01 · Northwind / Engagement models
Don’t buy production
before you’re ready.
Assess before you build, prove a narrow case before you scale it, and keep an operator on it once it’s live. Start wherever your use case actually is. Every tier is a fixed fee.
$18k
Assessments from
4
Tiers
0
Surprise invoices
02 · Engagement models
Assessment
Know what to build
Teams with an AI budget and no shared way to prioritise between use cases.
From
$18k
2–5 weeks
Data & infrastructure audit
Use-case matrix: effort, risk, payback
Build-vs-buy per use case
12-month roadmap with budget bands
Pilot
Most popular
Prove it works
Teams with a specific use case who need to prove it before a full build.
From
$65k
6–10 weeks
One system, scoped to ship fast
Evaluation harness before launch
Guardrails and human checkpoints
A clear go / no-go on scaling
Scale
Run it for real
Teams taking a proven use case to full production volume.
From
$180k
3–6 months
Full engineering team
Monitoring and alerting from day one
Integration with systems of record
Runbooks and an agreed handoff
Retainer
Keep it accurate
Teams who want us to keep operating a system after launch.
From
$12k
per month
Drift detection and monitoring
Scheduled eval and retraining
Incident SLA
Quarterly roadmap review
Most clients go
Assessment → Pilot → Scale → Retainer.
That’s the default path, not a requirement. If you already know exactly what you need built, start at Pilot or Scale. If you only need the operational discipline around a system you already built, start with a Retainer on its own. Each tier is contracted separately; moving on is a decision you make after seeing results.
03 · Estimator
Price your path
in thirty seconds.
Here is a worked example for the most common path. The range is what similar engagements have cost; the fixed fee comes after a scoping call.
Tiers
Assessment
Pilot
Scale
Retainer
Use cases in scope
1
Retainer length
6 months
Environment
Standard
Integration-heavy
Regulated (health, finance)
Assumes
A named pod of three to four people, your data staying in your environment, and an evaluation set built with your team. Regulated work adds a responsible-AI review and audit logging to every tier.
Estimated range
~10 weeks to production
$140k
to
$186k
Assessment
2 wks
$18k
Pilot
1 pilot
$65k
Retainer
6 months
$72k
Third-party compute and model usage are billed at cost, separately.
04 · Compare
Side by side,
line by line.
Assessment
Pilot
Scale
Retainer
Price from
$18k
$65k
$180k
$12k / mo
Typical length
2–5 weeks
6–10 weeks
3–6 months
Ongoing
Data & infrastructure audit
Light
Light
Scored use-case roadmap
Quarterly
Evaluation harness
Maintained
Guardrails & human checkpoints
Designed
Tuned
Production deployment
One system
Monitoring & alerting
Basic
Runbooks & handoff
Incident SLA
Hypercare
Named team before signing
05 · Questions
Before you
choose a start.
Every tier is scoped and contracted on its own. No multi-phase lock-in.
01
Do you require a signed multi-phase contract?
No. Each tier is scoped and contracted on its own. Moving to the next tier is a decision you make after seeing the results of the last one.
02
What if the assessment says we’re not ready?
03
Can we bring our own team to sit alongside yours?
04
Is there a minimum Retainer term?
05
What’s not included, and when do you bill extra?
06
Can we run an Assessment and a Pilot in parallel?
06 · Start
Tell us where your use case
actually stands.
30 minutes. You’ll leave knowing which tier fits, and roughly what it costs.