Honest scope. Honest price.
No vendor lock-in.
Three ways to engage Studios — pre-scoped productized services with fixed fees, custom engagements with transparent ranges, and a Fractional AI CTO retainer for ongoing strategy. No SaaS-style ladder of "Basic / Pro / Enterprise." Just clear matches between what you need and what we deliver.
Choose the shape
that fits your work.
Not every AI engagement looks the same. Sometimes you know exactly what you need. Sometimes you're solving a novel problem. Sometimes you need an embedded strategic voice over time. We've structured engagement modes to match each.
Pre-scoped services, fixed fees
Four common engagement patterns we've built dozens of times. Fixed fee, fixed scope, fixed timeline. You know what you're getting before you sign.
- Best when you know exactly what you need
- Predictable cost, predictable outcome
- 2–6 week delivery windows
- 30-day post-launch warranty
Custom engagements at three tiers
Bespoke builds for problems that don't fit a pre-scoped service. Transparent fee range up front, then a fixed-fee SOW once scope is locked in paid discovery.
- Best when the problem is novel
- Paid discovery → fixed-fee SOW
- Single workstream → full transformation
- DPA + BAA standard at Enterprise
Fractional AI CTO monthly retainer
An embedded strategic voice for your AI program. Architecture review, governance posture, hiring guidance, vendor evaluation. Not implementation — strategy.
- Best when you lack a senior AI leader
- Weekly 1:1 + on-call access
- Architecture & vendor decisions reviewed
- 3-month minimum, month-to-month after
Pre-scoped. Fixed fee.
Predictable.
Four engagements we've designed because most clients ask for them. Each has a defined deliverable, defined timeline, and defined fee. No surprises mid-engagement.
- Current-state assessment across people, process, tools, data
- Capability gap analysis with prioritized opportunities
- 12-month roadmap with budget ranges
- AI governance baseline assessment
- Vendor / provider recommendations
- Executive readout + written deliverable
- Discovery + eval-first design
- Custom agent design with tool integrations
- Production deployment to your environment
- Evaluation framework + safety reviews
- Operations runbook + cost monitoring
- Team training + 30-day warranty
- Ingestion pipeline for your documents & data
- Embedding + vector store configuration
- Chat / search interface with citations
- Multi-tenant access controls
- Retrieval eval framework with measurable accuracy
- Runbook + 30-day warranty
- AI Governance Policy + decision rights framework
- Risk tiering + use case classification
- EU AI Act + US state law mapping
- Vendor evaluation framework + security questionnaire
- Evaluation standards + safety review process
- Council training + 90-day support
When your problem
doesn't fit a box.
Bespoke builds for novel problems. We start with a paid discovery, then provide a fixed-fee SOW. The ranges below reflect typical engagement size — your specific scope determines where you land within (or sometimes outside) the range.
- Single workstream custom build
- Architecture, build, eval, deployment
- One focused problem, one team configuration
- Runbook + 30-day warranty
- Operational handoff to your team
- Multi-workstream engagement
- Connected systems & integrations
- Substantial eval surface
- Studios lead + 2–3 engineers
- Closeout package + warranty
- Funds 1 HBCU scholarship seat
- Multi-stream engagement
- Regulatory complexity
- Custom integrations
- DPA + BAA standard
- Dedicated Studios team
- Executive reporting cadence
Senior AI leadership,
fractional.
An embedded strategic voice for your AI program. Not implementation — strategy, governance, hiring, vendor evaluation. The senior AI perspective at your exec table without the full-time hire.
Fractional AI CTO
Weekly 1:1 with Studios principal plus on-call Slack access. Architecture & vendor decisions reviewed before commitment. AI hiring guidance — role design, interviews, offer review. Quarterly AI governance review with leadership. Board / investor AI updates & positioning. Honest recommendations — including "you don't need a Fractional AI CTO yet" — apply here too.
Four principles,
applied consistently.
Fixed scope wherever possible
Hourly billing creates the wrong incentives. For everything we can scope cleanly, we quote a fixed fee. You know the cost before you commit. We absorb the risk of scoping mistakes.
Transparent ranges where we can't
Custom engagements have transparent fee ranges. After paid discovery, we convert to a fixed-fee SOW. No black-box "Contact us" — you can tell early whether Studios fits your budget.
Operational handoff at end
Every engagement ends with a Closeout Package — runbook, evaluation results, source code, training. Your team operates the system independently. We don't sell vendor dependency.
24-hour decline right
After SOW signing, you have 24 hours to reverse course at no cost. Pre-kickoff withdrawal returns 75% of fees. We'd rather you start clean than start stuck.
Some work we won't take.
Studios maintains six published Mission Commitments — categories we refuse regardless of fee. We tell you this up front so you can self-select before discovery.
Find the engagement shape
that fits your work.
Tell us what you're trying to solve. We'll respond within 48 hours with a recommended path — productized service, custom tier, retainer, or honest advice to wait.