Pricing

So you can rule us out without a call

Most firms in this trade will not put a number anywhere, so the only way to find out whether you can afford them is to sit through discovery and a proposal. Here is the shape of the work, how long each kind takes, and exactly how the number gets set.

Get a number on a call What we actually do

Why this page exists

So you can rule us out without a call

Most firms in this trade will not put a number anywhere, which means the only way to find out whether you can afford them is to sit through a discovery call and a proposal. That is two or three weeks of your time to learn something that could have been a sentence.

So here is the shape of it: what each kind of project is, and how long it takes. The figures are deliberately not on this page yet, because a number we publish and then decline to honour is worse than no number at all. Ask on the call and you will get one in the first ten minutes.

The work

What a project is, and how long it runs

ProjectTypical lengthRange
Systems integration, one seamOne system talking to another: ERP to QuickBooks, ERP to the carrier, CAD bill of materials to purchasing. The field map, the error handling and the runbook. 3 to 8 weeks On the call
Material and lot traceabilityHeat capture at receipt, lot to job linking at the cut, split and remnant handling, the gap report and a one click certificate pack. 3 to 8 weeks On the call
ERP reporting people can changeA read only replica, a named view layer agreed with the people who use the words, and reports your own team can edit without us. 3 to 6 weeks On the call
Hardening a system you built yourselfBackups with a restore you watch, a login per person, an audit trail where it counts, constraints, migrations, tests on the arithmetic and a runbook. 3 to 6 weeks On the call
OEE and downtime captureCapture at the machine, reasons the operators will actually pick, and a number that arrives before the quarter closes. 6 to 10 weeks On the call
Production schedulingA schedule that lives in one place, that the planner trusts more than the spreadsheet, and that somebody other than the planner can run. 6 to 12 weeks On the call
Product configurator and quotingRules that refuse impossible combinations and say why, a bill of materials resolved from the choices, and the payload production receives. 8 to 16 weeks On the call
Dynamics GP to Business Central migrationCustomisation and integration inventory first, then data, then the rebuilds. Scoped after the inventory exists, never before. 3 to 9 months On the call

Integration is the usual starting point, and that is deliberate on both sides. It is the smallest piece, and it is how you find out whether we can be trusted near a production system before anything larger is on the line.

How it is set

Discovery first, then a fixed price

A call, free, about forty minutesEnough to say whether this is something we do, and roughly where in the table above it lands. If it is not, we say so here rather than three weeks later.
Paid discovery, one to two weeksWe look at the actual systems, the actual data and the actual paperwork, and write down what has to be built. You own that document whatever you then decide, including taking it to somebody else.
A fixed price for the buildSet after discovery, not before, because a number quoted before anyone has looked at your integrations is a guess that you will meet again later as change orders.
Change orders are priced the same wayAt the same rate, in writing, before the work. No penalty pricing for changing your mind, because you will change your mind and that is usually the project improving.

If you would rather run it by the day than by the project, we will do that, and we will tell you when it is the cheaper option for you. It usually is for small, open-ended work, and it usually is not for anything with a defined end.

What moves it

Six things that change the number, in rough order of how much

How many systems have to agreeTwo is a project. Four is a different project. Each one adds a set of failure cases somebody has to decide what to do about.
Whether your ERP lets data outA documented API is cheap. A vendor-hosted system with no database access and a nightly CSV is not, and it changes the first two weeks completely.
How clean the starting data isDuplicate part numbers, hours booked to the wrong jobs, three spellings of the same customer. Cleaning is sometimes the majority of the work and it is always underestimated.
How many people have to be trainedSoftware for one planner and software for forty operators on three shifts are different costs, and most of the difference is not the code.
Whether it has to work offlineA shop floor terminal that must keep working when the line drops is a real engineering requirement, not a setting. Worth it in plenty of plants, and worth knowing you are buying.
Audit and compliance requirementsAS9100, ITAR, FDA or a customer audit means written evidence, access control and retained history. Say it at the start; retrofitting it costs several times what building it in does.

What you never pay for

No licence, no lock-in, no percentage

No per seat licence on what we buildAdd an operator, add a shift, add a plant. The price does not move, because you own the software.
No hosting marginIt runs in your cloud account or on your server, billed to you directly at what it actually costs. We are not reselling you compute.
No percentage of savingsA popular model in this industry and we will not use it. It requires agreeing a baseline nobody can verify, and it gives us a reason to argue about your numbers for years.
No exit fee and no held hostagesCode in your repository from the first commit, credentials in your name, and a runbook written for somebody who is not us. If you want another firm next year, nothing breaks.

If the budget is not there

What to do instead, honestly

Plenty of shops reading this should not spend money with anybody yet, and we would rather say that than take a project that strains you.

Organise it on paper firstIf you cannot run an efficient paper system with travelers and a whiteboard, software will not rescue you, it will just make the mess faster and harder to see. This is the most common honest answer.
Push your existing tools furtherQuickBooks estimates convert to invoices. Your ERP probably has a scheduling module nobody was trained on. Both are free compared with us, and sometimes they are enough.
Build it yourselfShop owners are doing this with AI and getting genuinely far, because they know their own process. If that is you, set up an offsite backup and test restoring from it once, today, before you do anything else.
Use the free tools on this siteNo sign up, no email, nothing stored. They are here because they are useful, and if they are all you ever take from us that is a fine outcome.

FAQ

Common questions

Why will you not give a price before discovery?

Because the number depends almost entirely on things nobody can see from outside: whether your ERP lets data out, how clean the part numbers are, how many systems have to agree. A firm that quotes before looking is guessing, and the gap between the guess and reality arrives later as change orders. We would rather charge for one or two weeks of looking and then commit.

Is the discovery work useful if we do not go ahead?

Yes, and that is the point of charging for it rather than giving it away. The deliverable is a written specification of what has to be built, with the integration and customisation inventory behind it. You own it outright and you are welcome to take it to another firm or build from it yourself. Several people have.

Do you work with small shops?

Sometimes, and sometimes we are the wrong answer. If you are under about ten people and the problem is that nothing is written down yet, a packaged system or an organised paper process will serve you better than anything custom. What we are good at is the specific gap a package cannot cover, and that gap tends to appear once a business is big enough to have a process worth encoding.

Will you quote us an improvement percentage?

No. Every competitor does and the numbers are invented, which anyone who has been through an implementation already knows. What we will commit to is that the number you are missing will exist, be trustworthy, and arrive before the quarter closes rather than three weeks after it.

What happens if the project runs over?

On fixed price work, our estimate being wrong is our problem, and we absorb it. What changes the price is you changing the scope, which is priced the same way as the original work, in writing, before anybody starts. The line between those two is drawn in the discovery document precisely so it does not have to be argued about later.

Keep exploring

Related

Next step

Ask for the number on the first call.

Forty minutes, free. You will leave knowing roughly where your problem sits in the table above, or that you should not spend money on it yet.

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