Discovery Call
Thirty minutes. We learn the problem and tell you straight whether we are a fit, or whether AI is even the answer. You leave with a realistic sense of the work involved.
FreeBook the callA free call,
then honest hourly work.
No fixed-bid theater, no subscriptions, no surprise invoices. The Discovery Call is free; everything after is billed by the hour, and you see every one. How many hours it takes depends on your size and scope, so we scope it together and put the rate and a real estimate in writing.
$0
Discovery Call
Hourly
Billed as we go, you see every hour
Weekly
Check-ins on every engagement
100%
Yours: code, data, credentials
02 / How it works
One free call.
Then we bill the hours.
Every engagement runs the same way. The call is free; the audit, any foundations work, and the build are all billed by the hour. We estimate the hours before each stage so you are never guessing.
Audit
We dig into how you actually operate to scope the real work. This scales with you: a 10-person shop is quick; a 100-person, multi-department operation takes longer. We estimate the hours before we start, and you only pay for the time it takes.
HourlyFoundations
Only if you need it. If your process or data is not ready for AI yet, we fix that first: mapping, cleanup, off-the-shelf tools, SOPs. Sometimes the honest answer is a better checklist, not a model, and we will say so.
HourlyBuild
We build, billed by the hour as we go, with weekly check-ins so you see every hour. You only pay for what we actually ship, and you own all of it: source, data, credentials.
Hourly/// Want the rate? It is the first thing we cover on the free call, in writing, with a real estimate of the hours.
Education · lives on its own page
See the Education page Want to train your team instead of (or alongside) building?
Start with the free 5-day course, or bring us in for a workshop, an executive briefing, or the 4-week AI Champion Cohort. No coding required. Tailored to your departments.
03 / How we keep it honest
Honest by the hour.
Not by the deck.
Hourly only works if it is transparent. Here is how we keep it honest, so billing by the hour never turns into a runaway bill.
One way we bill
Audit, foundations, and build are all billed the same way: by the hour. No tiers, no subscriptions you forget to cancel, no separate "consulting" rate. The only free thing is the first call.
Billed hourlyYou see every hour
Weekly check-ins and a running log of what we did. You approve as we go. If we approach the hours we estimated and need more, we stop and talk first. No surprise invoices.
Weekly visibilityShaped to you, in writing
Every engagement is a little different. Sometimes it is a simple statement of work or a project estimate; sometimes, for ongoing work, a retainer you draw down at the hourly rate. Whatever fits your situation, we put the structure in writing before we begin, and the code, data, and credentials are always yours to keep.
Transparent up front04 / FAQ
The questions
buyers actually ask.
Plain English, no legalese. If your question is not here, the Discovery Call exists for exactly that — bring it.
The Discovery Call is free. After that, everything is billed by the hour: the audit, any foundations work, and the build. How many hours it takes depends on your size and scope, which we figure out together and estimate up front.
We give it to you on the Discovery Call, once we understand the work, and put it in writing with a real estimate of the hours. We do not post a number here because pricing depends enough on scope that a rate out of context is not useful, or honest. The call is free and there is no pitch, so it costs you nothing to find out.
Because fixed bids force us to pad for risk, and you pay for the padding. Billing by the hour means you only pay for the work we actually do. We give you a realistic estimate of the hours before we start and flag it the moment we get close.
It depends on the engagement, and we make the structure completely clear before any work starts. Sometimes it is a simple statement of work or a project estimate; for ongoing work it is often a retainer you draw down at the hourly rate. Different businesses need different things, so we shape it to yours and put it in writing on the Discovery Call, or after the audit, before we begin. However it is structured, billing is always hourly for the time actually worked.
It is billed by the hour like everything else, so it scales with your operation. A small, single-team shop might be a handful of hours; a larger company with multiple departments takes longer. We estimate the hours before we begin so there are no surprises.
You get weekly check-ins and a running log of exactly what we worked on. You approve as we go. If we hit the estimate and the job needs more, we stop and talk before continuing. You are never invoiced for work you did not approve.
Yes. Full source code, full data, full credentials. No escrow, no licensing trap. The only carve-out is that we may anonymize the work for a case study, and you can opt out of that.
Yes. You pay for the hours worked to date and you keep everything we have built. If the engagement uses a retainer, any unused balance is refundable, so stopping never leaves money on the table.
We will tell you on the call, for free. Sometimes the right answer is a better SOP or an off-the-shelf tool, not a custom AI build. We would rather say so than sell you something that will not move the needle.
05 / Next stepBook a free
Book a free
30-minute call.
We'll scope it
and estimate the hours.
No deck. No drip sequence. We listen, we tell you straight whether Sling fits, or whether AI fits at all, and we give you a realistic sense of the hours and the rate.
No surprises
We estimate the hours before each stage and flag it before we exceed them. You see every hour and approve as we go.
SMB-focused, by design
We build for small and mid-size businesses, that is our entire focus. No enterprise procurement maze, no "Contact us for pricing."
Capacity
We deliberately cap how many engagements we run at once. We won't sell what we can't deliver.