Why Us · Pricing philosophy

Why we do not publish dollar bands.

The price of an IG engagement sits inside the scoping conversation. There is a philosophy behind that choice. This is the explanation, written for the buyer who already noticed the absence and wants the reasoning.

What pricing transparency usually means.

Most agency and consultancy websites publish either a fixed tier or a starting band. The fixed-tier version (Starter, Pro, Enterprise) works when the product is the same product across buyers. SaaS companies use it well. The starting-band version (engagements start at $X/month) works when the floor is real and the ceiling is structurally similar across buyers.

Neither pattern fits an operating-company engagement. The Compact engagement that solves a specific intervention for a $10M SaaS company costs different from the Standard engagement that places a senior operator inside a $100M company for a year. Forcing both into the same published band would either price out the Compact buyer or insult the Standard buyer.

What the absence costs us.

The honest cost: a buyer who needs to see a band before they will take a call self-selects out. Some of those buyers would have been good engagements. We lose those.

The trade-off we make: a buyer who is willing to spend 30 minutes telling us what is actually broken before talking about price tends to be a buyer the engagement will succeed with. The conversation filters for fit on both sides. The price is the conclusion of the scoping conversation, not the entry point.

What it produces.

Three things compound when price lives inside the conversation rather than on a brochure.

Engagement shape fits the bottleneck. The buyer comes in with a problem. The scoping conversation matches the engagement to the problem. Compact, Standard, or Strategic. Subscription operating partner or outcomes-based. The shape is the answer, not the price.

No unused-hours waste. Most agencies bill against hours. IG sells against scope and outcomes. We do not bill for hours we do not use. The pricing model rewards efficiency, not throughput.

Pivots without renegotiation. Standard and Strategic engagements explicitly allow scope flex without a contract amendment when the work needs to move. A published-band model rarely supports this flexibility because the band is tied to a defined scope.

What you should still know going into the conversation.

Most engagements settle within standard agency-retainer ranges. We do not race to the bottom on price. We do not anchor to Big Four numbers either. The midpoint is where the math usually lands.

If your budget is set at a specific number going into the call and that number is the constraint, say so on the call. We will tell you in the same conversation whether the engagement fits. Either yes, here is what we can scope, or no, here is what you should look for instead. Both answers are useful. Neither answer requires the dollar figure to be on the brochure.

For the structural detail on engagement models and sizes, see how we work / pricing. For the conversation, start here.

Ready for the conversation?

30 minutes. Bring the bottleneck and your budget constraint, if any. We will tell you whether the engagement fits.

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