ENGAGEMENT MODELS

How working with us is priced, written down before you sign.

Every engagement model Leanware runs, what it costs to start, when you pay, and how you leave. Product builds are milestone-based. Ongoing work runs on a monthly retainer. First steps like Sprint 0 and the Code Audit are one fixed fee. It is all on this page so you can hold us to it.

Last reviewed: October 5, 2026

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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.

COMPARE THE MODELS

Every engagement model we run, side by side.

Each model fits a different shape of work. The prices are the published starting points from each service page; the exact figure is set on the discovery call.

Model Best for How you pay Starting price Commitment
Milestone-based build A product with a scope that can be pinned down Sprint 0 fixed fee, then per accepted milestone Sprint 0 $5,000 to $15,000; the build is priced in Sprint 0 Exit at any milestone and keep everything delivered
Dedicated team An evolving roadmap that needs engineers for quarters Monthly retainer From about $6,000 a month per full-time engineer Directional six-month minimum
Staff augmentation One or two engineers working inside your team Monthly rate per engineer From about $6,000 a month per engineer Set in the proposal
Application support and maintenance An app in production that needs someone accountable when it breaks Monthly retainer for a block of hours From $1,682 a month for 42 hours No minimum, 30 days’ notice
Fractional CTO A product with no technical owner Monthly retainer, by days per week About $4,000/mo for 1 day a week Change tier or exit monthly
Code Audit An AI-built or inherited app you need to trust One fixed fee $4,000 to $12,000 One engagement; the report is yours
AI Readiness Assessment Finding where AI pays off before committing to a build One fixed fee Fixed fee, set on the discovery call One engagement; the roadmap is yours
Custom AI Agents One operational workflow to automate and run in production Setup fee plus monthly subscription Priced per workflow Set in the proposal

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.

MONTHLY RETAINERS

For work that does not end on a date.

An evolving roadmap, a product without a technical owner, an app that has to stay up: none of these has honest milestones to bill against, so a milestone contract is the wrong instrument. These run on a monthly retainer, each with its starting price stated.

Monthly retainer

Dedicated Software Development Teams

When the work is an evolving roadmap rather than a defined scope, a stable team on a monthly retainer fits better than a milestone contract. Teams start at one full-time engineer, from about $6,000 a month for one full-time engineer, staffed in 2 to 4 weeks, and you interview each engineer before they join. If the roadmap turns out to be a defined-scope build, the discovery call routes you to the milestone model instead.

Dedicated Software Development Teams

Monthly rate per engineer

Staff Augmentation

One or two engineers placed inside your team, interviewed by you, on a monthly rate from about $6,000 per engineer. They work in your standups, your tools, and your review process. When one seat becomes a team, the engagement grows into a dedicated team without starting over.

Staff Augmentation

Monthly retainer for a block of hours

Application Support and Maintenance

For an app already in production: monitoring, incident response, patching, bug fixes, and small enhancements, from $1,682 a month for 42 hours of engineering time. Critical issues get a first response within 1 business hour, in US business hours. No minimum term. Either side ends the retainer with 30 days’ notice.

Application Support and Maintenance

Monthly retainer, by days per week

Fractional CTO

A named Leanware tech lead who owns your roadmap, architecture decisions, and vendors, approximately $4,000 a month for one day a week or $10,000 a month for three days a week. You can change tier or exit monthly, and the documentation and decisions stay with you.

Fractional CTO

FIXED FEES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

For a defined first step, or a system we run for you.

Some engagements have one clear deliverable and one price. Others are software we build and then operate. Both are priced before any work starts.

One fixed fee

Sprint 0

A fixed-scope, fixed-fee discovery sprint ($5,000 to $15,000, two to four weeks) that produces the design system, epics and stories with acceptance criteria, the technical architecture, and the full milestone plan. It is the first step of a milestone-based build, and the artifacts are yours if you stop there.

Sprint 0

One fixed fee

Code Audit

One senior engineer audits an AI-built or inherited codebase in one to two weeks for a fixed fee of $4,000 to $12,000: security, architecture, tests, deployment, and monitoring. You keep the fix list. It is also how an app we did not build moves onto the support retainer.

Code Audit

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

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.

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. Dedicated teams, staff augmentation, application support, and Fractional CTO bill monthly. The Code Audit and the AI Readiness Assessment are one fixed fee at signing. A managed agent is 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 Software Development Teams, Staff Augmentation, Application Support and Maintenance, and Fractional CTO run on monthly retainers, because ongoing work has no honest milestones to bill against. The Code Audit and the AI Readiness Assessment are one fixed fee each. 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.

  • Which engagement models have no minimum term?

    Application Support and Maintenance runs month to month: no minimum term and 30 days’ notice to end it. Fractional CTO lets you change tier or exit monthly. A milestone-based build lets you stop at any milestone boundary and keep everything delivered. Dedicated teams carry a directional six-month minimum, which is how we filter out short-horizon work; if your horizon is shorter, we route you to a milestone-based build instead.

  • What does it cost to keep an app running after launch?

    Our Application Support and Maintenance retainer starts at $1,682 a month for 42 hours of engineering time, covering monitoring, incident response, patching, bug fixes, and small enhancements in US business hours. After-hours and on-call coverage is available as a surcharge on the plan. For an app we did not build, the Code Audit ($4,000 to $12,000) comes first.

    See the support and maintenance retainer
  • 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 work. We'll tell you which model fits it.

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.

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