Why we quote a fixed price
The question owners ask us most about custom software is simple: what will it cost? With an hourly rate, you only find out when the work is finished. We think you should know before it starts, so every stage of a build gets a fixed quote, agreed before any work begins.
This article explains how that works, how you pay, what is built into every quote, and three questions to ask any developer before you sign.
How a fixed quote for each stage works
We break the build into stages. Each one is a piece of working software you can see and use. Each has a fixed quote agreed before it starts, so you know what you will pay before any work begins.
If the scope changes, we agree on the change and its price before starting on it. You are never surprised by an invoice.
How you pay
Small jobs (stages under about $10,000 + GST) are paid up front, when you accept the quote. Bigger jobs are paid half at the start and half on completion, when you sign the stage off.
You only ever commit to the next stage. You can pause or stop between any two.
No monthly maintenance fees
Once your software is live, there is no monthly maintenance fee. You get 30 days of free bug fixes after launch. After that, you only pay when you ask us for something: support and small changes are $250 + GST an hour, and anything bigger gets its own fixed quote.
You own it
You own everything: the app, the code and the data. It runs on accounts in your name: your own website or tools for smaller jobs, or for bigger systems your own Amazon Web Services (AWS) account, which we set up for you with separate test and production environments. You pay the hosting straight to the provider, not to us.
What every quote includes: testing and security
Every serious piece of software needs automated tests: additional code that checks the real app still works every time something changes. They are how you know a fix in one place hasn't stopped something else from working. Well-tested software has roughly one line of test code for every line of the app itself (Tahir and MacDonell, 2015). That close to doubles the code to be written, so tests are tempting to cut when a budget gets tight.
We don't cut them. In our builds, the tests are written alongside the code. Every change has to pass the full test suite before a person reviews it, and nothing goes live until a person signs it off. For example, the file-reading library behind our PathProof scheduling product has 141 automated tests covering 96.7% of its code, and it doesn't crash on corrupted files.
Security is never traded away either. Every project is built to our secure development standard, aligned with ISO 27001, whether or not your business needs that standard itself. Before anything goes live, we also try to break in ourselves: we attack the software with full knowledge of how it works, looking for the weaknesses an outsider would try to exploit.
Smaller jobs
One simple tool is usually a single stage, with one fixed quote. You still own it, and your data is always yours.
Three questions to ask any developer
Whoever you talk to about a custom build, ask these before you sign:
- How much of the code is covered by automated tests, and do they run on every change? If the answer is vague, your users will be doing the testing.
- Will I know the price before the work starts? With a fixed quote before each stage starts, you will.
- Who owns the code, the accounts and the data when it is finished? It should be you, in writing.
If you have a build in mind and want to see what it would look like as fixed-price stages, get in touch. The first conversation is about understanding your business, and your needs.