Pricing
How Engagements Are Priced
Every quote follows a conversation, because the honest price depends on things a page cannot know: how many pages the site has, how many source systems exist, whether the material is already written, and who on your side can make decisions.
What this page does instead is set out the four shapes an engagement takes, what each is suited to, what decides the number, and how to compare quotes from different suppliers without being misled by a headline rate.
The four engagement shapes
A fixed-scope audit. A defined piece of work with a defined end and a document you keep. Suited to a first engagement, or to any situation where the decision is what to do rather than who does it. There is no obligation to continue afterwards and a fair share do not.
A monthly programme. Continuing work with an agreed scope, reported monthly. Suited to search and AI visibility, where the results compound and the work adjusts as evidence arrives. Priced on the volume of work rather than on hours.
A project build. A defined thing delivered: a data platform, an assistant, a site. Priced against a written scope, with the scope agreed before the number.
Advisory. A defined amount of senior attention each month for a team doing the work themselves. Suited to businesses with capable people who need direction rather than delivery.
What actually moves the number
In rough order of impact.
- How much already exists. A site with commercial pages that need restructuring is a smaller job than one where they must be written from nothing.
- How many sources are involved. On data work this dominates everything. Two systems that agree is a different job from six that do not.
- Who writes the content. If your team writes to a brief, the cost falls considerably. This is the single largest swing on web and content work.
- How decisions get made. One decision maker who can approve changes is faster and cheaper than a committee, and the difference is real rather than rhetorical.
- Whether the data can be trusted. On AI work, reconciling inconsistent data is frequently larger than building the thing that uses it.
How to compare quotes properly
Hourly rates are close to useless for comparison, because they say nothing about who does the work or how long it takes. Two things are worth asking instead.
Who is actually doing this? A lower rate that buys a junior executing a template is usually more expensive per unit of result than a higher rate that buys senior attention. Ask for the name of the person who will do the work, not the person presenting.
What does the deliverable look like? Ask to see a redacted example. A report you cannot act on without the author explaining it is worth less than a shorter one you can hand to a developer.
And on retainers, ask what happens in month one specifically. A supplier who cannot answer that concretely has not thought about your situation yet.
What is not charged for
The first conversation, which is usually thirty minutes and mostly questions. A scoping document that explains what I think the work is. And a recommendation not to proceed, where that is the right answer.
That last one happens often enough to state plainly. Several enquiries a year end with a suggestion that costs nothing: a technical fix a developer can do in an afternoon, a product that already solves the problem, or a reporting change that shows the existing programme is working better than it looked.
Related
Talk about your situation
The first conversation is short and mostly questions. Get in touch and tell me what you are trying to fix.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why are there no prices on this page?
Because any number published here would be wrong for most enquiries, and a range wide enough to be accurate is not useful. The variables that decide cost are the size of the estate, the number of data sources, who writes the content and how decisions get made. A scoped quote after one conversation is more honest than a figure that has to be walked back.
How do you charge, hourly or fixed?
Mostly fixed against an agreed scope, because it puts the risk of an estimate being wrong on me rather than on you, and it removes the incentive to take longer. Advisory arrangements are the exception and are priced as a defined amount of attention per month.
Do you require a long contract?
No. Monthly programmes run month to month. If the work is not producing results, a notice period should not be what keeps you in it. Project builds are scoped and priced as a whole because part of a data platform is not useful.
What is the smallest engagement you take?
A fixed-scope audit, which is deliberately sized so a small business can commission one without a difficult internal conversation. It is also the most common first engagement, since it ends with a plan you own regardless of what happens next.
Can you work to a fixed budget?
Usually yes, by adjusting scope rather than by cutting corners on what is delivered. Tell me the budget at the start and the proposal will be shaped to it, with an explicit note about what has been left out and what that costs you.