Engagement models
Four ways to work with us. The right one depends on how well the scope is known — not on which one bills best.
- Models
- Four
- Notice
- 30 days
- Billing
- Monthly, itemised
- Scope
- Always written first
The premise
Most disputes in this industry are contract-shape disputes, not engineering ones: a fixed price on a scope nobody understood, or an open-ended day rate on work that should have been priced.
So we choose the model against one question — how much of this do we genuinely know today? — and we will move you between models when the answer changes.
The parts of the work
Fixed price
Known scope, known deliverables, milestone billing. Best for defined builds, integrations and migrations. Changes go through a written change note, priced before work starts.
Dedicated team
A named team at a monthly rate, pointed at your roadmap. Best when the direction is clear but the backlog will keep moving.
Time and materials
Capped hourly billing with a monthly ceiling. Best for discovery, R&D and support work where scoping the detail would cost more than doing it.
Outcome retainer
A monthly fee tied to running and improving a live system — support SLA, roadmap increments and growth work in one line.
Five steps, and what you hold at the end of each
Ask
How firm is the scope, how fast must it move, and who will own it afterwards?
Model recommendation
Price
One page: what is included, what is not, what triggers a change note.
Written quote
Sign
MSA, DPA and IP assignment — ours or yours, we work under client paper regularly.
Executed contract
Run
Sprint demos, itemised monthly invoices, and no surprise line items ever.
Monthly report
Re-fit
Quarterly, we check the model still matches the work and change it if it does not.
Adjusted agreement
What this looks like in numbers
4
Models, chosen on scope certainty
100%
Work scoped in writing before invoicing
0
Surprise line items on an invoice
30d
Exit notice on every recurring model
Asked first, every time
What is the smallest engagement you take?
A two to five day paid discovery. It ends in a written scope you can take anywhere, including to another supplier.
Can we switch models mid-flight?
Yes, and clients often do: discovery on time and materials, build at fixed price, then an outcome retainer once it is live.
Tell us what you’re trying to ship
A first call is thirty minutes and costs nothing. Bring the problem, not a spec — working out what to build is the part we are good at.
Or email office@symphonyapps.ro. We reply within one business day, in English or Romanian.