Fixed-price software development against a scope you sign.

Four things set the price of a build.

The number follows the work the system has to do, heaviest first.

• How many systems must agree with each other, from your ERP and CRM to a payment provider, an ASP or a model.
• How much existing data must be migrated and reconciled before anything can rely on it.
• The share of your rules that are exceptions to the pattern.
• Anything that touches money, where every check has to fail closed.

Urgency is never priced in, and the number of people using the system leaves the figure alone. Open-source ERPNext carries no per-seat licence to grow with your headcount.

A published cost guide for agent development reaches the same view from outside: integrations, autonomy, governance and data readiness move the price, and the foundation model is rarely the cost driver.

When is a fixed price better than time and materials?

Whenever the scope can be written down first, which covers every build we price. A fixed price puts the risk of our estimating error on us, where time and materials leaves it with you. The fair objection is that a vague scope tempts a supplier to pad the number or to cut quality to hold it. Three safeguards answer that:

• The scope comes before the number and names what is in, what is out and what you supply by when.
• A change of scope is quoted on its own, with the new fee and dates, and nothing is built until you approve it in writing.
• Tests are part of what you receive, so quality has no quiet place to give way when the work runs long.

Open-ended advisory work is the exception, since it cannot be scoped in advance, and we agree its terms in writing before it begins.

A project first, then hosting, support or a handover.

• Managed hosting & support

From the first call to a signed total.

Getting to the number costs you nothing.

1. The call

   Thirty minutes on what the system must do, which records it touches and what would count as finished.

2. The scope

   Inclusions, explicit exclusions, and what you supply by which date, all in writing.

3. The number

   One total, and the milestone schedule it is paid against.

4. The signature

   You sign it in your browser.

5. The change orders

   A later change of scope gets its own numbered quote, approved and signed the same way.

The price already includes the warranty and the code.

• The warranty. Published contract guides from Stratagem Systems and Paper Leaf put the usual term at 30 to 90 days. Ours covers defects in our work at our cost, for a year from acceptance on our hosting (as long as 24 months with the Premium Subscription) or 90 days on your own servers.
• The source code. Every paid piece of it is yours, and you can ask for a copy at any point, whether we host the system or not.
• The tests. Each feature comes with the automated test that proves it, and the tests stay with you.
• The exit. There is no lock-in clause, and a client who leaves takes a system that runs without us.

• Every commitment, clause by clause

Anything outside the build price is named in writing.

There are three such costs.

• Hosting and any plan after launch, priced in the same proposal as the build.
• Third-party services the system relies on, such as a model API, your Accredited Service Provider or a payment provider, which run on their own terms and are named at handover.
• Changes of scope, each as its own written quote before work on it begins.

Fees are quoted exclusive of VAT, which is added only where it applies.