What it costs
Some of this is a price list. Some of it is a build. Which parts apply to you gets worked out one system at a time.
The first step is smaller than it sounds
Most of this starts without a purchase. The first thing that usually happens is automation over what you already run: the document already waiting where somebody used to copy and paste it, the spreadsheet already filled in. No new software, nothing for anyone to learn, and nothing switched off.
That gets scoped and quoted once somebody has looked at how you work. It is deliberately small, because its job is to be useful before anything bigger is asked of you.
What You Already Run
Three things can happen to a system, and each one is paid for differently
Nothing gets thrown out to make room for something new. Every system you already have gets looked at on its own, and one of these three applies to it.
Connect
It does its job, so it stays.
Connecting it to the rest is part of the build. No licence gets added for it, and nothing on your side has to change.
Replace
It is not doing the job, and building a better one is not worth it.
Open source takes it over, priced off the rates below: a server, a once-off fee to install it, and a monthly fee to keep it running.
Build
The thing it does is how you win work.
It gets built into software you own, priced as an outcome rather than by the hour. The old system goes and the code is yours.
Most businesses end up paying for a mix of all three, and the mix is what the number actually is. Which mix is yours gets decided after somebody has looked, rather than read off a price list.
Two Models
Buying the ordinary, and building the rest
Standard software you buy is priced by what it runs on. Software built around the way you work is priced by what it is worth.
GoFast
Standard software, kept standard
This is what Replace costs.
A catalogue of proven applications for the ordinary things: finance, CRM, projects, communication, security. Installed properly, kept standard so they keep upgrading themselves, and running on infrastructure you own.
- The server, priced by the capacity you need
- A once-off fee per application, to install and configure it
- A monthly fee per application, to keep it running and patched
- Nothing per person, in any form
GoFar
The part customers choose you for
This is what Build costs, and Connect is part of it.
Software built around the way your business actually works, owned outright, and written so another firm could take it over. The connecting layer that makes the work move by itself is part of the build rather than a separate purchase.
- A fixed scope, priced as an outcome rather than by the hour
- Or, for the right fit, engineering put at risk and paid out of the result
- The code is yours, with no licence fee attached to it
- Hosting on the same managed infrastructure, priced the same way
Or the build gets paid for out of what it earns
For the right fit, the engineering goes in at risk and gets paid out of the result instead of up front. It is not the usual arrangement and it does not suit every business, but where it fits it changes what you have to find the money for before anything works.
It is a share of one line, not of your business. The share gets scoped to a particular kind of customer interaction, through a channel where what the software contributed can be measured exactly. Revenue the system had nothing to do with has nothing to do with the arrangement.
What the share comes to depends on how much of the work the software is doing. There is no rate for it, because there is no version of it that is the same twice. What there are, are the things that move the number, and those are worth knowing before the conversation rather than during it.
How much of the work it does
The share tracks what the system actually brings. A small lift on a service business sits around 20% to 30%. Where it is doing most of the work, properly wired into how the business runs, it is nearer 30% to 50%.
Whether equity is part of it
Equity and a share of revenue together is the most complicated version, so it is not the first one to reach for. Where it does happen, the equity brings the revenue share down rather than sitting on top of it.
What kind of business it is
Those bands are service businesses. Retail runs on different margins and gets a different model. Your margins are part of the conversation rather than something to work around.
Every one of these gets negotiated, so the honest answer to what the split would be is that it depends. Your margins are the first thing anyone should be asking about, and an arrangement that does not leave you with a business worth running is not one worth signing.
The Rule Underneath
You pay for capacity, not for people
More people using a system means more load, and enough load eventually means a bigger server. What it does not mean is another licence. That is how the pricing is built rather than a policy somebody has to remember to apply, so it cannot quietly come back later.
Hire five people this month.
The price does not change.
Give two hundred customers a login to see their own jobs.
The price does not change.
Let a supplier update their own delivery dates.
The price does not change.
Every one of those is a per-person charge in a normal arrangement, and that charge is why businesses quietly ration access to their own systems. The people who ought to be able to see something end up without a login for it, and somebody has to go and fetch the answer for them instead.
Why some of this has a price list and some of it doesn't
Standard software can be priced to the rand, because the work is known. A server of a given size costs what it costs, and installing an application takes about as long as it takes. That part is arithmetic, and hiding it would be a choice rather than a necessity.
A build is not arithmetic. Every one is different, and a rate card would quietly change what you are buying from an outcome into a number of hours. Hours are the wrong thing to buy, because they reward the slow version.
There is also no locked-in term to earn anything back over. Suppliers who discount heavily up front can do it because they know leaving is painful and they will recover it later. That option has been given up on purpose, so each piece of work has to be worth its own price at the time.
We cannot show the rates on this page at the moment, which is on us rather than on you. The Starter Pack page carries a live figure, and asking gets you the number and the working behind it either way.
Costs that sit outside this
Three things that sit outside the rates above. Two are billed to you directly by someone else; the third is ours, and only if you go past what is included. Worth knowing up front rather than discovering later.
Software you already subscribe to
Anything you already pay for, like Xero or Google Workspace, stays on your own account at your own pricing. It gets connected to the rest, and the billing stays yours.
AI usage
Where AI is part of what gets built, the usage is billed by the AI provider on your own contract. That is deliberate: it is your account, your region, and your spend to see and control.
Backup storage above what is included
An amount is included with every installation, and anything above it is billed on what was actually stored rather than estimated in advance.
Start by finding out which is which
One conversation about what you already run and how the work actually moves. Nothing gets bought or built off the back of it unless you want it to.