Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Professional marketing, design, and web development can be a significant investment, so we work to make the process as simple as possible with interest-free payment plans. Most projects are paid in 2 to 6 installments.

We provide electronic invoices that you can pay online. Invoices for all payment methods except PayPal are sent by our card processor, Square, and can be printed or saved as PDFs. If you elect to pay with PayPal, you will receive an electronic invoice from PayPal.

Credit, debit, and most prepaid and corporate Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express and cards. We also accept ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, PayPal, and cash.

Yes, we can accept most internationally-issued cards bearing a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB, or UnionPay logo. Please note that your card issuer may charge you an additional fee for currency conversion. Google Pay, Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay may also be available in your location.

If you’re located in Canada or the EU, the payment process has been pretty seamless in our experience. That said, international payments can sometimes be a little tricky and we’re happy to work with you to find a payment method that works.

We offer both a la carte services and packages.

The way we structure a project depends on the size, complexity, and cost of the project.

For small, simple projects we have a streamlined process. It’s as easy as indicating your acceptance of a quote and the attached terms of service. Our quotes include the scope of work, deliverables, pricing, payment schedule, and timelines.

Larger, more complex projects are split into phases, or “milestones”. Milestone projects have a free discovery and a custom proposal. Milestone contracts include a SOW (Statement of Work) document. The SOW contains detailed information about the project requirements, deliverables, timelines, pricing, and payment schedules. Milestone projects are billed incrementally.

Very complex projects, like developing custom software, have a paid discovery phase. After the initial discovery phase is complete, we outline what the next steps for the project will look like. The details of how very complex projects are structured varies because each project is very different.

We believe that a little communication can go a long way. Our thorough and collaborative discovery process is a key factor for staying within budget and on schedule. We’ve honed our discovery process over the years to ensure that we capture all of the information required to write an accurate project scope. We never increase the budget unless the scope changes.

Clearly defined timelines and organized workflows are another way we keep projects on time. We are confident enough in our project management processes that we include timelines in our contracts.

We also collect feedback at regular intervals to keep the project aligned with your desired outcomes. Small course corrections earlier in the project are effective at preventing time consuming rework near the end.

Different projects require different management approaches. We tailor our approach to suit the project requirements. This ensures our prices and time to delivery remain competitive.

You can think of our project management approach as a continuum from waterfall to agile. Small, straightforward projects are managed with a waterfall approach. Long-running, complex projects with ambiguous requirements are managed with an agile approach. The more complex and ambiguous the project requirements are, the more agile our approach is.

The short answer to the first question: yes, we work with contractors and our partner agency in Europe. The short answer to the second question: no, every project is directed, managed, and quality-checked in-house. Because agency outsourcing has burned plenty of businesses before they found us, we want to be specific about how our processes work.

Some projects call for a specialist: a photographer, an artist with a particular style, a videographer, or a technical or compliance consultant. When that’s the case, we bring in contractors we’ve carefully vetted, and whose standards match ours. This is how your project gets exactly the skills and style it needs rather than the closest approximation we happen to have on hand.

The relationship worth explaining in more depth is our partner agency, Codelibry. Discovery, research, strategy, design direction, and project management always stay in-house. Codelibry extends our production capacity – collaborating on execution and helping with routine maintenance – while the decisions that shape your project are made here.

We’ll be candid: cost was part of the decision. Working with a partner in Ukraine costs less than equivalent capacity in the United States, and that difference is part of what lets us offer services and custom work at rates that small businesses can afford. But we would have wanted to work with them anyway, because it’s not easy to find an agency that pairs strong development and design with the processes to deliver it consistently and collaborate smoothly at any price, anywhere on the planet.

If you’ve had a project go badly with a previous agency that used overseas service providers, the cause probably wasn’t geography. In our experience, those projects fail because the domestic agency was effectively a sales office: nobody had the domain expertise to select the right collaborators, architect the right strategies and solutions, evaluate and steer the work output, or handle the day-to-day of project management and collaboration. In contrast, our model is built on expertise developed from years of experience creating deliverables from end-to-end.

We design creative and innovative solutions by working from first principles. Once we’ve produced an initial version, we measure its performance and improve the solution based on the data. We use an iterative process of gathering feedback then refining the implementation to continually improve the solution. Our approach allows us to solve unique problems and successfully navigate the rapidly changing technology and marketing landscape.

It may sound strange, but we believe that what sets us apart the most is our adherence to the fundamentals. Applying the fundamentals gives us the flexibility to develop solutions that fully address your needs. It prevents us from producing work that is out of date, cookie cutter, or on trend but lacking in sound strategy.

This is why we ask about your organization’s background and larger goals. The context your project exists in is strategically important. Without context, any solution is merely a patchwork of tactics that can only succeed by luck. Understanding the context lets us produce recommendations and deliverables that can achieve results.

As a full-service digital agency, we have the ability to implement our recommendations and designs. This ensures that deliverables fully embody the strategy. It also gives us the capability to reliably produce high quality work.

Critical success factors for both sides include:

• Transparency
• Collaboration
• Clearly communicated direction and feedback

We pride ourselves on having many long-term, mutually respectful client relationships. Our most successful relationships have been with clients that fall into one of two categories. The first is those that are willing to develop clearly defined and measurable goals. The second is those who are strongly motivated by their mission.

Utilizing new technology and processes is important for remaining competitive, but it does entail risk. That’s why we work with you to identify the opportunities and risks of new technology and practices before incorporating them. Our goal is to keep you on the leading edge without falling over the edge.

We do not use AI to generate your final content, code, or designs without telling you. If you want to use AI, we will talk to you about the risks and benefits of it. Even if you ask us to use AI, we might refuse on a case-by-case basis.

Learn more about our approach to AI.