Step 01 · Strategy before build

Strategy before build.

An AI strategy engagement for an agency is the first phase of a $1,500/month partnership that maps your client base, services, and team capacity against current AI opportunities — ranked by revenue potential and ease of execution. Month one produces a written roadmap. If the scope is clear early enough, a working AI agent or automation ships in the same month.

Monthly retainer
$1,500/mo
Month one outcome
Roadmap
Agent shipped in M1
1 in 4 engagements
Prioritised opportunities
5–10 per roadmap
The pattern we see every quarter

Why agencies fail at AI
before they ever write code.

Most agencies don’t fail at AI because the tech doesn’t work. They fail because they pick the wrong thing to build first.

We see the same pattern every quarter: an agency owner sees a competitor announce an AI service, decides their agency needs one too, picks an idea that sounds impressive in a sales call, and spends 6–12 weeks building something nobody buys. By the time they realise the offer was wrong, the budget is gone and the team is sceptical of AI for the next 18 months.

The wrong question is “what AI tool should we build?” The right question is “which of your existing client pain points has the highest ratio of revenue potential to delivery complexity?” That question takes work to answer. It also makes the difference between an AI service line that prints money and an AI service line that becomes a graveyard project.

Strategy is the part of the engagement most agencies skip. We don’t skip it. It’s the reason this works.

Inside month one

What we cover in Discovery.

Discovery is a structured process, not a workshop or a vague “AI readiness assessment.” It happens inside month one of the engagement and every output is something your agency owns and can act on whether or not you continue with us afterward.

01 / Audit

Your client portfolio

We look at your top 10–15 client accounts and identify which ones have AI use cases that fit your existing service mix. We don’t just look at where AI could help. We look at where AI would let you raise their retainer.

02 / Audit

Your service offering

We map your current service lines (SEO, web, paid, branding, etc.) against AI capabilities that extend each one. Some services have obvious AI extensions. Some don’t. Some have AI extensions that look obvious but kill margin.

03 / Audit

Your team capacity

We assess what your team can support post-launch without burning out. An AI service that nobody on the team can troubleshoot is a churn machine. We model for support load.

04 / Audit

Your competitive position

We look at what your direct competitors have announced, what’s real vs marketing fluff, and where the white space is that you can credibly own.

05 / Model

Revenue projection

Every opportunity we identify gets a rough revenue projection — who you could sell it to, at what price, with what attach rate to existing services.

— Output

A roadmap your agency owns.

Whether or not you continue with us after month one, the roadmap is yours. You can take it to a developer, an in-house team, or another AI agency. We’d rather you build the right thing.

The deliverable

Your AI roadmap.

You get a written roadmap, not a verbal recommendation. Take it to any developer, in-house engineer, or AI agency. Take it to your CFO and have a real conversation about where the AI investment goes.

  1. 01

    Prioritised list of 5–10 opportunities

    Each with scope estimate, recommended pricing range, target client segment, and execution complexity rating.

  2. 02

    A “build first” recommendation

    Which one opportunity, in our judgement, you should ship first based on the ratio of revenue potential to time-to-market.

  3. 03

    A “don’t build” list

    Opportunities that look attractive but we’d actively recommend against — with the reasoning.

  4. 04

    Tech stack recommendation

    For the prioritised build — which AI providers, which integration patterns, which platforms.

  5. 05

    Cost & timeline estimates

    For the top 3 opportunities, so you can have an internal budget conversation if you want to scale the engagement.

How the first month unfolds

Week by week.

A typical month-one engagement — with the option to accelerate when the build target is obvious.

Week What happens
Week 1 Kickoff call (90 min). Client portfolio review. Service offering map. We begin async research on your competitors and segment.
Week 2 Mid-cycle check-in (45 min). We surface 8–12 raw opportunities for your reaction. You signal which ones excite you and which are off-limits.
Week 3 We narrow to the top 5–10 opportunities and build revenue models. If the build target becomes obvious early — and you’re ready to greenlight — we start implementation here, not in month two.
Week 4 Roadmap delivery call (90 min). Full walkthrough. If we started building in week 3, you also see a working prototype or first version of the agent.

The accelerated path

Discovery + a shipped agent in the same month happens when:

  • You arrive with a clear sense of which client pain point matters most
  • The build target is well-bounded (a single workflow, a single integration, a single chatbot scope)
  • Your team can give us decisions inside 24 hours when we need them

When those three conditions hold, month one ends with a roadmap and a working AI artefact in production. When they don’t, month one ends with the roadmap, and the build starts in month two.

Inclusions

What $1,500/month includes.

No separate Discovery fees. No setup fees. No per-build charges. One line on the invoice, covering everything below.

01 / Strategy

Discovery & roadmap

Full client portfolio audit, service map, team capacity assessment, competitive analysis, and a prioritised written roadmap. Repeated each quarter.

02 / Build

Implementation capacity

We execute against the roadmap. Most months ship one workflow, integration, or feature. Larger builds may span 2–3 months. Smaller ones may ship multiple per month.

03 / Brand

White-label deployment

Every artefact is deployed under your agency’s domain and branding. Your client sees only you.

04 / Ownership

Source & credentials handoff

Documentation, source code, and access credentials transfer to you. No platform lock-in. No proprietary tools you have to keep paying us to operate.

05 / Review

Monthly strategy reviews

A 30-minute call each month to review what shipped, what’s queued, and what new opportunities surfaced from your client work.

06 / Support

Priority response window

For anything we’ve built, we respond same-day during business hours across UTC, GMT, ET, and PT.

Three-month minimum · Cancel any time after month three with 30 days’ notice · No revenue share on what you resell

— Honest disqualifiers

When this engagement is not the right fit.

Three situations where we’d actively recommend not starting. We’d rather lose the deal than waste your retainer.

01 · Wrong shape

You already know exactly what you want built and want it as a one-off.

If you have a specific product spec in hand and no interest in a longer relationship, the monthly retainer is more than you need. Look at our project-based MVP Build instead, or book a scoping call and we’ll point you elsewhere.

02 · Too early

Your agency is under 5 people and pre-revenue.

Discovery is most valuable when there’s an existing client base to map opportunities against. If you’re still building your initial offer, your AI strategy is downstream of your overall positioning — which we’re not the right partner for.

03 · Wrong filter

You’re shopping for the cheapest option.

$1,500/month is intentionally below most custom AI development pricing because we’re optimising for sustained partnerships, not maximum margin per engagement. If price is your primary filter, you’ll be happier with a no-code platform like Vendasta or GoHighLevel. We’re a build partner, not a tools subscription.

For everyone else — agencies with an existing client base, a real revenue line, and uncertainty about where to plant the AI flag — this is the cleanest way to start.

FAQ · About the engagement

Questions worth answering.

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How is this different from a free AI audit from another agency?

Free audits exist to qualify you for a sales pitch. They optimise for getting you on a longer call, not for giving you actionable insight. Our Discovery is part of a paid monthly engagement: we owe you a usable roadmap from week one, whether or not we end up building any of it. The roadmap is the deliverable, not a prelude to one.

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Can we share Discovery findings with other vendors or in-house developers?

Yes. The roadmap is your property. If you decide to execute the build with an in-house developer or another agency after the first month, you can hand them the document. We’d rather you get the build done right with someone else than be locked into a partnership that isn’t working.

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What does the engagement cost?

$1,500 per month. That single fee includes Discovery in month one, ongoing build capacity, deployment, source code handoff, and monthly strategy reviews. There are no setup fees, Discovery fees, or per-build charges.

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Can you really ship something in the first month?

Sometimes, yes. When the client arrives with a clear sense of the priority use case, the scope is well-bounded, and decisions come back within 24 hours, we can fold Discovery and a first build into the same month. About 1 in 4 engagements ships a working agent or automation in month one. The rest deliver the roadmap in month one and ship the first build in month two.

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What if our team is sceptical of AI?

That’s useful information, not a blocker. Discovery includes a team-capacity audit specifically to surface this. If your team will fight the rollout, we’ll either recommend a build pattern that requires minimal team buy-in (e.g., a client-facing tool the team doesn’t have to operate) or recommend slowing the build cadence until the team is ready. Either is a valid outcome.

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Will this work if we don’t have many clients yet?

It depends on what “not many” means. If you have 5–10 active client engagements and a clear offer, yes. If you’re under 5 clients and still figuring out your service mix, no — Discovery is downstream of your core positioning work, and we’d recommend solving that first.

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Can the engagement be run remotely across time zones?

Yes. All our engagements run remote. We work with agencies across US, UK, EU, and Australia. The monthly calls can be scheduled in your time zone. The async work happens on our side and doesn’t require live overlap.

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Is there a contract or commitment?

Three months minimum, then month-to-month after that. Cancel any time after month three with 30 days’ notice. We chose this structure because three months is the minimum window where Discovery plus a first build produces a result you can evaluate honestly. Anything shorter and you’re judging the partnership on incomplete data.

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How quickly can we start?

Currently 1–2 weeks from booking to month-one kickoff, depending on existing commitments. We onboard 2–3 new partners per quarter. If you’re trying to hit a specific quarter’s launch, book a partner call and we’ll confirm timing.

Next step · 30 minutes

Ready to map your agency’s
AI opportunity surface?

A 30-minute scoping call before you commit. We’ll look at your client mix, talk through what month one would cover specifically for your agency, and confirm whether the timing is right. No pitch deck.

Book a 30-minute scoping call

What you bring

A rough sense of your client mix and service lines.

What we ask

8–10 questions about your clients, services, and team capacity.

What you leave with

A clear answer on whether month one makes sense now — or a polite “wait until next quarter.”