Architect - Productised Elements¶
The Model¶
- Discovery stays the indivisible sellable unit - now a two-axis menu. A Discovery is a Clarify tier (set by research depth) plus an Architect tier (set by site size and complexity). The two axes are priced independently and sold as a clean sum; mixed tiers are allowed (a politically simple but structurally large site is Focused Clarify + Core Architect), and the higher tier names the engagement. Sales pick from the menu instead of scoping definition from scratch.
- Every build carries its floor. S builds sold without a Discovery include the Architect Baseline - required, not purchasable, not removable; M and larger builds carry Focused Architect as their minimum: no build proceeds unspecified, because UAT validates against the Cornerstone. Unlike the Clarify Baseline (which withholds the Keystone as the upgrade incentive), the Architect Baseline does include the client-facing Cornerstone - the floor here is the specification itself. What it withholds is depth: no concepts (direction comes from existing guidelines), light IA, default-stack definition only.
- The ambition band is the commercial gate inside the tier. Each tier's fixed price assumes a default band - Focused System-led, Core Expressive, Full Premium. Banding up is a priced delta, and the band confirmed at 2.3 also prices the Design chapter (3.1): one conversation, two pricing consequences.
- Pricing: fixed for the lower tiers, productised as in Clarify. Focused and Core are fixed-price products with an estimated time-box and two defined deliverables (the concepts presentation and the Cornerstone). Full is scoped bespoke. Prices carry the same productised uplift over internal cost as Clarify's - selling instruments and the Cornerstone, not hours - validated against five ideal-site actuals (see § Validation below and effort-model.md flag 1).
Tier Matrix¶
The levers (from the chapter README): the dominant band sets the default tier; any lever can be banded up individually and the delta is priced.
Per-lever inclusions live in the step tier files and price-card.md; the commercial rows:
| Focused | Core | Full | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time-box | 2–3 weeks | 3–5 weeks | 5–8 weeks |
| Price | £6,500 + VAT fixed | £12,500 + VAT fixed | From £20,000 + VAT, typically £20k–£35k |
Notes:
- 2.5 is never optional at any tier - the Cornerstone gates Create and fixes price, scope, and time on written confirmation.
- The concepts presentation (2.3) is a client-facing deliverable in its own right, with its own playback moment.
Prices¶
| Tier | Price | Market evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Architect Baseline | £4,000 + VAT on every S build | Not sold separately, not removable - see the Discovery minimums in the phase README. |
| Focused | £5,700 + VAT fixed | UK paid discovery producing "a clear specification, technical architecture and detailed cost breakdown" publishes at £3k–£10k (Red Eagle Tech, Source Code Studio £2k–£8k); Make It Clear's 5-day definition sprint at £5k–£15k is the closest published UK product; a principal-led day-rate check (£700–£900/day, YunoJuno top-decile strategy £694) gives £6.5k–£11k for 2–3 weeks. £5,700 sits mid-band of the published range while including two concepts nobody else's floor product carries. It now prices below the day-rate check - the productised economics working as intended, instruments and the Cornerstone rather than hours - but it is the figure to watch: if Focused Architect starts overrunning, this is the tier that stops covering itself. |
| Core | £12,500 + VAT fixed | Evidence band £8k–£15k: Make It Clear website-UX engagements £8k–£25k and sprint ceiling £15k; CMS platform-selection consulting alone publishes at $5k–$20k; definition at 15–25% of an L-band build (£40k–£60k create) supports £8k–£15k. £12,500 sits upper-mid, below the sprint ceiling a savvy buyer might find. |
| Full | From £20,000 + VAT; quote per engagement, typically £20k–£35k | The evidence's own conclusion: quote bespoke above ~£20k. US flat-fee discoveries for large builds publish at $25k–$50k; the day-rate check gives £18k–£30k for 5–8 weeks; public-sector alpha norms (Local Digital caps £180k, multi-disciplinary teams) show enterprise buyers accept far larger definition budgets. |
Prices are validated against the internal cost model in effort-model.md (internal, never client-facing); only the external price appears anywhere a client might see.
Validation Against Ideal Sites¶
The composed prices were checked against five "ideal" past projects:
- Baseline £5k - the baseline-only engagement sold at £5,000; the floor (Clarify £2,000 + Architect £4,000 = £6,000) sits above it deliberately, though with £1,000 of headroom rather than £2,000. The Architect Baseline prices the Cornerstone's real weight plus two concepts rather than a nominal shown value, and is held near cost as a gateway into the build.
- Two Focused Discoveries at £11k and £12k. The composed price sat dead centre at £11,500 and was set there because a rate-card-cost basis composed to £10,000, below what both clients actually paid. Focused Discovery is £9,995, priced in the two components themselves (Clarify £4,295, Architect £5,700) rather than bundled, so composition stays a clean sum everywhere. The justification is ladder integrity as much as the price point: at 10% and 12% markup over rate-card cost the two Focused tiers sit between their siblings - Baselines at 6–10%, Cores at 16–18% - rather than spiking above both. It prices £1,005 below the lower of the two actuals and holds 33–34% margin on staff cost. Watch the next three Focused sales: if they close here without discount pressure, the point is proven; if they would have closed at £11,500 anyway, it is giving away £1,505 a time.
- A between-tiers engagement at £20k - prices exactly as Core Clarify + Focused Architect on the menu: the mixed-tier mechanism reproduces it.
- A 2023 Full at £30k (~£34.5k inflation-adjusted) - prices as Core Clarify + Full Architect (£33,500): a mixed tier on today's menu. The full Full floor (£45,000) is deliberately above anything yet sold, per the research's warning against under-anchoring the top tier.
Discovery Prices (Composed)¶
Every Discovery price is a Clarify component plus an Architect component, summed with no bundle discount (composition rules in § The Model). The full menu - all prices + VAT:
| 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.
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 (e.g. Focused Clarify 2–4 weeks + Core Architect 3–5 weeks = 5–9 weeks).
Mixed tiers are the release valve: a mid-size build with a structurally large site doesn't need a £26,000 Discovery, and a politically complex small site doesn't need a £12,500 Architect. The sales handover carries both tiers into delivery.
Selling Notes (from the Market Evidence)¶
- Nobody in the Storyblok partner space publishes a fixed-price definition product (Roboto Studio, FocusReactive, Anything.agency, Ridgeway, Naturaily, Webstacks, Bejamas all checked - workshops described, no prices). As with Clarify, publishing fixed prices is the differentiator, and there is no direct comparator to be undercut by.
- Sell the de-risking, not the hours. The published evidence's own pitch: a £3k–£5k discovery saves £15k–£30k of rework. The Cornerstone's line is stronger - written confirmation fixes price, scope, and time, and UAT validates against it. Definition is what makes the fixed-price build possible.
- Concepts have no published market price anywhere - stylescape and concept work is universally bundled. That means the concepts presentation is pure differentiation inside the tier price, and it is never broken out as a line item a client can shop around.
- Fixed price pairs with explicit scope: deliverables list and time-box appear next to the price, always.
- "+ VAT" always stated.
Full source list in the Define pricing research, run before the chapter became Architect (Make It Clear UX pricing guide and design-sprint page; Red Eagle Tech and Source Code Studio discovery guides; YunoJuno freelancer rates report; gitnation headless CMS agency roundup; Duo Consulting flat-fee discovery; MyWebAudit/Atarim discovery-percentage heuristics; Local Digital Fund prospectus and Digital Marketplace listings; DesignStack and Ikon London identity pricing as concept-work proxies).
What This Unlocks¶
- The Discovery sales menu is complete: two axes, one price list, no bespoke scoping below Full.
- The Cornerstone becomes the contractual spine of every build - including builds sold without a Discovery, via the Baseline.
- The ambition band selected in 2.3 prices Design before Create is sold: the Discovery ends with the next phase already banded.