// ENGAGE
How to Work With Us
Five engagement tiers, from free assessment to managed retainer. Every price is on this page — no consultation-to-qualify gatekeeping. Start with Tier 01 if you're deciding anything; skip ahead if you already know what you need. The Claude Code Practice and Fractional CTO engagements sit alongside these tiers for teams that want specialized scopes.
The 5-tier engagement ladder
Designed to match your decision stage, not ours. Tier 01 is a 30-minute phone call. Tier 05 is an ongoing monthly relationship. Everything in between is fixed-fee project work.
AI Readiness Assessment
A no-pitch working session. We map your current stack, surface the two or three highest-ROI AI interventions, and tell you honestly whether you need us yet. Deliverable: one-page written summary.
> Book assessmentDeep Discovery
Full technical and operational discovery. Stakeholder interviews, data + infrastructure audit, model + hardware sizing, and an implementation roadmap you can hand to any vendor — including us. Fee credited toward Tier 03 or 04 if you move forward.
> Start discoveryPOC Build
A working proof-of-concept on a single well-defined use case. Real data, real integrations, runs on your infrastructure — no toy demos. Includes evaluation harness, handoff docs, and a go/no-go decision framework.
> Scope a POCProduction Build
Production-grade hardening of the POC: monitoring, access control, scaling, SLAs, training for your team. The version you put in front of real users and real data. Hardening, auth, audit logging, CI/CD, load + adversarial testing. 30-day post-launch support included.
> Plan productionTier 05 — The AI Agency Retainer
Ongoing monthly engagement. We install Claude Code inside your stack and run it as the dev engine that ships automations, agents, and internal tools on request. Includes a required one-week kickoff.
One-time AIOS install. Claude Code set up against your live stack, APIs wired, institutional context loaded, and your #1 pain-point automation shipped live.
1 automation/month. Email + Discord support. Quarterly sync.
2–3 automations/month. Priority Slack. Monthly call. Maintenance included.
Unlimited queue. Weekly sync. Optimization. Annual enablement workshop.
Alongside these tiers
Two specialized engagement types that fit outside the 5-tier ladder:
Claude Code Practice
Full advisory around Anthropic's Claude Code: training ($15K-$75K), private deployment ($40K-$100K), enterprise setup ($25K-$75K), and managed retainer (same as Tier 05 above). Use this if Claude Code adoption is the specific ask.
> See the practiceFractional CTO & AI Advisor
Senior technology leadership on retainer: Advisor at $7,500/mo, Fractional CTO at $18,000/mo, Interim CTO at $35,000/mo. For companies that need a CTO-level voice without a full-time hire.
> See fractional CTOFree tools to help you decide
No email gate, no pitch. Use these to figure out what you actually need before booking anything.
AI Retainer ROI Calculator
Interactive calculator comparing the cost of hiring one AI engineer against a Claude Code retainer for your specific size, hourly cost, and automation volume.
> Open calculator25 Automations Cheat Sheet
Concrete AI automations we've shipped for real clients, across sales, operations, support, internal tools, and reporting — each with a build-time estimate.
> Open cheat sheetHow we pick the right tier for you
Simple decision tree during the free assessment:
- "We're deciding anything AI-related." → Tier 01 (free assessment).
- "We need a technical leader to think about our whole stack, not just AI." → Fractional CTO / Advisor / Interim.
- "We need a real implementation roadmap to hand to our board." → Tier 02 Deep Discovery.
- "We know the use case; build us a working proof of concept." → Tier 03 POC Build.
- "The POC is done; ship production." → Tier 04 Production Build.
- "We'll need ongoing AI work and don't want to hire engineers." → Tier 05 Retainer.
- "Our engineers want to adopt Claude Code; train them." → Claude Code Training.
- "No data can leave our network." → Private Claude Code Deployment.
- "Government contract / SOC 2 / compliance requirements." → Enterprise Claude Code Setup.
Book the free assessment
30 minutes. Remote. No pitch deck. We'll map your current stack, surface the specific AI interventions that make sense for your situation, and tell you honestly which tier (or none) fits.
// FIXED-FEE WHEN WE CAN. T&M ONLY WHEN SCOPE CAN'T BE FROZEN. RETAINERS BY REQUEST — NEVER BY DEFAULT.