Retainer & Growth Engineering
Your product after launch is where we really shine. We join your team on a weekly cadence — shipping features, fixing bugs before users notice, and keeping the codebase healthy enough that velocity doesn't decay.
What we build
Weekly shipping cadence
A planned sprint every week with a written summary of what shipped, what's next and anything that needs your decision.
Feature development
New screens, integrations, and workflows — scoped collaboratively each month against your roadmap.
Monitoring & incident response
Crash reporting, uptime monitoring and error budgets. We usually flag problems before your users do.
Code health & documentation
Dependency updates, refactors where they pay for themselves, and documentation good enough to hand off any time.
How it works
Codebase audit (week 1)
We read your code before we commit to it — you get an honest written assessment either way.
Cadence setup
Weekly sprint rhythm, a shared board, and one communication channel. No status-meeting theatre.
Quarterly review
Every quarter we review velocity, incidents and roadmap fit — and you can scale the retainer up, down or off.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a development retainer cost?
Retainers start at $3,500/month for a maintenance-focused engagement (fixes, updates, monitoring) and run to $12,000+/month for a dedicated feature-development cadence. Every tier includes monitoring and a weekly written report.
What's included in a retainer month?
A weekly sprint with planned work, ad-hoc fixes, dependency and OS-compatibility updates, monitoring, and a monthly roadmap session. Unused capacity rolls into the next month within the quarter.
Can you take over a codebase another agency built?
Yes — about half our retainer clients came to us with an existing codebase. We start with a one-week audit, give you a written assessment, and only then commit. NutritionOS came to us this way and has been with us 18 months and counting.
What if I want to leave?
30 days' notice, no lock-in. The code, infrastructure and documentation are yours from day one, so handing off — to an in-house hire or another team — is a planned week, not a hostage negotiation.
Have a project in mind?
Tell us what you're building. We reply within 24 hours with a real answer — not a sales sequence.
Start a project