Project-based development is a fixed-scope, fixed-price engagement where your team hires a senior engineering pod to build a defined deliverable, such as a marketing site, a WordPress migration, or a SaaS MVP, within a locked timeline of 4 to 12 weeks. You pay against milestones, not hours. The scope is frozen at the signed SOW, and if we miss the ship date, you receive a refund on the delta. This model works when you need a finite build shipped and handed over, not an ongoing retainer or a headcount addition. At Social Animal, your project runs on Next.js or Astro, deploys to Vercel, and stores data in Supabase. You get full Github repo access on day one, not after the engagement ends. A dedicated lead engineer, a performance QA pass, and a 30-day post-launch warranty covering bug fixes are included in every engagement. Typical projects range from $15K for a marketing site to $80K or more for complex migrations and enterprise redesigns. You own every line of code at handover.
專案失敗的原因
我們構建的內容
Scope-locked SOW with published pricing
Milestone billing tied to deliverables
Production stack handover from day one
Senior-only engineering pods
Ship-date guarantee with refund clause
30-day post-launch warranty
我們的流程
Scope and price lock
Stack provisioning and design sprint
Build sprints with weekly staging deploys
Performance QA and launch prep
Launch and warranty activation
常見問題
How does project-based pricing differ from T&M billing?
Project-based pricing locks your total cost at SOW signature. You pay a fixed dollar amount tied to milestone deliverables, not hours logged. Time-and-materials billing, which most agencies default to, charges you for every hour spent regardless of efficiency. That means scope creep, slow feedback loops, and junior engineer learning curves all inflate your invoice. With our model, a $25K marketing site costs $25K whether the build takes 160 hours or 220. The risk of inefficiency sits with us. If your requirements change mid-build, we issue a formal change order with a new fixed price before any additional work begins. You always know the number before you approve.
What's included in the 30-day post-launch warranty?
Your warranty covers bug fixes, rendering issues, deployment failures, and edge-case browser behavior for 30 calendar days after launch. If a component breaks on Safari, a form fails to submit, or a deployment pipeline errors out, we fix it at zero additional cost within 24 hours of your Slack report. The warranty does not cover new feature requests, design changes, or third-party API outages outside our control. Most clients report 2 to 5 warranty tickets in the first 30 days. After warranty, you can transition to a monthly retainer starting at $5K/month or engage us on a new project SOW.
How do you compare to hiring on Toptal or Upwork?
Toptal and Upwork match you with individual contractors. You manage the project, review the code, handle deployment, and absorb the risk if the freelancer underperforms or disappears. Our project-based model gives you a full pod: lead engineer, QA specialist, and technical PM, all accountable to a ship-date guarantee with a refund clause. Toptal's typical senior rate is $150-$200/hour with no scope lock. A 400-hour build at those rates runs $60K-$80K with no ceiling. Our equivalent fixed-price engagement for a migration or redesign is $25K-$60K with the price locked at SOW. You also own the infrastructure from day one, something marketplace freelancers rarely provision under your accounts.
What tech stack do you use for project builds?
Your project ships on Next.js or Astro depending on your content model and interactivity needs. Marketing sites and content-heavy builds typically run on Astro for its zero-JS default and sub-second load times. SaaS MVPs, authenticated dashboards, and dynamic applications run on Next.js with React Server Components. Hosting deploys to Vercel. Data and auth use Supabase. Your CMS is typically Sanity or Contentful, chosen based on your editorial workflow. Every project includes a Github repo under your org, CI/CD via Github Actions, and preview deployments on every pull request. You're never locked into a proprietary platform or a build tool only we can maintain.
What happens if the project scope changes mid-build?
Scope changes go through a formal change-order process. Your PM documents the new requirement, estimates the additional cost as a fixed line item, and presents it for your written approval before any work begins. This protects you from invisible scope creep. If you decline the change order, the original SOW and price remain intact. Most projects see 1 to 2 minor change orders. If a change request would push the timeline beyond your launch date, we flag the tradeoff explicitly: you can defer the feature to a post-launch phase or accept a revised delivery date. No surprises, no passive invoice inflation.
How long does a typical project take from SOW to launch?
Marketing sites ship in 4 to 6 weeks. WordPress migrations and redesigns run 6 to 10 weeks depending on page count and content complexity. SaaS MVPs range from 8 to 12 weeks for a core feature set. Your timeline is locked in the SOW with specific milestone dates. We don't start without a confirmed calendar. If your internal approvals or content delivery delays a milestone, the timeline shifts accordingly. Delays caused by our team trigger the refund clause on the affected milestone. The fastest project we shipped in 2024 was a 47-page marketing site on Astro in 19 business days.
Do I own the code after the project ends?
Yes. You own every line of code, every design asset, and every configuration file from day one, not just at handover. Your Github repo lives under your organization's account. Your Vercel project and Supabase instance are provisioned under your billing. If you fire us on day three, you still have full access to everything built so far. There's no IP assignment clause buried in the contract because there's nothing to assign: it was always yours. This is the single biggest difference between our model and agencies that host your site on their infrastructure and hold your code until final payment clears.
What does a $15K-$25K marketing site include?
A $15K to $25K marketing site typically includes 10 to 30 designed pages built on Astro or Next.js, a headless CMS (Sanity or Contentful) with editorial training, responsive design across mobile and desktop, structured data markup, a Lighthouse score targeting 90+ on all four categories, contact or lead-gen forms with email integration, basic analytics setup (GA4 or Plausible), and the 30-day post-launch warranty. The price varies based on page count, custom illustration or animation, and third-party integrations like HubSpot or Salesforce. You receive a line-item quote, not a range, within 48 hours of your scoping call.
Let's build
something together.
Whether it's a migration, a new build, or an SEO challenge — the Social Animal team would love to hear from you.