Our model

How we bill, and why this way

By the half hour, on time actually spent, with the detail of the hours on every invoice. You pay for what was done, and the final amount matches what was announced.

Billing unit: ½ h
Of scoping workshop, free, before any estimate: 2 h
The span of our projects: 3 to 150 d
Expert consultants: 11

The unit

Half an hour, on time actually spent

You receive a detailed summary of all the hours on your invoices. The consumption is followed as the project goes rather than discovered at the end, and the consultant who scopes your project is the one who delivers it.

It is a practice inherited from our freelance origins, and we kept it exactly as it was while growing. It holds for a client in Geneva as much as for one in Lyon.

The sequence

The estimate comes after your data has been opened

A quote written without having seen your data is worth nothing. We could write any figure at all, you would have no way to check it, and we would discover the reality on day one of the project, too late for everyone.

The scoping workshop settles that in two hours: twenty minutes on your systems, forty on how your figures are calculated, thirty on the architecture we would put in place, thirty on the sequence and the load on your teams. It is free and without commitment, and it serves us as much as you: it keeps us from selling a project we would struggle to deliver, and it keeps you from buying a platform three sizes too large.

The mode

Fixed price once the scope is settled, flexible while it moves

The question comes up every time, and it is often settled for the wrong reasons. A fixed price reassures because it fixes an amount; it also fixes a scope, and anything outside it becomes a variation. Billing on time spent worries people because it shows a total less quickly; it also leaves the freedom to change your mind in week four, which almost always happens.

Our position fits in one sentence: flexible while the scope moves, fixed price once it is settled. Many of our projects start on time spent for the scoping and the inventory, then move to a fixed price once the sources are known. That is the only moment when a fixed price can be fair.

Orders of magnitude

What we observe on our projects

A need that fits in three days deserves to be handled in three days. We leave it at its size rather than inflating it so that it looks like a project.

Three days, a hundred and fifty days, the same standard

A need that fits in three days deserves to be handled in three days. We do not inflate it so that it looks like a project.

Duration →

Focused Power BI project

3 to 10 days

One or two sources connected, dataflow, semantic model, reports, and training for your teams.

Business application

A few weeks

A portal on our proven foundation, or a Power Apps application, wired to your directory and your information system.

Fabric platform

30 to 150 days

Multi-source consolidation, medallion architecture, historical load, reports, workshops and consistency checks.

Logarithmic scale: on a linear axis a three-day project would take two per cent of the width and vanish. The durations are orders of magnitude observed on our own projects rather than a price list; the exact scope is set during the scoping workshop.

Your share

What the project costs you in time, week by week

The quote prices our days. A project also consumes yours, and that load concentrates on three moments rather than spreading out. Knowing them in advance means booking the right people in the right weeks.

Your share of the work is not spread evenly

It concentrates on three moments. Knowing them in advance means booking the right people in the right weeks, and it is the leading cause of slippage when it is not done.

2-M shareYour share

Scoping
2 hours
50 % pour vous · 50 % pour nous
Your stakes, your sources, your volumes. Nothing to prepare, we listen.
Access and inventory
3 to 5 days
65 % pour vous · 35 % pour nous
The most demanding moment for you: opening access, identifying the right contact for each system, finding out who holds which password.
Data foundation
1 to 4 weeks
5 % pour vous · 95 % pour nous
Extraction, history, raw layer. We work, you get on with your day.
Business rules
1 to 3 weeks
40 % pour vous · 60 % pour nous
The second peak. The rules are written nowhere: they live in the heads of your management accountants, and they have to be drawn out.
Model and reports
2 to 6 weeks
15 % pour vous · 85 % pour nous
Semantic model, measures, reports. Short weekly check-ins.
Acceptance
1 to 2 weeks
70 % pour vous · 30 % pour nous
The third peak, and the most important: your teams compare the figures with their own. A gap found here costs a hundred times less than a gap found in production.
Handover
2 to 5 days
45 % pour vous · 55 % pour nous
Training, documentation, keys handed over. You must be able to change a report without us.

The proportions are orders of magnitude observed on our projects; they vary with the number of sources and the availability of your teams. The durations match a mid-sized project: a focused Power BI project compresses the seven phases into a few days, without skipping any.

The two invoices

What Microsoft bills on its side

On a Fabric project the cost splits into two independent lines. Our days on one side. On the other, the Fabric capacity, billed monthly by Microsoft and sized by an F reference, plus the reading licences of your readers. On shared capacity every reader needs a Power BI Pro licence; on dedicated capacity readers no longer need one but the capacity is billed. We cost both scenarios during the scoping workshop.

We do not print those amounts here because there is no general answer: Microsoft prices move, the thresholds move with them, and a page showing a figure would be wrong within six months. We check them at every costing.

Our business applications follow another logic: our foundation is billed per application rather than per user. Your clients and partners can use it without the invoice moving.

Frequently asked

What people ask before signing

Do you work on a fixed price or on time spent?

Both, and the choice is yours. On time spent, we start straight away and you adjust the scope as we go: that suits a need still being defined. On a fixed price, we quote after the source inventory, which assumes the scope is stable. We quote a fixed price once the data has been opened, never on the strength of a description alone.

Why do you not publish a day rate?

Because a rate on its own says nothing about the final invoice. What determines it is the number of days, and that number depends on the real state of your data, on how many business rules have to be settled and on the availability of your teams. We prefer to publish orders of magnitude in days, which can be checked, and to give the rate during the conversation.

Does the final amount match the estimate?

That is what the half hour as a unit and the detail of the hours on every invoice are for: you follow the consumption as the project goes rather than discovering it at the end. When the scope moves, we say so before the time is committed, not after.

Do you bill the initial scoping?

No, the two-hour scoping workshop is free and without commitment. We spend that time because it is the only way to know whether we can be useful to you, and because a quote written without having seen your data is worth nothing, to you or to us.

How does billing work from Switzerland?

We invoice in euros, from France, with the VAT reverse charge for companies registered in Switzerland: the standard mechanism for cross-border services, extended to third countries. Your accounting department knows the drill.

Let us book those two hours.

Eleven expert consultantsSaint-Priest, near Lyon, France

Describe your situation in a few lines, roughly is fine. We come back to you within two working days to agree on a slot, in Saint-Priest, at your offices or over video.

Request a scoping workshop

No commitment · no sales pitch required