Our Practises

We will always strive to tailor our contract and working practises to your needs. In practice, however, the majority of projects are performed according to one of the following models:

  • Time and materials
  • Monthly retainer
  • Fixed-price, fixed-timescale

Each of these has its own advantages.

Time and Materials

For time and materials projects, we charge a daily (or sometimes hourly) rate which is dependent on the nature of the work.

This model can work particularly well for projects where the specification is unclear or there are significant unknowns. By using an Agile methodology, we can address the highest priorities first, and regular releases gives you certainty about progress and value for money. Crucially, the fact that each release is fully tested puts you in firm control of costs - you can simply call a halt to development when the software is ready, without having to pay for features you thought you needed but proved unnecessary.

Monthly Retainer

We can also supply a monthly (or weekly) allocation of time and materials resource for you to utilise as needed, a popular option for system migration, support or non-time critical projects.

You can use the resource as you please; to add new features, support your users, improve your documentation and so on. If you find you need more (or less) resource in a given month this model is flexible and can accommodate your changing needs.

Fixed-Price, Fixed-Timescale

On fixed-price, fixed-timescale projects, We take on the development risk associated with the project and we’ll quote a price and delivery date to which we commit in advance. Such arrangements are most suitable when there is a well-defined specification of the work to be performed. A common way to proceed therefore is through a combination of time-and-materials work to produce a detailed specification, followed by a corresponding fixed-price quote for the bulk of the development work.

We have a long pedigree of successfully delivering fixed price projects on time and to specification.