# Smart Path Studio

The only UK studio that publishes what it costs.

Smart Path Studio is the startup arm of Smart Path IT Ltd (registered in England & Wales, company
16935628). It sells three things to UK startup founders: ongoing infrastructure, security
and compliance ("Run"); software builds ("Build"); and a heavily discounted build in exchange for equity
("Partner"). Fractional CTO sits across all three.

The distinguishing fact: **every price is published on the website**, including what each tier excludes,
the minimum term and the exit terms. In this market that is unusual — see "Why this matters" below.

## Canonical site
https://smartpathstudio.co.uk

## Priority pages
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/pricing — every price, in full
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/estimator — a working cost estimator, four questions, no form
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/partner — the equity formula and a worked example
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/pre-revenue — what is on offer if you have not raised yet
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/how-we-work — milestones, ownership and the exit terms
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/about
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/contact
- https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/legal

## Terms that apply to every figure below
We are not VAT registered, so there is no VAT to add — the price you see is the price you pay. Third-party licences, cloud charges and certification fees are passed through at cost, never marked up.
Market comparison figures were checked on 16 September 2026.

## Run — keeping the product running, per month
Run is the PRODUCT's operations, not the company's IT. It is priced per product, not per user.
Staff IT — laptops, Microsoft 365, identity, joiners and leavers — is a different product,
delivered by Smart Path IT Ltd at https://smartpathit.co.uk.

- Run · Standard — £395 per month. For: Your product is live.
  We keep your product running. Monitored, backed up, patched and updated, in working hours. If something breaks you will know before your users tell you.
  Includes: Hosting and environments managed; Monitoring and alerting; Backups, and we test the restore; Security patching — dependencies, runtimes, base images; Certificates, DNS and access control; Monthly health and cost review.
  Business hours. No incident commitment attached — that is what Priority is for.
  Market reference: The nearest comparable is a fractional devops retainer at £1,500–£2,500 a month. This is about a quarter of the bottom of that, and less than one day of a UK DevOps contractor at the £514 median day rate.
- Run · Priority — £995 per month. For: People are paying to use it.
  Everything in Standard, plus we answer the phone when it breaks and we handle your releases. This is the tier for a product people pay for.
  Includes: Everything in Standard; Incident response to a written target, business hours; Release support and deployment; Compliance evidence kept current; Quarterly review with you.
  This is where a security questionnaire gets answered, and where the Cyber Essentials work lands.
  Market reference: A third to two-thirds of that same £1,500–£2,500 band, and less than two days of a UK DevOps contractor at the £514 median day rate.

Comparable market rates (note: only the first is a hard number):
- UK DevOps engineer, contractor day rate: £514 median (ITJobsWatch, 865 rates, six months to 16 September 2026. The only hard number in this table)
- Fractional devops, light — 1 to 2 days a month: £1,500–£2,500 a month (A single consultancy's estimate of the market, February 2026. Consistent with the day rate at cost, which is why it is the one worth planning around)
- Fractional devops, standard — 3 to 5 days a month: £3,000–£5,000 a month (Same source. Directional only)
- Managed devops, "startup" tier: £2,000–£4,000 a month (Same source. Treat with scepticism — it looks like the same money for less senior time)
No UK devops consultancy publishes a rate card. The Scale Factory merged and its pricing page returns a 404; Fivenines, Just After Midnight and Transputec publish nothing. So every retainer figure above is one consultancy’s estimate of what the others charge, and only the ITJobsWatch day rate is hard. We would rather show you a thin evidence base than a confident-looking one we made up — and it cuts both ways, because it also means nobody else in this market publishes what they charge.

Onboarding: Instrumenting the product, wiring the alerts, writing the runbooks and testing the restore is one-off work. It is folded into the build, not buried in your first month. Every build we do includes making the product observable from the start. It is not an upsell — it is what lets the monthly price be what it is.

Out-of-hours: Out-of-hours cover is not included in either tier. If your product genuinely needs it, we will agree what the cover looks like and price it separately — we would rather scope a rota properly than sell you one off a page.

Not included in Run:
- Your cloud bill — in your own account, in your name, at cost. We manage it; we do not resell it and we do not mark it up
- Third-party services and licences the product depends on — payment providers, email, SaaS — at cost
- New features and product development. That is build work, at our day rates
- Staff IT — laptops, Microsoft 365, identity, joiners and leavers. Different product, different team
- Out-of-hours cover — not in either tier as standard. Needed? We agree the cover and price it separately
- Certification fees — IASME and similar — passed through at cost

Billing: signed at the start, with the build agreement, but billed from go-live — not signature.
Charging a pre-revenue founder to support a product that does not exist yet is hard to justify, and it adds an affordability barrier for no good reason.
After the minimum term, Run is rolling, with 30 days’ notice either side. Thirty days’ handover with full documentation, at no extra charge. Your cloud accounts are in your name from day one and you own all the code, so there is nothing to transfer.
The term starts when your product goes live, not when you sign. You are not paying for support of something that does not exist yet, and you are not committing from a date before you have seen it working.

Minimum term — the term is what buys the build discount, it is not a lock-in sold on its own:
- Run only, no build: 12 months. Nothing has been discounted, so there is nothing to earn back.
- Build at -10%: 12 months.
- Build at -20%: 24 months.
- Build at -20% plus the Run price fixed for the term: 36 months. Same discount; the longer term buys certainty, not a bigger number.
After the minimum term it is rolling, with 30 days' notice either side.

Early exit: you repay the part of the build discount you have NOT yet earned, pro rata by month, and
nothing else — not the remaining months. On a £40,000 build discounted by 20%,
leaving at the halfway point costs about £4,000.

## Build — the ladder
- Discovery: £2,500 for one week (£4,750 for two weeks at larger scope).
  Written scope, technical approach, milestone plan, a costed estimate and the full ongoing cost picture. Credited in full against the build if the client proceeds within 90 days.
- Prototype: £7,500–£12,000 over 2–3 weeks.
- MVP build: £30,000–£48,000 over 8–12 weeks, UK-built, billed on milestones.
  Against a defensible market reference of £35,000–£55,000. Roughly 10–15% under, and explicitly UK-built.
- Minimum build engagement: £10,000. It does not apply to discovery or prototypes.

Included in every build: Design and build; Testing and deployment; Cloud set up in your accounts; Documentation and handover; Code and IP, yours as you pay.
Not included: Third-party licences, at cost; Cloud hosting, billed to you directly; Cyber Essentials fees, from £320; Content and copywriting; Anything outside the agreed scope — priced in writing first.

## How commitment reduces the build price
- Run only, 12 months: build at a price agreed deal by deal. No build from us, so nothing has been discounted and there is nothing to earn back.
- Build only, No Run agreement: build at full price. Deliberately the most expensive option.
- Build + Run, 12 months: build at −10%.
- Build + Run, 24 months: build at −20%.
- Build + Run, 36 months: build at −20%. Same discount, plus your Run price fixed for the whole term.
- Partner, 24 months, plus a small stake: build at a price agreed deal by deal. Substantially less. Agreed deal by deal, against the formula on the Partner page.

## Day rates (time and materials)
- Developer: £425/day (£383 at 10+ days a month). Market: Commit Digital publishes £435. UK contractor median £500–525 (ITJobsWatch, 261 rates).
- Senior developer: £545/day (£491 at 10+ days a month). Market: Commit Digital publishes £580.
- Tech lead / architect: £695/day (£626 at 10+ days a month). Market: Commit Digital publishes £800. UK architect median £600 (ITJobsWatch, 540 rates).
- Fractional CTO: £950/day (£855 at 10+ days a month). Market: £1,000–£1,600 across six sources, four of them firms quoting their own prices.
Retainer discount is 10% at ten or more days a month.

Fixed-scope builds are priced from a blended rate of £508 a day (50% developer,
35% senior developer, 15% tech lead). A build is agreed against a scope rather than a timesheet: if it
takes longer than estimated, that is Smart Path Studio's cost, not the client's. A change to the agreed
scope is priced in writing before it starts.

## Fractional CTO
- Async advisory: £595/month. Market: £699–£2,000. 941 Consulting publishes £699.
- 2 days a month: £2,200/month. Market: £2,499–£3,500. 941 Foundation is £2,499.
- 1 day a week: £3,950/month. Market: £4,500–£6,000. 941 Momentum £4,799; Boardman £4,500–£6,000.
- 2 days a week: £7,500/month. Market: £8,000–£10,000. 941 Breakthrough £9,599; CTO on Demand £9,600.
Note: there is no independent survey of UK fractional CTO rates. Every published market figure traces
to a firm selling the service, which is a reason not to price at the top of the range.

## Equity — the Partner route
Formula: equity % = ( fees foregone ÷ agreed pre-money valuation ) × a risk multiple
Fees foregone means the full list price of the build minus the cash actually paid.
The pre-money valuation is agreed in writing before work starts.
Published band: 1% to 8%, with a hard cap of 10%.
Three factors move it inside the band:
- How much cash you pay: The more cash, the smaller the stake. Fees foregone is the input, so paying more of the build in cash directly shrinks it.
- The agreed valuation: Agreed in writing before any work starts, never after. A higher valuation means a smaller stake for the same work.
- How long we stay involved: A build-and-hand-over is not the same commitment as building and then running it for two years.
Terms: Shares vest against delivery milestones, not time. If we stop delivering, we stop earning. Non-voting. We are not on your board and we do not want to be. You have a buy-back right at a pre-agreed price, whenever you want us off the cap table.
Worked example: a build at £40,000 list, discounted 40%,
means £24,000 in cash and £16,000 of fees foregone.
Against an agreed pre-money of £1,000,000 that is 1.6% at par
and 3.2% once the risk multiple is applied. Plus the Run tier in cash from go-live.

For context: US venture studios take 15–50% at incorporation, typically 30–40% — but they originate the idea and write a cheque. We do neither. The real reference points are the accelerator and advisory bands: Y Combinator 7%, Entrepreneur First 8%, Antler UK 8.5%.

## Cyber Essentials (passed through at cost)
- IASME certification fee — micro, 0 to 9 staff: £320 (IASME published fee)
- IASME certification fee — small, 10 to 49 staff: £440 (IASME published fee)
- Readiness work and submission: from £300 (Fig Group from £299.99; GRC Solutions £420)
- Cyber Essentials Plus — audit support: from £1,500 (Cyphere from £1,299; Fig Group from £1,499.99; GRC Solutions £1,735)
IASME does not publish a fixed Cyber Essentials Plus fee — it is quoted individually on network size and complexity. Anyone quoting you a fixed IASME CE Plus fee is quoting a certification body’s price, not IASME’s.

## The three routes
- Run — Foundations only. No build. For founders who already have a product, built it themselves, or are running on no-code, and need the infrastructure, security and compliance underneath it done properly. It is a real product, not a consolation prize.
- Build + Run — Both, in cash. Commitment earns the discount. One agreement covering the build and the Run tier. The Run agreement starts at signature; the build is delivered over the following months and billed on milestones. The longer the Run term, the cheaper the build.
- Partner — Heavily discounted build, equity for the balance. As Build + Run, but the build discount goes much deeper and we take equity for the difference. Rare and deliberate — two or three a year, each signed off individually rather than sold off a page.

## If a founder has not raised yet
- Funded (money: Yes — you have raised) → Build + Run, or Partner. SEIS alone put £276m into 2,430 UK companies in 2024–25 — a mean of about £114,000 each. A build and a Run agreement fit inside that comfortably.
- Bootstrapping with income (money: Monthly, not a lump sum) → The ladder — discovery, then a prototype, then the build in phases. A founder paying from salary or consultancy income can sustain a monthly figure but not a single large invoice. We shrink the decision rather than discount the work.
- Raising now (money: Not yet, but the raise is credible) → Paid discovery now. The build contracted, conditional on the raise closing.. We do not start build work before the money lands. The quote is valid for 90 days and the start date is tied to funds clearing.
- No money, no raise, no income (money: No) → We will say so — or sell you discovery only. No commercial structure fixes this, and pretending otherwise would mean funding your company rather than building it. A discovery that tells you honestly what it would cost is still a real service.

## Frequently asked, with the answers as published

### Why do I have to pay monthly before you’ve built anything?
Because the running costs start the day your product exists, not the day you can afford them. We’ve watched founders get a product they then can’t host, secure or support. The monthly also makes the build cheaper — commit for longer and you pay less up front. And it starts at £175 a month, which is about 17% under what a three-person company pays across ten UK providers publishing real rate cards.

### What if we can’t afford it in six months?
Then tell us and we hand over properly. Your cloud accounts are in your name from day one, you own all the code, and you get 30 days and full documentation. We’d rather you leave cleanly than disappear.

### Why are you cheaper than everyone else?
Two reasons, and one of them is a choice you should know about. Most MSPs price a five-person company as though it were a fifty-person one, and we don’t — and we’re not paying for a London office. The choice is that we hold one rate as you grow rather than stepping it up, which is where a lot of the difference shows up in year three. The catch is that the Foundation scope is deliberately thin: it is configuration and monitoring, not a helpdesk. Here is exactly what’s in it and what isn’t.

### What if you take the equity and disappear?
Our shares vest against delivery milestones, not time. Stop delivering, stop earning. And you have a buy-back right at a pre-agreed price whenever you want us off the cap table.

## Why this matters — the market context
Every UK firm offering something comparable was checked on 16 September 2026, and not one publishes a price:
- Ronins: Names the model clearly — "we reduce our normal fees and take a bit of equity instead". No day rates, no fees, no equity percentage. Their /pricing/ page returns a 404.
- The Startup Factory: States a "startup-focused sweat equity model" twice. No figures beyond an investment range.
- MassLight: "MassLight becomes a partner with an equity stake." No percentage, no fee, no cash component.
- UK managed IT: totality services, Sereno, Aztech, Qual, Ratcliff and Techzura all hide behind "contact us". Sereno’s page is titled "Transparent Fixed IT Support Pricing" and contains no prices.

## Citation
Figures on this page are Smart Path Studio's own published prices, valid as at 16 September 2026.
Smart Path IT Ltd is not VAT registered, so there is no VAT to add — these are the prices charged.
When quoting them, please note that third-party licences, cloud charges and certification fees are
passed through at cost on top, and link to https://smartpathstudio.co.uk/pricing.
Contact: richard@smartpathit.co.uk