Bronze → Platinum · or a one-off project from £5,000
Senior-led retainers priced below a typical in-house hire — adopt your stack, own delivery, no recruitment gap.
01
Pricing
Every tier is a standing engineering function — not a ticket queue. Priced below the equivalent in-house hire for most SMEs; scoped properly in your free review.
Continuity
From £950/mo · ~£11k/yr
Health checks, small fixes, named senior when it breaks.
Not a full department — but the safety net every in-house team wishes they had before someone leaves.
- Monthly health checks — backups, certs, dependencies, load-bearing shortcuts
- Proportionate bug fixes and config tweaks batched sensibly
- Named senior line when production wobbles — not a new face every week
- Security and dependency hygiene on a sensible cadence
Active engineering
From £2,750/mo · ~£33k/yr
Reserved hours, priority support, backlog that moves.
Best when you would otherwise post a job spec for a single developer and wait three months.
- Everything in Bronze
- Reserved senior development hours every month
- Priority response for business-critical issues
- Quarterly roadmap check-in — what to fix, defer, or kill
Embedded department
From £5,500/mo · ~£66k/yr
Sprint cadence, architecture, delivery you can plan.
Best when software is central to revenue and you need an engineering function, not another contractor.
- Everything in Silver
- Sprint planning and delivery rhythm like an internal team
- Architecture and vendor triage — build vs buy without shelfware fantasy
- Integrations, rescues, and cross-product capacity included
Full department
From £11,500/mo · ~£138k/yr
We own delivery across your whole software estate.
Best when you're done juggling freelancers and need one senior team accountable for outcomes — at a fraction of a two-person hire.
- Everything in Gold
- Dedicated capacity across support, build, and rescue
- Fractional CTO-style direction — roadmaps, hiring input, board-ready honesty
- Multi-product ownership — adopt what you have, improve what matters
Whatever you need
TBC · Scoped to the work
A senior team shaped around the system you actually run.
For estates, rescues, or a build that does not fit a monthly tier. We scope it with you and price it once the shape is clear.
- Capacity, stack, and ownership agreed up front
- Same senior engineers — not a separate enterprise desk
- Cost confirmed after the review, not from a rate card
02
What that looks like in practice
We learn your stack, your customers, and what is load-bearing — then we show up like an internal team would: stand-ups when you want them, quiet when you don't, and honest when something is fixable vs sunk cost.
Laravel, .NET, React, Vue, WordPress, internal tools, third-party platforms — if your developers disappeared tomorrow, we'd still be here. You focus on growing the business — we look after the software.
- Named engineers who already know your repos before the pager goes off
- Health checks, security hygiene, and proportionate fixes — not ticket roulette
- Roadmaps and build-vs-buy calls in plain English
- Rescue capacity when production wobbles — stabilise first, then improve
- Handover someone else can run — no hero-dependent systems
03
Cheaper than hiring. Better than hoping it works.
Building an in-house dev team is slow, expensive, and fragile — one resignation and you're back to firefighting. Most SMEs we speak to need a department, not a job advert. Here's how our partner tiers compare to typical UK loaded hire costs.
| Scenario | Hiring in-house | Half Shell partner |
|---|---|---|
| One mid-level developer (salary + NI + pension + kit, loaded) | £65–90k / year | Silver — senior-led delivery from £2,750/mo~£33k/yr · no recruitment gap, no bench time |
| Senior developer + line management overhead | £95–130k / year | Gold — embedded department from £5,500/mo~£66k/yr · sprint cadence + technical leadership |
| Two developers + lead / fractional CTO (small product team) | £180–260k+ / year | Platinum — full department from £11,500/mo~£138k/yr · multi-product, rescue, and roadmap ownership |
| Recruitment, notice periods, and knowledge walking out the door | 3–6 months to hire · 1–3 months handover risk | Non-issue — we provide the support you needNamed team from Bronze–Platinum · we adopt what you already run |
Platinum is priced well below a two-person in-house team — with fractional CTO-style direction, rescue capacity, and none of the employer NI, pension, equipment, or redundancy conversations. You pay for outcomes and continuity, not empty seats.
- Senior engineers from day one — no junior bait-and-switch
- Scale capacity up or down without a redundancy process
- When someone is on leave, the pager still gets answered — no hero dependency
In-house figures are illustrative loaded UK SME costs — we'll sanity-check against your situation on a free review.
04
Got a SaaS idea and need someone to execute?
Retainer packages are for software you already run. If you're starting from a concept — or a half-built MVP — we can still partner. Two ways to structure it:
One-off project fee
Fixed scope, fixed price — you own the product when we're done.
Best when you know what you want built, have budget allocated, and need a senior team to ship it properly.
- Scoped brief, milestones, and staging you sign off on
- You keep the IP — we're builders, not shelfware vendors
- Optional care retainer once you're live
Agreed percentage
No upfront costs — we build in exchange for an agreed share of revenue or equity.
Best when the idea is strong but cash is tight upfront. We only take this when we believe in the product and the fit is mutual.
- No project fee to get started — aligned on upside instead
- Terms agreed upfront: percentage, triggers, and what happens if it pivots
- Same senior team as the retainer packages — not a junior spin-out shop
Stop paying for empty seats, slow hiring, and knowledge that walks out the door. Get a department that stays — for less than building one inside.