They differ in how the price is set and how much commitment sits on each side, not in who does the work.
The short version
| You have | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your own developers, and you need direction | Advisor retainer | Senior judgment on tap without adding a builder to the team |
| A roadmap and nobody senior to own it | Builder retainer | Continuous delivery against a scope agreed each cycle |
| One specific, well-bounded problem | Productized services | Fixed price, fixed deliverable, no ongoing commitment |
| A whole product to build, with a deadline | Custom project quote | Priced from size, existing code, and how fast you need it |
| A single question worth an hour | A paid consultation | Book it from the call menu, no engagement needed |
The questions that actually decide it
Is the work continuous or bounded? A retainer is the right shape when work keeps arriving and priorities move. A fixed-price service is right when the deliverable is nameable in a sentence: a review of this repo, a Claude Code setup for this team, a migration off this platform.
Do you need hands or a head? The Advisor retainer is deliberately not a build retainer. It buys advisory time and async access. If you need code written every week, Builder is the model that promises it.
Do you have a hard date? Custom project quotes carry a speed multiplier because a fixed launch date is a real constraint that costs real money. If your date is soft, the standard tier is materially cheaper.
How much do you want to commit? Builder is a twelve-month engagement. Advisor is a three-month minimum, then month to month. Productized services commit you to nothing beyond the one deliverable.
If you are still unsure
Book a free ten-minute call from the call menu. The point of that call is to work out which of the above you actually need, including the answer that none of them fit. There is no intake form for it.
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