Ongoing partnership
Your technology team — without building a technology department
Most small businesses need technical capability occasionally, not a salary every month. A partnership gives you someone who already knows your setup, available for the next change rather than starting from scratch each time.
- No lock-in contract
- You own your code & data
- Sunshine Coast based
Sound familiar?
The gap between "we need this" and "who does it?"
Hiring a developer is a big commitment, and agencies tend to disappear once a project ships. The awkward middle — where something exists and needs looking after and occasionally extending — is where most small businesses get stuck.
- You've had something built and now nobody owns keeping it working.
- Small changes keep waiting because there's no one obvious to ask.
- You're paying for tools nobody has time to connect properly.
- The person who understood the setup has left, or it was always you.
- You need technical judgement occasionally, not a salary every month.
What a partnership covers
The work that never quite fits a project
Not a fixed menu — these are the things partnerships usually end up covering. Yours is scoped to whatever you actually use.
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Ongoing development
New features, improvements and changes to systems we've built or inherited.
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Maintenance & fixes
Updates, dependency bumps, and sorting things when they break.
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Integrations
Connecting the tools you already pay for so information stops being retyped.
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Technical advice
A straight answer on whether something is worth building, buying, or leaving alone.
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Reporting & dashboards
Changes to what you measure as the business changes what it cares about.
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Infrastructure & hosting
Hosting, backups, domains and the plumbing nobody thinks about until it fails.
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Security & backups
Keeping access sensible and making sure a restore would actually work.
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Digital strategy
Planning what to do next, in what order, and what to deliberately not do yet.
Ways to work together
Start where it makes sense
You don't have to begin with a retainer. Most partnerships start as a single piece of work and become ongoing because it turned out to be useful.
Not sure which of these you need? The free business systems review works that out first — the paid discovery session is for when something genuinely needs scoping.
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Discovery session
A paid session to work out what's actually needed before anyone commits to building it. Often the whole answer.
Start here if you're unsure
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Project work
A defined build with a defined outcome — an automation, a system, a website, an MVP. Scoped from requirements.
You know what you want built
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Ongoing development
Continuing work on something already live, in agreed blocks rather than one big commitment.
The thing exists and keeps growing
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Technology retainer
A standing arrangement so there's always someone who knows your setup. Scoped to what you actually use.
You want continuity, not tickets
Retainers start from $2,200 a month; every starting price we publish is on the pricing page. Beyond that floor the work is scoped from requirements rather than sold from a rate card, so the real number comes after a conversation.
Before you ask
The honest bit
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We're not a 24/7 helpdesk
Support runs during business hours (Mon–Fri 9am–4pm). Urgent things outside that are handled by arrangement — message first and we'll tell you honestly what's possible.
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You own everything
Your code, your data, your accounts, your domains. A partnership is a working relationship, not a way to hold anything hostage.
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We'll tell you not to build it
If an off-the-shelf tool does the job, that's the recommendation — even when it means less work for us.
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Scoped, not guessed
Retainers are sized to what you actually use. If you're consistently using less, we'll say so and adjust it.
The services behind it
What this usually involves
Questions
Straight answers
How is this different from a support contract?
A support contract mostly covers things breaking. A technology partnership covers the building too — new features, integrations, automation and advice — so the same person who knows your setup is the one improving it.
Do I need to have had something built by you first?
No. We regularly pick up systems, sites and setups that someone else built. There's usually a short handover period while we learn how it fits together.
What does it cost?
Retainers start from $2,200 a month and are sized to what you actually use — that figure and the rest of our starting prices are on the pricing page. What you would actually pay depends on the work, so we scope it after a conversation rather than sell a fixed block of hours you might not need.
Is there a lock-in contract?
No. If it stops being useful, you should be able to stop. You keep your code, data and accounts either way.
Can you work with our existing IT provider?
Yes. It's fairly common for us to handle development and automation while someone else looks after day-to-day hardware and helpdesk. We'll agree who owns what up front so nothing falls between the two.
What if we only need something occasionally?
Then a retainer probably isn't right, and we'll say so. Project work or ad-hoc ongoing development suits a lot of businesses better.
No obligation
Want someone who already knows your setup?
Tell us what you've got and what keeps getting stuck. We'll tell you honestly whether a partnership makes sense — or whether you just need one piece of work done properly.