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Depth: Bands and Tiers

The sizing vocabulary the process and the pricing model share. Used from Discovery onward without re-introduction, so it is defined once, here. The process side of the same coin - that depth arrives sold and delivery confirms it - is the process README.

Why Bands and Tiers

We sell deliverables and instruments, not hours. That only holds if depth is named before work starts, so bands and tiers exist to make depth a decision rather than a discovery:

  • Sales can price without scoping from scratch. A tier is a menu item with a fixed price and an estimated time-box; a band is a count sales can ask for. Both are answerable before a proposal goes out.
  • Delivery knows what was sold. Each step carries its band into the project, so "does this fit?" has a written answer at every step.
  • Variations are arithmetic. When reality outgrows the sold band, the delta prices mechanically so the conversation with the Decider is a number, not a negotiation.
  • Estimates improve. Actuals are captured per step, per band and tier, so every project calibrates the effort models for the next one.

Bands (S / M / L / XL)

A band sizes a step, not a project. Every step names the one thing it scales with - its unit - and cuts that unit into four bands.

The unit is different per step:

  • 1.1 bands on stakeholder count.
  • 2.1 bands on nodes in the information architecture.
  • 3.1 bands on designed surfaces.

A band is therefore always a band of a step, and a project can sit at M for stakeholders and L for surfaces. Build steps do not band at all: they price per line (a template, a content type, an integration) from counts read off the Cornerstone.

Shorthand like "an S build" or "M and larger" refers to the project's dominant band - the one most of its steps land in. That is what tapers project-wide lines such as the management percentage.

Tiers (Baseline / Focused / Core / Full)

A tier presets the bands for a Discovery chapter. Discovery is sold before the site is known, so it cannot be computed from counts; instead each chapter offers named presets that fix a default band per step, a fixed price, and a time-box.

  • Clarify's tier is set by research depth.
  • Architect's tier is set by site size and complexity.
  • A Discovery is always one of each, and the two can differ.

Baseline is the floor rather than a purchasable tier. Every S build sold without a Discovery carries the Clarify and Architect Baselines, priced and non-removable, so no project is built blind or unspecified.

The Ambition Band (System-led / Expressive / Premium)

A separate axis from size. The ambition band is a production mode: how much of the design is system-applied pattern versus bespoke set piece.

It does two things and nothing else:

  • Sets the per-surface rate in Design.
  • Multiplies the frontend lines in Build.

Each site assumes a default ambition band - Focused System-led, Core Expressive, Full Premium - and banding up is priced.

Where They Come From

All three arrive sold, via the sales handover, and delivery confirms them - see the process-wide principle in the process README.