Before you pay for a project, know exactly what you're paying for.
Five days of our work turn an idea into a finished document: a written scope, a fixed price in writing, a staged timeline, and sketches of the program's key screens. You hold it in your hands before you decide whether to start the project.
What you get at the end of day five
Not meeting notes and not a slide deck. One document you can work from, with us or with anyone else. Here is what is inside it.
- A scope written out, point by pointWhat exactly we build in stage one, what waits for stage two and what we deliberately leave out. Every point can be ticked off or struck through.
- One fixed price in writingNot a range and not an hourly rate. One figure for the agreed scope, split into instalments paid per stage.
- Dates, not vague timingHow long each stage takes and when you see the first working version. Our builds start from four weeks, and the exact date depends on the scope.
- Sketches of the key screensHand-drawn layouts, not a clickable mock-up. Enough to see what the software will look like before anyone writes a line of code.
- A map of the process as it runs todayWho does what, where the same data gets typed in a second and third time, and where work stops and waits. This is usually the part that surprises the owner most.
- A list of risks and places to saveWhat could blow the date. An old system with no way to connect to it, data nobody has looked after for years, one person who knows everything. Next to each risk we write what to do about it.
- The order of workWhich process we take off your team first, to recover hours fastest, and what can safely wait six months.
The document is yours the moment you get it. You can take it to another supplier, show it to a partner or your accountant, and collect offers priced against the same scope. We ask for no exclusivity.
If you first want a rough sense of the size of the thing, put a project together in the short scope configurator and bring that to the free call.
How long it takes and what it costs
3,000 PLN net
That's how long it takes us to prepare the plan, counting from the first working session.
The full amount comes back in the first stage's invoice once we start the project. In practice the plan costs you nothing if we go ahead together.
If you decide to go elsewhere after the plan, or not to build at all, the amount stays with us as payment for five days of work. What you get for it is a document you can use regardless of what you do next.
What each of the five days looks like
We work in order, from how the company runs today to a price and a date. Every day closes something off, so nothing is left to guesswork at the end.
- 1A conversation about how the company works todayWe sit down with you and with the people who do the work by hand. We break the working day into steps, from the moment an order or a request arrives to the invoice and the archive. We ask about the exceptions too, because those are what usually wreck deadlines.By the end of the day the process written out step by step, plus a list of the places where the same data gets entered twice.
- 2A process audit before the quote, in numbersWe count hours. How many go each week into retyping, into hunting for what was agreed with a client, and into fixing the mistakes retyping causes. We check who pays for it and what that person is not doing meanwhile.By the end of the day you know what manual work costs you per month, before you hear a price for the software.
- 3Screen sketches and a first version of the scopeWe draw the screens where the work is meant to happen and show them to you the same day. That is usually when half the things nobody thought of during the conversation come out, because a drawing shows what is missing.By the end of the day the scope has a first version and its first deletions, and you can see what the software will look like.
- 4We check what can be connectedWe look at what you already run. Stock software, accounting, spreadsheets, email, the shop. We check whether data can be pulled out of them automatically, and if it cannot, what the workaround costs.By the end of the day a list of risks with a weight on each, and a decision on what we connect now and what waits for stage two.
- 5Price, dates and handover of the documentWe close the scope, work out one fixed price and lay the stages out with dates. We walk through the document together, point by point, so you are not reading it alone in the evening guessing what a sentence means.By the end of the day you have a finished rollout plan, and you make the decision later, without pressure.
The five working days are our work, not yours. On your side it is usually two hour-long calls and one session with the people who run the process. We do not take a week out of your company.
What happens once the plan is signed is written up separately in how we work, including what you see every week.
Why the money comes back at kickoff
The implementation plan costs 3,000 PLN net for five days of work. If we start the project afterwards, the whole amount comes back and goes into the first stage invoice. In practice you only pay for the plan if we do not go ahead together.
The reason is simple. A price taken from a single conversation is guesswork, and a supplier covers guesswork with a margin or with a change order halfway through. Five days of analysis turns guesswork into a costed scope, so the fixed price we then sign is a price rather than a wish.
We also do not charge for that week twice. If we quietly folded it into the project price, you would pay for the analysis all the same, only without the right to walk away on day five.
- Implementation plan
- 3,000 PLN net
- Work on our side
- 5 working days
- Time on your side
- about 3 hours
- At project kickoff
- refunded in full
- Commitment to continue
- none
During the week we work out two things. What manual work costs you today, and how many months until the software pays for itself. With a few hours a week recovered for one person it usually lands somewhere between several months and a year and a half, but the exact arithmetic happens on the free call, on your numbers.
If you decide after the plan not to build, or to build with someone else, the amount stays with us as payment for five days of work. You take the document either way. We do not offer a trial period or free test deployments, because this is work, not a sample.
For comparison, market ranges are written up in our post on how much an MVP costs, along with what pushes the price up most.
What if you don't go ahead with the project
The document you get is yours. Do whatever you like with it: take it to another team, show it to a partner, or shelve it for later.
We don't hold onto it, and you don't have to sign anything that ties you to working with us further. The plan is meant to give you clarity, not pull you into something you never agreed to.
When this is not worth buying
We say so on the free call, before any invoice. Here's when an implementation plan is money thrown away.
- When you already have a scope and a priceIf someone ran the analysis for you six months ago and you only need a builder, do not pay twice for the same thing. Send the document over, we will read it and quote against it.
- When it is a single changeAdding a report or changing a form in software that already runs does not need five days. That is a free call and a short quote.
- When the process is single and simpleOne form, one table, two people using it. The analysis would then cost a sizeable share of the build. We will say so and move straight to the scope.
- When nobody can make the decisionThe analysis ends in a document somebody has to approve. If there is no one in the company who says yes or no, the document sits in a drawer and the money is gone.
- When you don't have any idea yet what the program should doStart with a free call instead of paid analysis. Let's first work out roughly what we're even talking about. An analysis only makes sense once there is an idea to break down.
- When your budget for the whole project is clearly smaller than the plan's costStart with a free call too. We'll tell you plainly whether the numbers even work before you pay for an analysis of something the budget won't stretch to anyway.
We have talked several companies out of it, and we would rather lose the job than invoice for a week that changes nothing. Sometimes the answer is an off-the-shelf tool for a few hundred złoty a month, and we will say that too.
Who this is for
An implementation plan pays off when the decision is expensive and the picture is hazy. Four situations we hear most often.
- A company holding three different quotesThree suppliers, three figures, each priced against a different scope because each understood something else. One written scope turns those offers into numbers you can actually compare.
- An owner who has to convince a partner or a bankA funding application needs stages, dates and a figure, not an idea told over coffee. The document from the week is made to be attached.
- A company burned by a previous buildThe last supplier disappeared, or delivered something nobody uses. Before you spend a second time, it is worth having it written down what should exist and how you will know it does.
- A company where everything hurts a littleProduction, stock, orders, HR, each of them partly. Five days is enough to set the order and start with whatever gives back the most hours.
That is how we started with a precast concrete producer in Sanok. Before the first line of code, we traced the whole path of an order, from the format it lands in the office in to how it reaches the shop floor. Only from that map did it come out that stage one should cover the office and order import, rather than everything at once.
We wrote that deployment up as the Relay case study, including where it stands today, because the project is still running.
If you are looking for funding, start with our post on software grants for a small company, because an application will need a written scope anyway.
Questions we hear most often
Q.1How is the implementation plan different from a free call?
In how much work goes in. A free call is there for us to meet and judge whether we are a fit. It lasts an hour and costs nothing. The implementation plan is five working days, conversations with the people who run the process, counted hours of manual work, and a finished document with scope, price and dates. You leave with something concrete rather than an impression.
Q.2What does it cost and when does the money come back?
3,000 PLN net for five days of work. If we start the project, the whole amount goes into the first stage invoice, so the plan costs you nothing. If we do not, the amount stays with us as payment for work done, and the document is yours regardless.
Q.3What exactly do I hold at the end?
One document. A scope broken into stages, one fixed price, dates, sketches of the key screens, a map of the process as it runs today, and a list of risks with a suggestion for each. Plus the notes from our conversations, so nothing stays only in our heads.
Q.4How much of my time does it take?
About three hours. Usually two hour-long calls with you and one session with the people who run the process day to day. The rest of the five days we work on our own. The more the people doing the work by hand tell us, the fewer surprises during the build.
Q.5Do I have to build with you afterwards?
No. The document is yours and you can take it wherever you like, including to another team. You sign nothing that ties you to further work with us. We do it this way because a company that feels tied in never turns into a good client anyway.
Q.6Is this a trial period or a free test deployment?
No, and we do not offer those. This is paid work over five days that ends in a document, not in software to try out. We reduce your risk differently. Work in stages, payment per stage, a working version every week, and the code and data yours from day one.
Q.7Can the project price change later?
The price of the agreed scope does not. We sign it in writing before we start and we hold to it. It only moves when you add something that was not in the scope, and then we show what it costs first, so you decide before the work, not after it.
Q.8What are the screen sketches, is that a finished mock-up?
They are hand-drawn layouts of the key screens and their logic. Not a clickable mock-up and not a visual design. Enough to see where things sit and how many steps a path takes before anyone writes a line of code. A clickable skeleton comes in the first week of the build.
Q.9Who runs the implementation plan?
Our own team, with no subcontractors. You talk to the same people who later write the code and put the software live at your site, with no account manager in between. It is also why we do not take on every job that comes in.
Want to know exactly what you're paying for, before you pay?
Write to us or book a free call. If the implementation plan is a good first step, we'll set a date and get started.
