The benefit of time and materials pricing

Traditional product design firms enter a fixed-bid agreement with clients. At Andrews-Cooper we can certainly enter a similar contract, but we have found that our clients prefer a time and materials agreement with a not-to-exceed price.

Because there are so many variables at the beginning of a project, we start by providing a bid for step one – the requirements and strategy phase. Once step one is complete, we have the information we need to provide an accurate bid on the rest of the project.

There are two major advantages to this pricing.

First, it saves you money. There are so many variables at the beginning of a design project that firms must include a large cushion in the bid – sometimes 25% or more – to allow for changes and surprises. With time and materials agreements you pay only for the actual costs.

Second, our not-to-exceed pricing eliminates the risk for you. You know that whatever the time and materials are, you will not pay more than the not-to-exceed price. This allows you to establish realistic budgets for the project.

Minimum engagement:

Our minimum level of engagement is $10,000 for a concept development phase and $25,000 for a complete project.