Retainer · Standing Help
A fractional AI lead who is actually in the building.
Monthly, three month minimum, then a decision in writing every quarter. On site with the people who decide and the people who prepare.
What it is
Source systems change. Somebody has to notice.
A monthly retainer. We spend time on site with department leaders and their teams, find new decision lines, operate and improve what is already built, and keep a 90 day plan current. Depending on how wide you want us to look, it can include both diagnostics at no additional cost.
A CRM field gets renamed, a bid board changes its export, a vendor deprecates an endpoint. None of that announces itself, and a system nobody owns degrades quietly until the person who relied on it goes back to doing the work by hand. The retainer exists so that does not happen, and so the next decision line gets found and scoped without a new engagement each time.
- Price
- $3,500 to $7,500 a month
- Terms
- Monthly in advance, credited against a sprint
- How long
- 3 month minimum, then quarterly
What you get back
- Time on site with deciders and preparers
- New decision lines, found and scoped
- Can include both diagnostics
- A 90 day plan kept current
The month
Four weeks with a shape
The same rhythm every month, so nobody has to ask what the retainer is doing this week.
- Week 1Alignment
- 60 minutes with the sponsor against the 90 day plan.
- Week 2On site
- Working sessions with decision owners and preparers, and adoption conversations where they are included.
- Week 3Improvement
- Fixes, configuration and prompt updates, and small builds within capacity.
- Week 4Reporting
- A written monthly report: what changed, results against baseline, costs and next priorities.
Terms
What you are committing to
The monthly fee depends on how many functions are in scope and how much time on site they need. Wider arrangements include the AI Adoption Baseline and Line Mapping at no additional cost, delivered in the first quarter.
- Monthly in advance, with a three month minimum.
- Every quarter the sponsor decides in writing to continue, change tier, pause or end.
- A fee for outputs, not a bank of hours. Unused capacity does not roll over.
- Larger builds get their own Build Sprint rather than being absorbed into the retainer.
- Business hours, Mountain Time. There is no service level, and you can always pause a system yourself.
Fee credit
What you pay here can come off a build
25% of what you paid in the 90 days before the sprint starts, up to one month's fee.
Questions
Before you ask
What does Standing Help cover month to month?
We act as your fractional AI lead. Week one is 60 minutes with the sponsor against the 90 day plan. Week two is on site with decision owners and their teams. Week three is fixes, configuration, prompt updates and small builds within capacity. Week four is a written report: what changed, results against baseline, costs and next priorities.
Why is there a three month minimum?
Because the first month is mostly taking ownership and the second is where new decision lines start to move. Anything shorter bills you for the handover and stops before the part that pays for itself. After the minimum, the sponsor decides in writing each quarter to continue, change tier, pause or end.
Can it include the diagnostics?
Yes. Depending on how wide you want us to look, the AI Adoption Baseline and Line Mapping can both be included at no additional cost and delivered in the first quarter. Outside that, they are separate standalone services.
What happens if we want something bigger built?
It gets its own Build Sprint rather than being absorbed into the retainer, so the scope and the acceptance criteria are written down and the month does not quietly disappear into one build. 25% of what you paid in the 90 days before the sprint starts comes off it, up to one month's fee.
Talk to us
Already built something that nobody owns?
Standing Help does not require that we built it. If you have automation running that works until it does not, and no one whose job it is to notice, that is the same problem and we can pick it up.