how I work
Boringly predictable, on purpose
Most people arrive here having been burned: by an agency that went quiet, a freelancer who vanished, a project that doubled in price halfway through. So here is exactly what happens, in order, and exactly how the money works.
The path
Every engagement follows the same four steps. You can enter at any point, but the order exists for a reason: it is cheaper to diagnose before building, and cheaper to build well before running.
Discovery
What happens first: the five-question form, a reply within 48 hours, and a short call if it looks like a fit. Free, no obligation on either side.
begin discovery →Diagnostic
A written assessment of how the operation actually runs, where it leaks time and money, delivered in two weeks. The deliverable is a document: a process map, findings costed in your own numbers, and a sequenced plan any engineer could execute.
Build
Custom software, integrations and automation, scoped from the diagnostic or directly where the problem is already clearly defined.
Builds span four kinds of work.
- Build
- The product itself: the thing your customers and staff actually touch.
- Automate
- The manual steps that stop needing a human.
- Connect
- Your tools talking to each other instead of through you.
- Integrate
- Disparate systems behaving as one.
Support
The ongoing arrangement: hosting, monitoring, maintenance and the next improvement, handled monthly, for as long as you want it. Not a package you upgrade to; the same standard, continued.
Engagements typically start at £2,500.
A build, step by step
Three ways to work together
Not a pricing table; a framework. Which one fits depends on your cash flow, how much you want to own, and whether you want a long-term engineering partner or a finished thing.
Lower upfront cost, then a monthly fee covering hosting, maintenance and small changes. Plainly Innovate retains the code and IP; you get a system that's always looked after.
One fee, and everything is yours: code, accounts, IP, documentation. Walk away free, host it anywhere, hand it to any developer. An optional retainer is there if you want it.
Ongoing monthly engineering: hosting, updates, maintenance, managed automations, and a standing claim on my time when something new is needed.
unsure which fits? that's a discovery question, and the honest answer is sometimes "none of them yet".
Step one is five questions.
everything above starts the same way.