Why would I pay for this instead of taking a free proposal?

Because a free proposal is a sales document and this is not. A vendor writing a free proposal has one incentive, which is to be chosen, and the fastest way to be chosen is to agree with you. A paid review is where we tell you the parts of your plan we would drop. That conversation is worth having before the money is committed, and it is the conversation that free proposals structurally cannot contain.

What if the review says we should not build it?

Then it says that, and you have saved a great deal more than the review cost. It has happened, and those clients have sent us work since. We would rather be the firm that told you not to build something than the one that took the money and built it.

How long does it take and what do you need from us?

Two to three weeks. We need access to the codebase or the plan, and roughly four to six hours of your team's time across the period: a kickoff, two or three working sessions with whoever knows how the business actually runs, and a readout at the end. We do most of the work without you in the room.

Is this the same as your paid discovery?

They overlap. Discovery is aimed at scoping a build we have already agreed in principle to do. A review is aimed at deciding whether and what to build, and it takes an existing system seriously as a starting point. If you already know you are building with us, discovery is the faster path.

Can you review a system another agency built?

Yes, and it is a common reason people call. We will tell you what we find without editorialising about the previous team, because a system that is failing under new load is not the same thing as a system that was built badly, and confusing the two leads to expensive rewrites that were never needed.

It is a fixed price quoted before we start, and it depends on the size of the surface being reviewed. Book a call and we will give you the number in that conversation rather than after a discovery process.

Two people reviewing system architecture diagrams together

Start here

Find out what you are actually buying.

Two to three weeks, one fixed price, and a senior read of the system you have or the build you are about to commit to. You keep everything we produce whether you work with us afterwards or not.

Book a call See the other two ways we work

Fixed price, quoted before we start. 2 to 3 weeks, and credited in full against the build if you go ahead.

ARCHITECTURE REVIEWRANKED RISKSSCOPE AND PLANFIXED PRICECREDITED TO THE BUILDYOURS TO KEEPARCHITECTURE REVIEWRANKED RISKSSCOPE AND PLANFIXED PRICECREDITED TO THE BUILDYOURS TO KEEPARCHITECTURE REVIEWRANKED RISKSSCOPE AND PLANFIXED PRICECREDITED TO THE BUILDYOURS TO KEEP

WHAT YOU GET

Five documents, and a straight answer

01
Architecture assessment
What the system does today, where it is load-bearing, and which parts will break first under the growth you are planning for. Written for your team, not for us.
02
Ranked risk list
Every risk we found, ordered by what it would cost you and how soon. Security, data, scaling, key-person, vendor lock-in and compliance surface, each with what it would take to close.
03
Scope you could hand to anyone
A build scope specific enough that any competent team could quote it, because a scope that only we can price is not a scope, it is a lock-in.
04
Build plan and sequencing
What to build first and why, what to defer, and what not to build at all. The sequencing is usually where the money is saved.
05
The honest recommendation
Including when the honest recommendation is that you should not build the thing you came to build, or that your current team can do this without us.

WHY START HERE

The cheapest decision you will make on this project

A review costs a fraction of the build and changes the build more than anything else you could spend the money on. It is also the lowest-risk way to find out whether you want to work with us.

Fixed price, agreed up front

One number, quoted before we start, with the scope of the review written down. No hourly meter and no change order halfway through.

Credited in full against the build

If you go ahead with us, the review fee comes off the build. It functions as a deposit rather than a fee, which is the point.

Yours either way

The documents are yours to keep and to hand to another team. We have had clients take a review and build it in-house, and that is a good outcome.

A real first look at the team

Two to three weeks of working together tells you more about a vendor than any number of sales calls. If your last vendor went wrong, this is how you avoid repeating it.

Senior people, not a junior audit

The review is run by the same product lead who would run your engagement. You are not being scoped by one person and delivered by another.

It ends in a decision

Build, do not build, or build something narrower. Every review ends with a recommendation you can take to a board without translation.

HOW ENGAGEMENTS START

Three ways to work with us

Most engagements start on the first rung and grow. You are not committing to the destination by taking the first step.

Start here

You are here

Product & Architecture Review

You have a system that is straining, or a build you are about to commit to, and you want an honest read before you spend.

Two to three weeks, fixed price, credited in full against the build if you go ahead.

Fixed price, quoted before we startCredited toward the build

This page

The flagship

Embedded Product Team

You have product work every month and no team that can just run with it, or you are carrying a vendor who cannot.

A senior squad and a named US product lead who owns the outcome, inside your process, billed monthly.

A monthly team rate, set by the squad you needMonth to month

Embedded Product Team

Fixed scope

Product Build

You know what needs to exist, and you need a team that will get the strategy right before it starts writing code.

Strategy and architecture first, then the build, ending in a team engagement rather than a handoff.

$150,000 to $400,00020 to 32 weeks

Product Build

You do not have to pick the last one to start. A review or a prototype from $5,000 is how most of our longest relationships opened, and both are credited toward whatever you build next. Where those relationships ended up is the embedded team, years later.

Case studies