Business Development Lead
Every agency you're evaluating claims AI augmentation, so the adjective tells you nothing. The specific version: where AI sits in our delivery, where it doesn't and where a senior engineer signs their name regardless.
What locks a client in is rarely the contract. It's that four people understand how the system works and none of them work for you. What that switching cost is made of, why it stopped being inevitable and how to measure your own exposure.
Our rate is usually higher per hour than a pyramid agency's and lower per outcome. What the hourly number is made of, where the pyramid genuinely wins and what to ask when you're comparing quotes.