We do not publish prices. Here is exactly how you get yours, and how long it takes.
A fixed price given without investigating the scope is a planned loss, for you as much as for us. So we do not give one blind. In exchange, everything else is written down: the steps, the timelines, what is included, what is excluded, what pushes the price up, and what we refuse to do.
The four steps, and their timeline
under 2 minutes
You send the form
Six written questions.
the form, sent
within 1 business day
We answer in writing
Either we offer you the call, or we say no, with the reason.
a written answer, either way
30 minutes
The call
Free, five questions.
the decision, said during the call
within 2 business days of the call
The written estimate
Scope, named deliverables, duration, completion criterion, fixed price, what is excluded, and what would change it.
a written, dated document
If the deadline passes
These two deadlines are promises, not ballparks. If nothing has reached you after two business days, the message got lost: write to us again, nobody here will take it badly.
What the estimate is, and what it always contains
Free, and with no commitment
The call and the estimate are free. Scoping is not: it is an engagement, not a quote.
What it always contains
- The scope, in writing
- The deliverables, named one by one
- The duration, and how it is cut into milestones
- The completion criterion
- The fixed price
- The list of what is excluded
An estimate that does not say what it excludes is not an estimate.
What moves the price, and what never moves it
What moves the price
- The real quality and accessibility of your data. Documented exports do not cost the same as access to be negotiated system by system.
- The number of systems to connect. Every system added brings its own authentication, its rate limits and its error cases.
- Whether or not a test environment exists. Without one, acceptance runs on exported data, which changes the protocol and stretches the last milestone.
- The number of people to coordinate. One reachable contact costs less than four calendars.
- The imposed deadline. A deadline under four weeks costs more, because it displaces other work.
What never moves it
- Your company size, your funding round, whether or not you already have a budget approved. The price follows the work, not your ability to pay.
The terms, with no amounts
- Schedule, Scoping
- 100 % on orderCredited in full against the next engagement if signed within 30 days.
- Schedule, Custom build
- 30 % on order, then the balance per milestone, on acceptance of each milestone
- Schedule, Integration into what you already run
- Three milestones: connecting to the systems in place, going live on a restricted scope, then the extension. Each milestone has its completion criterion written before the work starts.The exact split into milestones is set during scoping. It is written in the estimate, together with the scope and the duration, before you order.
- Set-up charges
- None. No hidden mandatory charges.
- Variable costs
- API and hosting costs are passed through at cost, with the invoice attached, no markup.
- Taxes
- Prices exclude tax. GST and QST added where applicable. For a business customer established in the European Union, VAT is reverse charged by you, subject to verification of your intra-community number.
- Performance claim
- No estimate comes with a promise of financial return. The measured results from our past builds are published on the Proof page; they describe those builds, not yours, and none of them can anchor a performance claim for an engagement that has not started yet. Nobody could honestly make one on our behalf.
You would rather see a price
You would rather see a price, and you are right to prefer that. This site does the opposite of what we would advise a company selling a standard product, because Ludolith does not sell one: two engagements with the same name have neither the same scope nor the same duration. What we owe you in exchange is to never make you wait for it, and to never adjust the price to what we guess about your means. Both are written above, and the second one is verifiable: ask for the same estimate twice, six months apart, with the same scope.
The first step
You pick your slot on screen, within the second. The human answer comes the next business day.
Six written questions first, then real slots on the same page. Free, 30 minutes.