ENGAGEMENT MODELS

Pay for delivered work, not for time on the clock.

This page states plainly how working with Leanware works: the engagement models we offer, when you pay under each one, and how you exit. Product builds are milestone-based. Dedicated teams run on a monthly retainer. Both are written down here so you can hold us to them.

Get in touch See the milestone model

Milestone-based builds

  1. 1

    Sprint 0

    Fixed fee ($5,000 to $15,000), fixed scope, 2 to 4 weeks. Produces the scope and the milestone plan.

  2. 2

    Milestone plan and go/no-go

    Every milestone has acceptance criteria and a billing amount, set before the build starts. The go-or-no-go decision happens here: after Sprint 0 ends, before Sprint 1 starts.

  3. 3

    Pay per accepted milestone

    Billing fires on your sign-off, not on hours logged.

  4. 4

    Exit at any milestone

    Stop at any milestone boundary. Everything delivered so far is yours, including the code.

MILESTONE-BASED BUILDS

The milestone-based engagement model, in plain terms.

For defined-scope product builds, payments map to delivered, accepted milestones. Every milestone has acceptance criteria written before the build starts and a billing amount tied to it. When a milestone is delivered and you sign off, that milestone bills. Nothing bills on hours, and nothing bills before you accept the work.

NO LOCK-IN

You can exit at any milestone, and you keep everything.

There is no lock-in. If you stop after milestone three, you pay for the three accepted milestones and you keep everything delivered: the code, the infrastructure configuration, the documentation, all of it. You can take it in-house or to another vendor. The exit terms are the model working as designed, not a concession we negotiate.

THE ENABLER

Sprint 0 is what makes reliable milestone pricing possible.

Milestone billing only works when the milestones are scoped honestly, and that is what Sprint 0 exists for. Sprint 0 is a fixed-scope, fixed-fee discovery sprint ($5,000 to $15,000, two to four weeks) where senior engineers turn your thesis into epics and user stories with acceptance criteria, the technical architecture, the design system, and the full billable milestone plan, every milestone defined and priced. The go-or-no-go decision sits between Sprint 0 and Sprint 1, and scope changes during the build become new milestones with their own acceptance criteria and billing, never silent absorptions into milestones you already priced.

See what Sprint 0 includes

What a milestone schedule looks like

The shape below is an example, not a quote. Your milestone plan comes out of Sprint 0, scoped against your build. Milestones land at least twice a month, and the schedule and the billing are the same artifact, so you can model runway against either.

Milestone What acceptance means Billing
Sprint 0 Design system, epics and stories with acceptance criteria, billable milestone plan, technical architecture Fixed fee, set at signing
Milestone 1 Account layer and core data model, deployed to a staging environment Bills on your acceptance
Milestone 2 Primary workflow running end to end against the acceptance criteria Bills on your acceptance
Milestone 3 Integrations with your systems, exercised with live data Bills on your acceptance
Milestone 4 AI features passing the evaluation criteria set in Sprint 0 Bills on your acceptance
Milestone 5 Production launch, observability, and handover documentation Bills on your acceptance

Exit at any row. You pay for the accepted rows above your exit point and keep everything they delivered.

THE OTHER WAYS TO ENGAGE

Not every engagement is a defined-scope build.

Milestone billing fits work with a defined scope and testable deliverables. Some engagements are not shaped that way, and pretending otherwise produces bad contracts. These are the other models we run, each with its own pricing shape, stated plainly.

Monthly retainer

Dedicated AI Engineering Teams

When the work is an evolving roadmap rather than a defined scope, a milestone contract is the wrong instrument. Dedicated teams run on a transparent monthly retainer: a stable senior team, staffed in 2 to 4 weeks, working as an extension of your engineering organization. You interview each engineer before they join. If your roadmap is actually a defined-scope build with clear milestones, the discovery call routes you to the milestone model instead, because the engagement structure should match the work.

Dedicated AI Engineering Teams

One fixed fee

AI Readiness Assessment

A two-to-three-week assessment run by a senior engineer, priced as a single fixed fee agreed at signing. You get a ranked map of AI opportunities with ROI projections and an implementation roadmap, and you keep the deliverable whether or not you continue with us.

AI Readiness Assessment

Setup fee plus monthly subscription

Managed Custom AI Agents

A custom AI agent built for one operational workflow and run in production for you. One setup fee, fixed at signing, plus one monthly subscription that bundles hosting, model API costs, monitoring, and ongoing refinement. Scope expansions are agreed in advance against a signed change order.

Managed Custom AI Agents

WHICH MODEL FITS

Match the engagement model to the shape of the work.

The routing question is always the same: does the work have a defined scope with testable deliverables, or is it an evolving stream of work? The discovery call settles it in 30 minutes, and we will tell you plainly if the model you came in asking for is the wrong one for your situation.

FREQUENTLY ASKED

The questions buyers ask about how the engagement works.

These are the questions that come up before signing. The answers match the contracts.

  • When do I actually pay?
    On a milestone-based build, you pay the Sprint 0 fixed fee at signing, and after that each milestone bills when it is delivered and you accept it against the acceptance criteria written in Sprint 0. Nothing bills on hours, and no milestone bills before you sign off on it. On a dedicated team engagement, you pay a monthly retainer. On an Assessment, one fixed fee at signing. On a managed agent, a setup fee at signing plus a monthly subscription once the agent is running.
  • Can I really exit mid-project without losing what I paid for?
    Yes. On a milestone-based build you can stop at any milestone boundary. You pay for the milestones you accepted and you keep everything delivered: source code, infrastructure configuration, documentation, and the Sprint 0 artifacts. There is no termination penalty and no lock-in clause that holds your code hostage. The same portability applies to Sprint 0 itself: if you stop after it, the scope and milestone plan are yours to take in-house or to another vendor.
  • Who owns the code and the deliverables?
    You do. Accepted work is yours, including the repository, the infrastructure-as-code, and the documentation. This is what makes the exit terms real rather than theoretical: leaving with everything delivered only matters if everything delivered belongs to you.
  • What counts as an accepted milestone?
    Each milestone carries acceptance criteria written in Sprint 0, before the build starts. When the milestone is delivered, you test it against those criteria and sign off. Acceptance is your call against a written standard, not our call against effort spent. If the work does not meet the criteria, it is not accepted and it does not bill.
  • What happens when the scope changes mid-build?
    Scope changes become new milestones with their own acceptance criteria and their own billing. They are never absorbed silently into milestones you already priced, and they never turn into surprise invoices. You see the cost of every increment before it is built.
  • Why not just bill time and materials like most agencies?
    Time and materials is the right model for genuinely evolving work, and we run engagements that are effectively structured that way: dedicated teams bill a monthly retainer precisely because an evolving roadmap has no honest milestones to bill against. For a defined-scope build, though, milestone billing gives both sides something time and materials cannot: payment tied to accepted deliverables, a total you can plan against, and exit rights that do not leave work half-finished. The full comparison, including where time and materials genuinely fits, is in our guide to software development pricing models.
  • Why not a single fixed price for the whole project?
    A whole-project fixed price forces both sides to pretend the scope is fully known on day one. Vendors protect themselves by padding the number and fighting every change request; buyers end up in change-order disputes. Milestone billing keeps the fixed-scope discipline at the milestone level, where scope genuinely can be pinned down, and handles change honestly at the boundaries between milestones.
  • Do all Leanware engagements run on milestones?
    No, and we say so plainly. Milestone billing is the model for defined-scope product builds. Dedicated AI Engineering Teams run on a monthly retainer, because an evolving roadmap has no honest milestones to bill against. The AI Readiness Assessment is one fixed fee. Managed Custom AI Agents are a setup fee plus a monthly subscription. The discovery call routes you to the model that matches the shape of your work.
  • Is Sprint 0 required before a milestone-based build?
    Yes, for any build of real size. Sprint 0 ($5,000 to $15,000, two to four weeks) is where the scope, the acceptance criteria, and the milestone plan get written, and those artifacts are what make reliable milestone pricing possible. Skipping the scoping and quoting milestones anyway is how agencies end up padding numbers or disputing changes later, and we do not do it.
TRACK RECORD
READY TO TALK

Bring us the build. We'll bring the milestone plan.

A 30-minute discovery call with a senior engineer settles which engagement model fits the shape of your work, and what the first step costs. If the honest answer is that none of them fit, we say so.

Tell us about your situation. A senior engineer will review it, tell you which engagement model fits the shape of your work, and what the first step costs. If the honest answer is that none of them fit, we say so.

Get in touch Send Us a Message See Sprint 0