How an engagement runs

Intake and kickoff

Every engagement begins with the intake form. It takes roughly ten minutes and asks where the business is now and where it wants to rank. We review each submission and schedule a thirty-minute kickoff call within seventy-two hours.

No invoice is issued before kickoff is complete. Billing starts only once the scope has been approved, which means the diagnostic conversation happens before any money changes hands rather than after.

The kickoff call is also where a mismatch gets surfaced. If what the business needs is not something Schkovl builds, that is a better outcome for both sides than a scoped project neither party should have signed.

Stage one — Analyze

The first stage is operational diagnostics: identifying the bottlenecks and the points of systemic friction. We examine what the live system actually does — routes, handoffs, listings, software, and the workarounds the team is already running — rather than what the documentation says it does.

No build recommendation is made until the gap has been named. That rule exists because a recommendation made before the diagnostic is a guess dressed as a plan, and the client pays for the difference.

Stage two — Architect

The second stage designs the data models, protocols and infrastructure needed to close the identified gap. The blueprint maps that system and nothing else.

Existing tools stay if they work. Schkovl does not sell a stack first and retrofit the problem to it afterwards, and the architecture stage is where that commitment either holds or visibly fails.

Stage three — Build

The third stage is the engineering itself: custom interfaces, APIs and agentic networks, built to the blueprint agreed in stage two.

The build runs on standard tooling another team could take over. That is a deliberate constraint rather than a preference — it is what makes the ownership commitment meaningful, because code you own but nobody else can maintain is not really transferable.

Stage four — Deploy

The final stage is a secure rollout with monitoring, followed by iterative scaling. Work ships behind measurement.

After deployment we re-run the same test that found the gap. If the number has not moved, the work is not finished — the re-test is the acceptance criterion, not the launch announcement.

What gets recommended at the end

The diagnostic can point in several directions. It might call for a build, a rewrite of something that already exists, a marketing push into a pipeline that is now capable of carrying it, or a combination scoped in sequence rather than all at once.

It can also recommend against spending. Schkovl has walked away from work where the fix turned out to be operational rather than technical. An agency that only ever concludes that you need the thing it sells is not running a diagnostic.

The shapes an engagement can take

Published engagement shapes range from a small fixed-price pilot to a full platform build, and the diagnostic is what decides which one is appropriate.

• →Growth Pilot — $199 CAD per month with a ninety-day minimum term, then month-to-month. One system: weekly Google Business Profile posts, review monitoring with drafted responses within forty-eight hours, profile hygiene, and a short monthly report. No setup fee.
• →Gap Analysis — typically one to two weeks, producing a diagnostic breakdown and a prioritised execution plan you own either way.
• →Website builds — a focused marketing site typically runs four to eight weeks depending on scope, with exact timelines scoped during the Gap Analysis before a contract starts.
• →Apps and platforms — MVPs typically run CAD $15,000 to $45,000; full multi-tenant platforms range from CAD $60,000 to $180,000 and up depending on architecture.

The pilot deliberately excludes website changes, SEO/AEO work, app development and paid ad management. Those are separate engagements, scoped after a Gap Analysis.

Where this page stops and the agreement starts

The ranges above are the published shapes of the work, not a quote. Specific terms, scope, deliverables and pricing for any engagement are set out in a separate written agreement or proposal between Schkovl and the client.

Anything a page on this site describes in general terms, that document describes in binding terms. Where the two differ, the written agreement governs.

Where to go next

Last reviewed

The facts on this page were last checked against published Schkovl sources on 2026-09-20.

Everything here is drawn from material already published on this site. If something looks wrong, our editorial standards and corrections policy explains how to have it corrected.