Pricing
Published prices, because you shouldn't have to guess.
Legacy work is often sold with vague quotes and open-ended hours. I publish my rates so you can judge whether we're a fit before you pick up the phone.
At a glance
| Service | Price |
|---|---|
| Initial conversation | Free |
| Legacy System Assessment | From £2,500 (larger systems typically £4,000-£7,500+) |
| Direct development and consultancy | £950 per day |
| Urgent production / recovery work | From £1,300 per day |
| Agency / white-label work | From £1,150 per day |
| Ongoing legacy application care | From £2,000 per month |
All prices are in pounds sterling and exclusive of VAT, which is added at the applicable rate.
The details
Initial conversation: free
A short call to establish what the system is, why it has become a problem, and whether I'm likely to be able to help. No charge and no obligation.
Legacy System Assessment: from £2,500
A structured, fixed-price investigation of your application and its environment: architecture, versions, dependencies, database, server, security, backups, documentation, technical debt and upgrade constraints. You receive a prioritised plan you can use with me or anyone else.
Larger or more complex systems are typically £4,000-£7,500+. What's included in an assessment
Direct development and consultancy: £950 per day
For investigation, development, modernisation, upgrades, documentation, infrastructure work and hands-on technical ownership.
Where scope is clear, I prefer to quote a fixed price for the whole piece of work, so you know the cost in advance. Day rates apply to open-ended or exploratory work.
Urgent production and recovery work: from £1,300 per day
For live incidents: a hacked site, a failed upgrade, a system down, or a deadline you can't move. Subject to availability and the nature of the incident. Hacked site cleanup
Agency and white-label work: from £1,150 per day
Reflects the additional communication, access, project-management and intermediary overhead normally involved in agency engagements. Agencies can also refer clients to me directly. Agency terms
Ongoing legacy application care: from £2,000 per month
Continuing technical ownership for systems that need someone responsible for them: maintenance, monitoring, updates and development. The exact scope is agreed according to the application and the level of responsibility required. Ongoing care
How much does a PHP upgrade or code audit cost?
It depends on the system, which is why the assessment comes first. I can't honestly quote a figure for an application I haven't seen. The main factors:
- Size of the codebase and how much of it is actually in use
- How far behind you are. PHP 7.4 to 8.3 is a very different job from PHP 5.3 to 8.3
- Framework and dependencies: abandoned packages and heavily modified frameworks cost more
- Test coverage: none means building a safety net before changing anything
- Documentation: the less that exists, the more investigation is needed
- Database and data quality
- Number of integrations (payments, email, third-party APIs)
- Server complexity: one VPS, or several servers, queues and scheduled jobs
- Urgency: emergencies cost more than planned work
The usual route: a free conversation, then an assessment, then a fixed-price quote for the upgrade or remediation based on what the assessment found. You are never committed to the next step.
Why I don't bill by the hour
AI has made much of legacy investigation dramatically faster, and you shouldn't be charged for time that's no longer spent. For clearly defined work I price on the outcome and the risk involved, not the hours. That keeps incentives aligned: I'm rewarded for solving the problem efficiently, not for taking longer.
What's included
- Direct access to me, the senior person doing the work, not an account manager
- A written scope before work starts
- Careful change control: tests around critical behaviour, review of every significant change, and staged rollouts
- Documentation of what I change
- Secure handling of access and data (how I work)
- Handover: you can take the system and the documentation elsewhere at any time
What's not included
- Legal advice or outsourced Data Protection Officer services. I provide technical engineering and security remediation.
- Formal penetration testing or certification. I can help you scope one.
- Third-party costs: hosting, licences, SSL certificates, paid libraries and external services
- Work outside the agreed scope. Changes are quoted separately rather than absorbed silently.
Terms
- Deposit upfront before work starts, with milestone billing on larger projects
- Short payment terms and a late-payment fee
- Access in place before the work begins. Delays in providing access can extend the timeline
- Written scope and change requests, so everyone knows what's being delivered
- Fixed-price quotes valid for a stated period
Additional terms for agencies
- I'm paid on delivery, regardless of whether your client has paid you.
- One named contact with authority to approve work
- A minimum engagement applies to small requests
See agency partnerships.
Frequently asked questions
Do you offer fixed prices?
Yes, wherever the scope is clear. Assessments are always fixed price. Upgrades and remediation are quoted fixed price once I understand the system. Day rates are for exploratory or open-ended work.
Can I get a quote without paying for an assessment?
For a simple, well-defined problem, often yes. For an unfamiliar legacy system, I'd be guessing, and guessed quotes usually end badly for one side or the other. The assessment is how we both get a reliable number.
Why is an urgent job more expensive?
It means reprioritising other work and often working at short notice, outside normal hours. Planned work is always cheaper than emergency work. If your system is on an unsupported PHP version today, fixing it before something breaks is the cheaper path.
Do you offer discounts?
Not on day rates. If budget is tight, the better option is reducing the scope, for example by starting with an assessment and tackling the highest risks first.
Do your prices change for clients in France or Spain?
Prices are in pounds sterling. Tell me about your location when we speak, and I'll confirm how invoicing and tax apply.
Not sure where to start?
Start with a free conversation. Tell me what you've inherited, and I'll tell you honestly whether an assessment, a fix or something else makes sense.