Product development retainer: a fixed block of team hours every month
Your product is live and the wish list keeps growing. A retainer gives you a fixed block of our team’s hours every month for new features, integrations and improvements. You set the priorities, we plan and show the results. From $3,000 per month.
What hurts
After launch, every new feature becomes a separate procurement. Estimates, approvals and contracts take longer than the work itself. Small improvements sit in the backlog for years.
Hiring an in-house team for this flow of work is premature. The workload is uneven: busy one month, quiet the next. Paying full salaries through idle weeks makes no sense.
You cannot see where the vendor’s hours go. Reports are vague, and there is nothing visible between releases. You want to know what you pay for each month.
What we build
- A fixed block of team hours per month
- A shared backlog and product roadmap
- Sprint planning around your priorities
- New features, integrations and AI flows
- Code review, tests and CI/CD for every change
- Demos every week or at the end of each sprint
- Monthly report: hours, tasks, releases, plan
What you get
- Code in your repository with full history
- Production releases on an agreed schedule
- Updated documentation for every new feature
- Monthly hours and tasks report
- A roadmap for the next quarter
How we measure the result
- Tasks shipped to production per month
- Lead time from task to release
- Share of hours on new features versus fixes
- Defects found after release
Systems and stack
Industries
Questions
How much does a retainer cost and what is included?
From $3,000 per month. The price depends on the number of hours and the team mix: backend, frontend, mobile, QA. Planning, code review, tests, releases and the report are included. You can change the volume from the next month.
What happens to unused hours?
How unused hours are treated is fixed in the contract before we start. The monthly report shows how many hours went where. If hours are always short or always left over, we suggest a different package instead of quietly billing for them.
How is a retainer different from a dedicated team?
A retainer suits a steady flow of work on a product that is already live. A dedicated team works full time only for you and suits active development. You can start with a retainer and move to a team as the workload grows.
What stack do you work with?
Our core stack is TypeScript, NestJS, Next.js, React Native with Expo, PostgreSQL and Temporal. We build our own Happ platform and its mobile app in the App Store and Google Play on it. We take on other stacks after a code audit.
How fast can we start?
Once the contract is signed and we have access. If someone else built the product, we start with a short takeover: code audit and documentation. We plan the first sprint together with you.
Who decides what the team works on?
You or your product owner set the priorities. We help estimate tasks and suggest what brings more value for the same hours. Urgent fixes jump the queue, and if they start eating the package, we warn you in advance.
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Describe the task. We reply within one business day, the first call is with the founder.
Describe the task. The first call is with the founder.
We reply within one business day. 30 minutes to tell you whether it is worth doing and what it costs.