Most studios take any project that arrives and find out in month three whether they should have. That costs the studio an awkward conversation. It costs you the run-up to a date that was never going to move.
✓ Written to be used against us · No pitch, no pressure
Each one is about how a project is being bought, whatever its size. If none of them describes you, the work we take on is regulated software development.
The brief has gone to five studios, and the decision comes down to the number at the bottom.
The lowest quote on a regulated build is usually the one that left out the evidence, the documentation and the review cycles. Against it, ours loses on paper every time.
Ask every studio to price the same written scope, compliance evidence included. With no review attached, an offshore studio is the honest answer and far less expensive.
You need two or three engineers who report to your project manager and work through your backlog.
That is staff augmentation, a legitimate service and not ours. We answer for whether the product passes its review, and nobody can own that outcome while someone else sets the priorities.
Use a contracting platform or hire the engineers directly. You will pay less per head and keep the control you are asking for.
You are collecting quotes for an internal business case, and nobody who signs off the spend has committed to anything yet.
A specification written before the decision maker is involved gets rewritten the moment they are, so the scoping hours get spent twice.
Get the internal yes first, and we will help you build the case for it. The Week-One Review shows whoever signs off what the first week produces and what it costs.
Nobody gets in trouble if this is wrong. No regulator, NHS trust, app store or enterprise security team has to approve it before it ships, so our review-first process would be overhead you pay for and never use.
That is good news. A generalist studio, a well-chosen template or our main studio route will serve it well, for less.
See what the main studio route coversThe build starts on Monday, and compliance waits until there is something to show.
That order is why regulated builds get rebuilt. Consent, audit trails and permissions decide the shape of the product, and adding them late is rewiring a house after the plaster has dried: you pay for the plastering twice.
No studio should agree to this order, so there is nowhere better to send you. The order that works costs one week of mapping the review before any code is written, with us or with a compliance consultant who knows your gate.
Below a certain size we cannot staff a gated build properly. We will say so on the first call rather than stretch the work thin, and point you to a specialist who fits the size of the project.
The refusals have a mirror image: the position Gather, Clementine and Ove were in, with a product somebody outside the company had to approve.
Somebody outside your company decides whether this ships, and they set the date: the FCA, an NHS trust, the App Store or an enterprise security team.
A previous team missed the security questionnaire, or a submission came back with findings, and the second attempt has to land.
Someone senior has approved the project and the spend, and your own engineers are committed elsewhere.
A fixed quote after one week suits you better than three meetings and a range, which is why the Week-One Review ends with one.
If we are the wrong studio for it, the first reply says so and names a better one where it exists.
STRAIGHT ANSWER / NO PITCH DECK / WE WILL SAY NO IF IT IS A NO