Service

Advisory Retainer

Senior technical judgment on a retainer for founders and heads of engineering who do not need a full time CTO. Architecture, hiring, scaling, vendor selection, and the decisions that sit outside the sprint board.

From €8K per month 6 month minimum 4 week pilot from €10K

Who this is for

  • Non-technical founders raising or freshly funded who need a senior technical voice but do not yet need a full time CTO.
  • Heads of engineering who want a senior peer on hiring, architecture, and platform decisions.
  • Founders between CTOs who need continuity until the next hire is in place.
  • Companies preparing for due diligence or technical scrutiny who want their architecture story tightened up before it lands in front of investors.

What is included

  • Weekly 1:1 call. 60 minutes. Agenda is whatever is on your desk that week.
  • Async availability between calls. Reasonable response time on Slack, email, or your channel of choice.
  • Monthly architecture review. A structured look at one part of the system per month.
  • Quarterly roadmap review. Are we building the right things in the right order.
  • Technical hiring support. Job descriptions, screening calls, final interviews where useful.
  • Vendor selection. Cloud providers, observability, payments, AI tooling. Help framing the trade-offs and reading the fine print.
  • Investor and board prep. Tightening the technical narrative before a raise or a board update.

What is not included

  • Hands-on coding. Advisory is judgment, not labor. Implementation work is scoped under Build Engagement or AI Integration.
  • Full time availability. The retainer covers a defined, capped slice of weekly attention.
  • Exclusive engagement. The studio takes a small number of advisory clients per quarter, by design, but the retainer is not exclusive.

The 4 week pilot

Try the working relationship before the 6 month commit

Most advisory retainers are signed too fast. The 4 week pilot is built to find out if the working relationship is right for both sides before either party commits to 6 months.

Same access as the full retainer: weekly call, async availability, one architecture review session. After 4 weeks, the engagement either converts to the full retainer or both sides walk with no hard feelings.

From €10K to €12K, 4 weeks, paid up front. No conversion obligation.

Frequently asked

How does the retainer differ from hiring a fractional CTO from a marketplace?

It is the same shape of engagement. The difference is one direct relationship with one senior engineer who has shipped 7 production platforms across multiple verticals, rather than a managed-service intermediary. Lower friction, less account management, more direct judgment.

What time zones do you cover?

IST and EU windows. US East Coast and West Coast meetings can be scheduled in evenings IST. Async coverage is the default between calls.

Can you also do the implementation work?

The advisory retainer is judgment, not labor. If implementation work is needed, it is scoped separately as a Build Engagement or AI Integration. Some clients run both an Advisory Retainer and a Build Engagement in parallel.

What happens if I do not need 6 months?

The pilot exists for that reason. 4 weeks at €10K to €12K, no conversion obligation. If the work clearly needs less than 6 months total, a shorter retainer is negotiable on a case by case basis.

Can the retainer scale up if my needs grow?

Yes. The standard tier covers 1 to 2 days a week of attention; higher tiers up to roughly 3 days a week are available with a corresponding price adjustment, capped to keep the engagement healthy alongside other work.

Book an advisory call

30 minute call. Describe the role, the gap, and what you need this quarter. By the end of the call we know whether the pilot or the full retainer is the right starting point.

Book a 30 minute call →