When the job has an unknown in it
You are buying the document, not the hour
The Scope Sprint, in full the Scope and Architecture Sprint. $395 plus GST for a 60 minute session and a written scope: the platform decision with the reasoning attached, the risk register, every account and what it costs, and a fixed price you can hold me to. The document is yours whether or not you build with me.
Talking to me is free and always will be. The 15 minute call is where I help you work out whether you need this at all, and most jobs do not. This is for the ones where a straight answer needs an afternoon of work behind it.
Paying accepts the terms of service, version 1.3. They cover what is supplied, what is needed from you, how a change is quoted and how a refund works. The version in force on the day you pay is the one that governs the job.
You pick one of the free hours in my diary and pay for that hour straight away, so it is yours before you close the tab. Nothing has to be filled in first. Straight after, there is a short optional page for telling me what we are deciding, so the hour starts with the question already understood. The total at the checkout includes GST, which is the same money as the figure published here. You get the written scope inside two business days of the session.
If, after the session, I tell you in writing that I will not be taking the job on, the fee is refunded in full, and the same applies if I cannot make the time. If you cancel more than 24 hours before, it is refunded in full. Inside 24 hours I will move it once. The fee comes off a build of $990 plus GST or more started within 60 days.
Paid sessions are recorded so your written scope can be produced from what was actually said rather than from my memory of it. Google Meet tells everybody in the call when a recording starts, I will ask you first, and you can say no. The free 15 minutes is not recorded.
The hour
What we actually work through
I ask most of the questions. You will recognise about half of them from the scope check; the other half are the ones that move the price.
What you sell, who buys it, what they compare you against, and what a good month looks like. If the website is not your actual constraint, this is where it becomes obvious, and that is a result worth having.
The one action a visitor should take, who has to be convinced before they take it, and what proof exists to convince them. This is where a five page site turns out to need three page layouts rather than seven, or the reverse.
The current site if there is one, the domain, the email, the booking tool, the CRM, the social accounts, and critically who can actually log in to each. Most surprises in a website project live in this 15 minutes.
Budget shape, timing, who approves things, and anything that would make me the wrong person for this job. I would rather find that here than in month two.
A first read on the platform, the tier and roughly where the price lands, said out loud in the call, so nothing in the written document is a surprise when it arrives.
How the document gets written, and why it costs less than it used to
The session is recorded, with your agreement, and the recording is transcribed. The first draft of your document is machine drafted from that transcript against a fixed template, and then I go through it line by line: the platform decision, the case against it, the risks and the price are mine, and I correct anything the draft got wrong before you see it.
That is the whole reason this is $395 plus GST rather than what it was. It used to take two hours to write up and it now takes about half an hour to check, so the price followed the hours down. The document did not get thinner. If you would rather not be recorded, say so when you book and I will take notes instead; it costs you the same and it takes me longer.
Nothing goes into the draft that you did not say in the session, and no figure in it comes from anywhere but the same calculator that produces every other price on this site.
The document
What arrives afterwards
Written, versioned, dated, and carrying the assumptions it depends on, so you can see which ones would change the answer.
- A requirements map: what the site has to do, for whom, and what proves it worked
- A platform decision with the reasoning written down, including the case against it
- An integration and risk assessment covering forms, bookings, payments and anything already running
- An ownership and direct-cost register: every account, who pays for it, what it costs
- A recommended scope with a fixed price, or an honest no-fit result
- A Phase 2 list, so what is deferred is recorded rather than forgotten
If the answer is that I am not the right person for the job, you still keep the written recommendation, and I will tell you who to call.
Where the session stops, so you know what you are booking
- Design concepts, wireframes and proofs of concept are build work, quoted after the scope
- Legal, tax and privacy advice come from your adviser, and you leave with a brief they can work from
- Account recovery and buying anything on your behalf stay with you, in your own accounts
- Neither of us is committed to proceeding. You keep the written recommendation either way
Fit
Is this hour the right hour for you?
It is the right hour if you are ready to spend real money on a website this quarter and you want a fixed number rather than a range.
Book it
- You are ready to spend real money on a website this quarter
- You want a fixed number you can put in a budget, not a starting figure
- There is something unusual in the job and you know it
- You have been quoted wildly different figures and cannot tell why
Start somewhere cheaper
- Benchmarking quotes rather than buying: the free estimator gives you a real figure for nothing
- An application, a portal or a customer login: a different trade, and I will point you at somebody who does it
- A promised ranking: nobody can honestly sell you one, so the money is better spent on the site itself
- Two minutes spare: the free scope check first, and it may answer the whole question
Questions
The obvious objections
What actually happens in the 60 minutes?
Is that not a lot for an hour of your time?
Why does it cost anything at all?
What if you tell me I do not need a website?
Do I have to use you afterwards?
How soon do I get the document?
Paying accepts the terms of service, version 1.3. They cover what is supplied, what is needed from you, how a change is quoted and how a refund works. The version in force on the day you pay is the one that governs the job.