Billing guidelines
Our rates
We have a simple and transparent charging model, with a standard hourly rate applicable to our project and support work, and a separate hourly rate for standalone consultancy work.
Our current rates are as follows:
| Type of work | Rate |
|---|---|
| Project / Support | £120 + VAT per hour (£840 + VAT per 7-hour day) |
How we bill
All person hours are billed for. For example, if 3 people attend a 2-hour meeting, 6 hours will be billed.
Our time is tracked and billed in hours. Our standard working day comprises 7 hours.
Non-billable time is time which is tracked by us, but is not charged to the client.
What we charge for
The tables below outline what we do and don't bill for. Depending on your project, some of these tasks may not be relevant.
While we do not charge for travel time to and from meetings, we do charge for travel expenses.
Projects
Billable project tasks
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| Kick-off meetings | The initial project kick-off meeting with the team, client and stakeholders. |
| Discovery | User research, information architecture analysis, requirements gathering, and other related tasks |
| Research and estimation | Analysis of a specific feature and providing time estimates upon request* |
| UX / Visual Design | Visual or UX design work related to a specific ticket or feature e.g mockup of a new page |
| Development | All development work, including coding, configuration, site building, theme development. |
| SysAdmin and Devops | Set up and support of servers and infrastructure, including development and staging sites |
| Project meetings | Daily scrum meetings, demo and review meetings |
| Project management | Project set-up and tool configuration, sprint planning, reviewing tasks and keeping up to date, liaising with clients to update on progress, talking to team members and any other project-related communications. |
| Testing, QA & reviewing | Manual point-and-click 'smoke testing', running or developing automated tests, or developer code reviews as appropriate |
| Reporting | Compiling a report of hours and tasks, formatting and sending. |
Non-billable project tasks
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| Writing proposals | Reading the brief. Writing the proposal, asking questions to the client. Reviewing the proposal. In some cases we do bill for this, if previously agreed. |
| Pre-project discussions | Discussions around the project prior to the project proposal being accepted. |
| Contract negotiation | Drafting contracts, related emails and discussions |
| Internal kick off meeting | Each project has an internal kick off meeting where we decide the team and inform all staff of the project |
| Travel to & from meetings | The time it takes to get to a meeting (e.g kick off meeting) is tracked but not billable. |
Support
Billable support tasks
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| Local development set up | We charge for the core support team to get set up in order to work on the site. |
| Research and estimation | Analysis of tickets and providing time estimates upon request* |
| UX / Visual Design | Visual or UX design work related to a specific ticket or feature e.g mockup of a new page |
| Development | All development work, including coding, configuration, site building, theme development. |
| Sysadmin and Devops | Set up and support of servers & infrastructure, including development and staging sites |
| Account Management meetings | Monthly / quarterly / annual meetings to review your ticket queue, our service, and discuss upcoming plans |
| Testing and QA | Manual point-and-click 'smoke testing', running or developing automated tests, or developer code reviews as appropriate |
| Reporting | Preparation and sending of a monthly report detailing hours spent and on what tickets |
| Training | Providing bespoke training to your team to allow you to manage your site efficiently and confidently |
*On request we can produce estimates for tasks. These are a good-faith attempt to predict how long tasks may take, but the actual time taken may be less or more than our estimate. If it looks like we will go over this, we will attempt to alert you and discuss it. If it goes under we will only ever charge for time spent.
Non-billable support tasks
| Task | Description |
|---|---|
| Contract negotiation | Drafting contracts, related emails and discussions |
| Onboarding meeting | The initial support kickoff meeting between the support team and client, which serves to run through the practicalities of our service and understand your needs |
| Technical handover meeting | If we built your site, we'll need an internal handover meeting between the support team and project team where we review the site and highlight technical complexities / anomalies |
| Travel to and from meetings | The time it takes to get to and from a face-to-face meeting e.g monthly account management check in |
| Improvements to our support system | Improvements to support.agile.coop or working processes |
| Communications about our service | Email newsletters outlining important changes to our service |
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