What's the difference between your retainer and your software development subscription?

They're the same engagement. "Retainer" is what buyers coming from agency-land call it; the subscription page describes the same model — one senior engineer, one priority at a time, billed monthly and pausable. This page is the retainer-shaped view of it: continuity, reserved capacity, and how it compares to an agency retainer.

Is this an unlimited-requests retainer?

You can queue as many requests as you like, but they're worked one at a time by one senior engineer — that's the honest constraint. It isn't a promise to absorb unlimited parallel work, and it isn't priced as a catch-all for small unrelated tasks. It's built for a month-plus build that spans several monthly cycles.

How does a monthly software developer retainer compare to an agency retainer?

An agency retainer buys a pod and usually a multi-month minimum, with a project manager between you and the code. This is one senior, founder-led engineer with direct access, no minimum term, and the freedom to pause between phases. Agencies win when you genuinely need several tracks running in parallel; we'll say so when that's the case.

Is a retainer better than hiring a freelancer per project?

It depends on how continuous the work is. Per-project freelancing means re-scoping, re-vetting, and re-onboarding every time, and context leaves with each contract. A retainer keeps the same engineer and the accumulated context across phases, which is what makes later months move faster on a long build.

What does the retainer cost and how long is the commitment?

There are several monthly plans, matched to the capacity and scope your build needs, and we'll walk through them before anything starts. There's no minimum term: it's month to month, and you can pause or cancel between phases.

Who owns the code, and what happens when we stop?

You own all of it. Work ships as pull requests into your repository and your cloud accounts as it's built, with no proprietary wrapper and nothing held back. When the retainer ends or pauses, you keep every line and the handoff is already done.

Services - A software development retainer for month-plus builds.

You want a developer on retainer — a known senior engineer who shows up every week, owns the build, and doesn't have to be re-hired every time the roadmap moves. Not an agency pod with a project manager in front of it, and not a marketplace bid you have to vet yourself. That's what this is: a software development retainer billed as a flat monthly subscription, with one senior, founder-led engineer working your priority board top to bottom until the build is done.

Start a build How the subscription works

Plans tailored to the build

One senior engineer, one priority at a time

One senior, founder-led engineer takes this build week by week and ships production-ready code as pull requests you review and merge. Time and cost vary by plan and scope, and we’ll cover both before you start.

Discuss the plans How it works

What's included

One senior, founder-led engineer reserved for your build each month — the same person week to week, so nobody re-learns your codebase on your budget.
A priority board you own: you rank the work, the top item is the active task, and you reorder it the moment a deal or a bug changes what matters most.
Production-ready code shipped as pull requests into your repository, matched to your conventions, reviewed and merged by you. Revisions are unlimited.
A weekly reviewable increment you can click, demo, or ship — auth, then data, then the surface — instead of one big drop at the end of a quarter.
Full-stack coverage of a real build: Next.js/React front ends, Node APIs, Postgres schema and migrations, Stripe billing, auth, and the deploy pipeline.
A clean handoff by default. You keep the repo, the cloud accounts, and the docs from day one, so ending or pausing the retainer is never a negotiation.

How we build it, week by week

One priority at a time, shipped in reviewable increments you merge as they land — not one big drop at the end.

Week 1 — scope the outcome and set the board

We start from the business outcome, not a ticket list, and break it into a priority order you control. You leave week one knowing what the active task is, what's queued behind it, and how the retainer will move through it.

Weeks 2+ — one priority at a time, shipped as PRs

The engineer works the top of the board and opens pull requests in your repo. You review and merge, so nothing lands without your eyes on it, and a revision is just the next item rather than a change order.

Every week — a demo you can actually click

Each cycle ends with merged, reviewable work rather than a status report. That's the point of a retainer over a fixed-bid project: you see the build come together while there's still time to change direction.

Between phases — reprioritize, pause, or hand off

A hot task jumps the queue the day priorities change. When a phase wraps or things go quiet, pause the retainer and stop the clock — the repo, the accounts, and the docs are already yours, so picking it back up is just unpausing.

Stack

Next.js / React
Node / Express
PostgreSQL
Stripe
Auth.js
Vercel or self-hosted VPS

Is this the right build for you?

A good fit when

You have a month-plus build ahead and want one senior engineer on retainer owning it week by week instead of a rotating cast.
You want continuity — the same engineer across phases, keeping the context that makes month three faster than month one.
You'd rather pay a flat monthly rate you can pause than sign a fixed-bid contract you renegotiate every time the scope moves.
You want the code in your own repo as it ships, so a future hire or team can take it over without a rewrite.

Not a fit when

You need several engineers working in parallel to hit a hard date — that's a team or an agency, and we'll tell you so.
You want an unlimited-tasks retainer for a stream of unrelated odd jobs; smaller tasks slot into the same board, but this is priced for month-plus builds.
You need someone on a 24/7 pager for production incidents — this is code-only and async, not on-call ops.
You want product and market decisions taken off your plate; you set the priorities, we build them.

Builds like this

Real month-plus builds you can read end to end, delivered on the same subscription.

Why on a subscription

A retainer only earns its keep when the work is continuous, and real product work isn't — it's a hard build phase, then a quiet stretch, then the next phase. Billing the retainer as a monthly subscription you can pause keeps the continuity of a reserved senior engineer without an agency's minimum commitment or a salary you carry through the slow months.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between your retainer and your software development subscription?: They're the same engagement. "Retainer" is what buyers coming from agency-land call it; the subscription page describes the same model — one senior engineer, one priority at a time, billed monthly and pausable. This page is the retainer-shaped view of it: continuity, reserved capacity, and how it compares to an agency retainer.
Is this an unlimited-requests retainer?: You can queue as many requests as you like, but they're worked one at a time by one senior engineer — that's the honest constraint. It isn't a promise to absorb unlimited parallel work, and it isn't priced as a catch-all for small unrelated tasks. It's built for a month-plus build that spans several monthly cycles.
How does a monthly software developer retainer compare to an agency retainer?: An agency retainer buys a pod and usually a multi-month minimum, with a project manager between you and the code. This is one senior, founder-led engineer with direct access, no minimum term, and the freedom to pause between phases. Agencies win when you genuinely need several tracks running in parallel; we'll say so when that's the case.
Is a retainer better than hiring a freelancer per project?: It depends on how continuous the work is. Per-project freelancing means re-scoping, re-vetting, and re-onboarding every time, and context leaves with each contract. A retainer keeps the same engineer and the accumulated context across phases, which is what makes later months move faster on a long build.
What does the retainer cost and how long is the commitment?: There are several monthly plans, matched to the capacity and scope your build needs, and we'll walk through them before anything starts. There's no minimum term: it's month to month, and you can pause or cancel between phases.
Who owns the code, and what happens when we stop?: You own all of it. Work ships as pull requests into your repository and your cloud accounts as it's built, with no proprietary wrapper and nothing held back. When the retainer ends or pauses, you keep every line and the handoff is already done.

More we build

Got a project? Let's ship it.

3 spots open. Tell us what you need shipped. We’ll match the plan and timeline to the work on a short sales call, then deliver it in reviewable increments.

Start next week