Our engagement models are tailored to fit the diverse and dynamic needs of American businesses, offering flexibility, transparency, and efficiency, whether you're looking for a Fixed Price, Time & Material, or a Dedicated Team approach.
In the Time and Material model, you pay for the actual work done. Billing is based on tracked man-hours and any materials or tools used. All tasks and efforts to complete them are registered and reported to you every week. The requirements, scope, and budget are not fixed, while the hourly rate is agreed upon in the contract. Even without a fixed scope, our experienced PMs deliver estimates with tight variance and monitor cost forecasts at every stage.
This model is especially well-suited for Agile methodology. Work is typically organized in short iterations (sprints). No detailed specification is needed to kick off the project; the team estimates tasks on the fly and begins coding quickly. You, as a Client, get a progress report, detailed time/expense logs, and a demo during weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Any features added during the project are simply billed at the agreed-upon hourly rates. The team can be easily scaled up or down depending on the development needs.
In a Fixed-Price engagement, the project scope, schedule, and budget are agreed upon upfront. The budget is based on a detailed specification and frozen for the whole project. All payments within this model are made on pre-defined milestones. As the first step of cooperation, we finalize all requirements during a Discovery phase.
Once we get the full specification, our development team estimates all tasks, locking the total cost and deliverables. Once a contract is signed, the development phase begins strictly according to the plan. No additional functionality can be added to the scope without cost re-estimation. Even feature replacement requires a price revision. In short, the fixed-price model runs like a "closed box" without any flexibility for changes.
Time & Material with a budget cap is a hybrid model combining T&M's flexibility with a guaranteed maximum spend. You still pay for hours and resources as in standard T&M, but the contract includes an overall cap (often called a "not-to-exceed" limit) on the total cost. The budget is fixed, while the scope remains flexible. This is the most popular engagement strategy nowadays. Often, this model follows a fixed-price discovery or architecture phase and transitions into flexible T&M for development.
In practice, the T&M+Cap contract and its development approach are structured like a regular T&M contract but with explicit budget controls. The development is divided into sprints and requires your active participation in demos and progress meetings. You pay for the actual effort spent, but with the rule that the sum of all invoices will never exceed the agreed cap. Any altered or new requirements are examined and estimated for their potential impact on the deadline and budget. If we see that the cap is about to be exceeded, we immediately alert you and suggest options for staying within the cap. At that point, you can decide whether to extend the cap (with a change order) or reduce the remaining scope to stay within budget.
The Dedicated Team model assembles a full-time team of specialists who work exclusively on your project as if they were your own staff. Billing is based on a fixed monthly fee for those team members.
You define the roles and expertise needed, and we assemble a team with the most well-suited specialists for your requirements. The team becomes an extension of your in-house staff. You are fully responsible for team management and control. The developers will report directly to you. On our part, we will monitor the quality of the services provided and get involved if necessary.
| Feature or limitation | Fixed Price (FP) | Time & Materials (T&M) | T&M + Cap | Dedicated Team (DT) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applicable for pilot projects and initial phases (Phase 0) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| For projects requiring specific expertise (domain/product experience) | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Detailed specifications required before start | Yes | No | No | No |
| Minimal contract duration | Any (no minimum) | 1 calendar month | 1 calendar month | 3 calendar months |
| Final total price guaranteed before start | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Lowest hourly rates | No | No | No | Yes |
| Tends to give the lowest overall cost | No | Yes (for a single project) | Yes (for a single project) | Yes (for long-term projects) |
| Invoicing interval | Every milestone | Monthly (or per sprint) | Monthly (or per sprint) | Monthly |
| Customer controls team member assignments | No | No | No | Yes |
| Permitted requirement changes after start | Minimal (contract amendments only) | Any (unlimited) | Some (limited) | Any (unlimited) |
| Multiple projects covered under one contract | Limited | Yes | Limited | Yes |
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We build our development process on principles of transparency, precision, and accountability, ensuring consistent progress and tangible results at every stage of your project.
A qualified project manager becomes a liaison between the business and the development team. They are responsible for project planning, management, work coordination, and progress tracking. Communication happens through various channels: email, messengers, phone, and personal meetings.
Knowledge transfer is a comprehensive business process ensuring all information about the project is shared among the team, Technical Manager and Scrum Master. We gather our experience in a special formalized knowledge base (Atlassian Confluence) under tech leadersβ supervision.
Nexterse undertakes a commitment to regular reporting on the project. The reports depend on the chosen engagement model: real-time 24/7 reporting via Jira Atlassian, monthly, weekly reports, etc. Regular reporting ensures transparency of the development process and provides a clear understanding of the costs at every stage of development.
A GUI that freed Dexai Robotics' restaurant staff from engineer dependency β cutting robot setup time per shift by ~65% and reducing interaction errors by ~50% through real-time visual state monitoring and offline operation.
An IoT monitoring platform for HoReCa venues that reduced refrigerator-related food spoilage by ~25% and cut emergency maintenance calls by ~40% through real-time anomaly detection and HACCP-compliant automated temperature logging.
Blockchain marketplace enabling anonymous peer-to-peer big data trading β 40% faster deal closure and direct buyer-seller connections without intermediaries, for a US-based big data startup
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