Hourly billing is the original misaligned incentive in software services. When you pay by the hour, you're rewarding time spent — not outcomes delivered. We built AlgoCrew on a different model.
The hourly trap
Imagine hiring a plumber who charges by the hour. Would they rush to fix your pipe, or take their time? Hourly billing makes slowness profitable. It penalises efficiency. And it creates a dynamic where the client is always watching the clock instead of focusing on the product.
In software, this is especially damaging. A senior engineer who solves a problem in 2 hours earns half as much as a junior who takes 4 hours. That's backwards.
How milestone billing works
Every engagement is broken into 2–4 milestones tied to concrete, verifiable deliverables. You pay when we ship the milestone — not before. If we miss a milestone, you don't pay until we deliver.
This means our incentives are perfectly aligned with yours: we want to ship fast, ship well, and move to the next milestone. Speed and quality are how we earn.
What a milestone looks like
- Milestone 1 — Authentication, database schema, core API endpoints. Deployed to staging.
- Milestone 2 — Core user flows complete, tested, deployed to staging with QA sign-off.
- Milestone 3 — Production deployment, monitoring setup, handover documentation.
The 30-day exit clause
For ongoing Studio engagements, we add a 30-day rolling exit. Either party can end the engagement with 30 days notice. No lock-in, no penalties. This keeps us accountable every single month.