Field Notes · By
Why we don't do change orders
A fixed scope pretends you can know everything on day one. You can't.
Every agency project starts the same way: a scope document that lists everything you'll get, a price, and a date. It feels safe. Then the project starts, and reality shows up.
Halfway through the website, you realize the booking flow should come first. Two weeks into the brand, a customer interview changes the positioning. The app prototype shows that nobody needs half the features, and one nobody thought of is the whole point.
In a fixed-scope world, every one of those discoveries becomes a change order: a new estimate, a new negotiation, a delay. The project gets more expensive exactly when it's getting better, so the incentive is to ignore good ideas. That's backwards.
How we work instead
- We map it together and agree what comes first.
- You get an honest estimate of how long it'll take and roughly what it'll cost.
- You pay one flat monthly rate while we work, one project at a time, until it's done.
- When a better idea shows up, we follow it. If that pushes the timeline, you hear it early, with the options.
Scopes can't predict the best ideas. We'd rather follow them than invoice for them.
"So how many hours do I get?"
We don't sell hours, because the moment you buy hours you start counting them, and we start defending them. Some weeks are heads-down sprints; others are review weeks while you test. The project never stalls. Keeping it moving is our job.