Indicative Engagement Bands (Internal Scoping)¶
Moved from touchstone §11, which keeps the offering positioning (pillars, gateway products, Momentum terms) and points here for the scoping detail. The rate card and its conventions are in rates.md, the scope ceilings in scope-ceilings.md, and the default payment schedule in payment-terms.md.
These are internal scoping views, not a published price list. Two regimes sit side by side. The website-family tables (Discovery, website design, website development, and the journey lines) are snapshots derived from the process pricing model, computed tier-honest at the expected staffing mixes and rounded to clean numbers; the pricing docs (website-pricing.md and each chapter's productisation doc) are canonical, and these tables re-sync when the model recalibrates. The remaining tables (brand, product) are indicative bands costed at the blended day rate of £1,120 and rounded to the nearest £0.5k; the Momentum table shows per-tier floors derived from the partnership pricing formula (momentum/internal/pricing-model.md is canonical). Clients buy tailored groupings of components, so an engagement cost is the sum of the components it includes.
What a proposal may quote: the standard rates, the composed Discovery grid, the journey lines, and Momentum's monthly floors. The design and build grids and the remaining indicative bands are internal scoping shorthand: a proposal states the computed price they produce, never the grids themselves. Commercial terms are not priced here: the default website payment schedule (30% commencement · 20% design sign-off · 40% build complete · 10% launch) is canonical in payment-terms.md, and deposit and invoicing detail is stated per proposal and contract.
Brand identity (guidelines always included)
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Round-out | Complete a client's existing identity, round out the gaps, produce full brand guidelines | £7k–£8.5k |
| Full | Strategy step (apply the client's strategy, define only for gaps), full visual identity system, brand guidelines | £14k–£21k |
Brand Experience Accelerator (BXA)
Phase-based, not tiered. A workshop-led scoping sprint (~£5k) followed by a monthly brand design collateral delivery block (example ~£7k per month over around six months), tapering into a Momentum Partnership. Requires a clearly defined brand with solid guidelines; where guidelines are not solid, that is scoped first, often as an identity round-out.
Brand Application
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Per item or set | Designed application of an existing identity across social, print, decks, stationery, event | £3k–£12k |
Most often delivered as a BXA sprint or on an ongoing basis through Momentum rather than as a standalone project.
Brand health audit
Run on the audit kit's brand strand (plus the content strand); tier names follow the one depth ladder used across everything sellable.
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Focused | Positioning-clarity and identity-consistency review, priority findings | £3.5k–£5.5k |
| Full | Full review across positioning, identity, and collateral application across touchpoints, prioritised roadmap, readout | £6.5k–£10k |
Discovery
Derived from the process pricing model; the composed grid in Architect productisation is canonical. The proposal-facing price cards live with each chapter: Clarify and Architect. A Discovery is always a Clarify component (tier set by research depth), sold as the Keystone, plus an Architect component (tier set by site size and complexity), sold as the Cornerstone. The components price independently and sum cleanly, any Clarify tier composes with any Architect tier, and the higher tier names a mixed engagement. Always present the two-component composition, never a single chapter's prices alone. All fixed prices except Full, which is scoped bespoke.
| Clarify ↓ · Architect → | Focused (£5,700) | Core (£12,500) | Full (from £20,000) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focused (£4,295) | £9,995 · Focused Discovery | £16,795 · Core* | From £24,295 · Full* |
| Core (£13,500) | £19,200 · Core* | £26,000 · Core Discovery | From £33,500 · Full* |
| Full (from £25,000) | From £30,700 · Full* | From £37,500 · Full* | From £45,000 · Full Discovery |
* Mixed pairs are named by the higher of the two tiers.
- The Discovery minimum by size. Every S build sold without a deeper Discovery includes the Clarify Baseline (£2,000) and the Architect Baseline (£4,000): a £6,000 floor, priced and non-removable. M and larger builds carry Focused Discovery (£9,995) as their minimum - only the smallest tier runs on the floor. No MAJOR project is built blind or unspecified (the Discovery doctrine is stated once, under Gateway Products in touchstone §11).
- Elapsed: matched pairs run 4–7 weeks (Focused), 7–13 weeks (Core), and 13+ weeks (Full); a mixed Discovery's elapsed time is the sum of the two chapter time-boxes.
Website audit and roadmap
Run on the audit kit (the website skin: UX, content, technical/platform, and accessibility & performance strands).
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Focused | One or two strands (e.g. technical/platform + accessibility & performance), small site, findings and priority list | £2k–£4k |
| Full | All four website strands, benchmark glance, prioritised roadmap, readout | £4k–£10k |
Website design
Derived from the process pricing model; Design productisation is canonical. Design is computed, not tiered: priced at Cornerstone confirmation as surfaces × the ambition-band rate. A surface is anything designed once (a template, a major variant, or a set piece); the band is set at the sales moment and confirmed at the concepts step.
Each row is priced at its representative surface count - S 3 · M 10 · L 20 · XL 35. For S, M and L that is the top of the band, so a row reads as the most a project in that band should cost and anything below its ceiling prices under the row. XL is open-ended above 21, so its 35 is a stated representative rather than a ceiling, and a materially larger inventory is quoted bespoke. The lines are always the price, never the grid.
| Size (surfaces) | System-led | Expressive | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| S (≤5) | £2,000 | £3,000 | £4,500 |
| M (6–12) | £6,500 | £9,000 | £13,500 |
| L (13–25) | £13,500 | £17,500 | £27,500 |
| XL (26+) | from £25,500 | from £33,000 | from £50,000 |
- The design system line adds 20% (minimum £2,000): mandatory on every XL estimate, opt-in at S, M and L, halved where a usable client system is inherited.
- XL always includes design-phase user testing, never waived; the format is what scopes it (one moderated round).
- XL is always quoted bespoke from the actual surface inventory.
- Indicative elapsed at standard staffing: S 1–2 weeks · M 2–3 · L 4–6 · XL 8–12, bespoke above the representative. Client availability moves elapsed time, never price.
Website development
Derived from the process pricing model; Build productisation is canonical. Build is computed from the Cornerstone's confirmed counts (surface inventory split into templates, variants, and tools, plus content types and the integration map); the ambition band multiplies the UI lines only. Sizes use the same surface bands and the same representative counts as design, each carrying the integration map typical of its size (S 2 · M 2 · L 3 · XL 4, priced from the register in Build's effort model rather than a flat per-integration allowance).
| Size | System-led | Expressive | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | £8,000 | £8,500 | £9,500 |
| M | £14,000 | £15,500 | £17,500 |
| L | £21,000 | £23,500 | £28,000 |
| XL | from £34,000 | from £39,000 | from £46,500 |
- A content-heavy or integration-heavy site prices above its size row; the lines, not the grid, are the price. Volatile or custom APIs carry an explicit risk allowance. The register prices each integration on its own hours rather than a flat allowance - faceted search and filterable maps cost multiples of a consent banner, which a single figure would average away in both directions.
- XL is always quoted bespoke from the actual counts.
- Indicative elapsed, as calendar time including client review: S 3–5 weeks · M 4–8 · L 8–14 · XL 14–24, bespoke above the representative. Guideline bands from recent project history, not commitments; the Cornerstone confirms the real schedule from the confirmed counts.
Completing the journey
The remaining lines on every build estimate, so the full journey to launch is visible at Cornerstone time. Derived from the process pricing model. Elapsed guidance: content population runs days at S and M, one to two weeks at L, and two to four at XL; each UAT cycle carries a one-week client test window plus triage; launch adds the cutover and two weeks of early-life care.
| Line | Price |
|---|---|
| Content population (Validate) | S £2.5k · M £4.5k · L £10.5k · XL from £14k, computed from the Cornerstone's migration tiers. Content creation (copy, imagery, new-page content) is entirely the client's; this line is our scripted migration and manual population. |
| UAT and amends | £1,500 per 12-hr cycle (S £1.5k · M £3k · L £4.5k · XL £7.5k) |
| Launch and enablement | Fixed by size: S £2,000 · M £2,500 · L £2,500 · XL £3,500, plus a conditional £1,000 codebase handover line when the client does not move to Momentum. Handover and the day-30 success baseline report are carried on every project |
| Project and account management | 15% of the delivery subtotal at S/M, 12.5% at L, 10% at XL |
Website replatforming
Derived from the process pricing model: the build formula minus the design phase (the existing design carries across), plus the scripted two-pass migration, UAT, launch, and PM&AM; confirmed counts at Cornerstone price the real engagement. What is being replatformed sets the band: a front-end stack swap is far lighter than a headless CMS move with content migration. Migration tiers are always scripted, two-pass (see the replatforming description in touchstone §11).
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Front-end port | Framework swap (for example Vue to Next.js), CMS and content untouched | From ~£6k |
| Focused | Small site, CMS replatform, like-for-like port, scripted content migration | £15k–£28k |
| Standard | Mid site, CMS replatform plus reasonable integration rework | £35k–£50k |
Conversion optimisation and experimentation
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Per cycle or monthly | Hypothesis, test build, run, analysis, iteration | £2k–£6k |
Most often delivered as an ongoing Momentum activity (Growth or Performance tier) rather than a standalone project.
Product / UX design
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Focused | Single flow or screen set | £4k–£7k |
| Standard | Full app or tool UX and UI | £8k–£30k |
Product development
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Focused | Self-contained tool, e.g. configurator | £10k–£20k |
| Standard | Dashboard or mid-sized platform, e.g. booking platform | £20k–£50k |
| Complex | Large platform, up to the ceiling | £50k–£100k |
Design system development
| Tier | Activities | Indicative |
|---|---|---|
| Focused | Focused component set for a single surface | £10k–£20k |
| Standard | Cross-surface system, tokens, documentation | £20k–£40k |
Momentum Partnership
Tiers are defined by monthly credits plus the wrapper around them (meeting cadence, reviews, servicing frequency) and by service scope; credit thresholds are starting points, not ceilings (an agreement keeps its tier as volume grows, so a tier has a floor fee and no cap). The £ floors are derived at each tier's threshold from the blended rate (a credit broadly corresponds to an hour) with a 10% passive-management uplift plus the tier's meeting, Playback, and Health Check loads, management and meeting hours rounded up to the nearest 0.5h and fees rounded up to the nearest £25 (see momentum/internal/pricing-model.md). the tier-honest convention in rates.md applies to one-off projects only: Momentum partnership fees are always blended-priced. Decided under the momentum-canon map, amended 2026-08-09.
| Tier | Monthly credits | Scope and activities | Indicative / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation | 4+ | Website only: safe-hands servicing, stability, support | From £700 |
| Care | 12+ | Website only: maintenance, small enhancements, requested new features | From £2,250 |
| Growth | 36+ | Continuous improvement across the website; brand application available from this tier | From £6,525 |
| Performance | 72+ | The full blend at high cadence, plus continuous discovery and research | From £15,200 |