Engagements and pricing

What a Foxnut Studios engagement costs

Most consulting firms will not give you a number until you have sat through a discovery call, a proposal deck and a follow-up email. We publish ours on this page, in plain text, before you talk to anyone: a Foxnut Studios engagement runs from $2,500 a month for a low-touch retainer to $10,000 a month for a full project engagement, and large cross-functional programs are scoped individually. Two shapes, two ranges, no call required just to hear the number.

This is the only page on the site that states prices; every other page points here instead of restating one. It belongs to the consulting practice at Foxnut Studios, and the shapes below lead deliberately - the range is a consequence of the shape, not the other way around.

Project engagement

A defined commercial problem - growth, marketing, go-to-market or AI enablement - that can be scoped to an outcome

• Deliverable.The outcome the scope names, handed over with working documentation so your team runs it without the studio
• Duration.3 months minimum for a short project; large cross-functional programs run for years
• Range. USD as the standard global currency; EUR for EU markets; INR for Indian clients $5,000 per month to $10,000 per month for typical projects; large cross-functional programs are scoped individually
• What moves it.Scope and length: a short consulting engagement sits at the lower end, and longer projects where the studio also owns implementation support trend higher. The experts the brief needs move it too, as does the regulatory landscape: a banking project carries additional legal experts to keep the work fully compliant

Retainer

A company that needs a senior commercial mind consistently available rather than a one-off deliverable

• Deliverable.Ongoing senior attention on your commercial operations, from the same named practitioners throughout
• Duration.3-month minimum term; clients typically stay 3 to 4 quarters to see the full benefit through implementation. 30-day notice as standard; engagements with large multidisciplinary expert teams or government-agency involvement can carry longer notice periods, to honour commitments made to those experts
• Range. USD as the standard global currency; EUR for EU markets; INR for Indian clients $2,500 per month for a low-touch engagement to Scope-dependent; heavy retainers can exceed $10,000 per month
• What moves it.Cadence, disciplines covered, availability, and the experts the engagement needs

What changes the number

Short version: a short engagement lands at the lower end, and longer projects where we also own implementation support trend toward the higher end. The experts working on the project move the number too, and so does the regulatory landscape - a banking project carries additional legal experts to keep the work fully compliant.

What does not change the number is worth saying plainly: the delivery team. There is no cheaper junior tier to swap in when a quote needs to shrink, so the range cannot be quietly hit by staffing the work down. The people who scope the engagement are the people who work it.

What happens if a practitioner is unavailable mid-engagement

The honest structural answer: we are two named practitioners plus a specialist network, so continuity rests on named people, not a bench. It has not happened yet. If it does, our commitment is plain - we replace the practitioner with an equivalent or better expert, and if we cannot, that work comes out of the scope and the pricing is adjusted or refunded accordingly. We say this before a contract is signed, not after a problem appears.

The part most pages leave out

What we will not take on

Engagements Foxnut Studios declines in the first conversation, and who is better placed for each.

• The brief asks for advice on work that neither Foxnut Studios nor its expert network has done first-hand. A practitioner or firm that has shipped that exact work first-hand. The studio's filter is public: it does not advise on anything it, or the experts it brings in, has not done.
• The ask is an AI strategy document with no implementation attached. A strategy consultancy will write that document. Foxnut Studios only takes AI work it can build into your operations and hand over running.
• The budget and the brief do not match, and no honest scope fits both. Nobody is sold a shrunk version of the scope. The studio offers a free audit call instead, pointing the client at the best alternatives and next steps.

The cost is known before the work starts

Scoping happens before quoting, and it ends with a named shape, not an open-ended hourly meter. In practice: a discovery call establishes interest and requirements, we research the industry, the client and the outcome expectations, assemble the team of experts the project needs, and put together a scope-of-work. Once you confirm that scope, the quote follows - never the other way round. How the engagement runs from there is documented on how the studio runs an engagement.

Who these engagements are for

Consumer brands and B2B companies at the growth stage: companies that have found product-market fit and need to accelerate commercial velocity, or companies expanding into new markets where an India-plus-Europe team is a structural advantage. The common thread is a commercial leader who wants senior attention, not account management. Company size matters less than that thread; the shapes above are sized to problems, not headcounts.

Why the ranges are published

Because a buyer shortlisting vendors needs a number before a call, and hiding prices buys nothing except conversations neither side wanted - and we have sat through enough of those from the other side of the table, at other companies, to know it firsthand. Publishing the range costs us the briefs that were only ever shopping on rate, which is a filter we want anyway. What the range does not do is replace scoping: the number that binds is the one attached to a named scope, and that arrives after the first conversation, not instead of it.

What backs the number is published too: the record of what Foxnut Studios has shipped lists every claim we make about our own work, each with its method, sample, period and source, so the rate above can be checked against the record rather than taken on trust.

Starting small

Buyers reasonably want a small, paid first step before a full engagement, especially from a studio that does not yet publish named client case studies. We do not sell a separate pilot package, because the three-month project engagement already is one: it is the smallest shape we sell, it carries the same published range as any project, and a client who stops after it keeps everything the scope named, handed over with working documentation. Nothing about it obliges a second engagement.

If you want to know whether that first shape even fits before committing to it, that is what the free audit call is for: a senior practitioner looks at what you are trying to solve and tells you plainly whether a project engagement, a retainer, or nothing at all is the right next step. Book the call - no pitch deck, no scope-of-work until you ask for one.