Fixed-price engagements

From the problem
to the proof.

Engineering leverage, AWS security, or cloud cost. We turn the problem you can feel into a plan you can use in two weeks, then a result you can measure in six.

Explore the engagements Book a 15-minute intro call

A two-week diagnostic is $25,000. A six-week engagement is $35,000, with half the fee riding on the measured result.

Railway tracks at blue hour running to a vanishing point in haze, one amber lamp glowing beside the line.
One accountable senior engineerDefined scope and hoursEvidence at the finish

The fee is fixed.
The upside keeps working.

Engineering capacity you can put to work. AWS savings you keep. Two ways a six-week engagement can earn back its $35,000 fee.

Engineering Leverage

Put more of your backlog
behind you.

Illustrative team

Even a modest gain in usable capacity can be worth more than the engagement. You keep the team—and give it more room to deliver.

$17,000capacity value per month
2.1 monthsto equal the full fee in value
Cumulative added capacity value versus the $35,000 fee$17,000 per month yields $204,000 over twelve months after week six. Benefit equals the full fee in 2.1 months.$0$125,000$250,000036912Months after the week-six measurement$35,000 fee2.1 months
Added capacity value$35,000 fee
Value over 12 months after measurement$204,000

6 engineers at $180,000 annual loaded cost each. A 20% usable capacity gain, less $1,000 per month in added tools.

Adjust the assumptions

Loaded cost includes compensation, benefits, and overhead. Enter dollars with or without commas. Values must be nonnegative; model up to six engineers. Count capacity you can actually use after review and coordination.

This is the cost-equivalent value of additional output, not cash recovered. The example is not a forecast. The engagement’s 3× condition measures execution-factor lift; it does not establish a 3× gain in team capacity.

Explore Engineering Leverage
View chart data and formula

Monthly value = engineers × annual loaded cost ÷ 12 × usable capacity gain − added monthly tools. Fee-equivalent time = $35,000 ÷ positive monthly value.

Cumulative added capacity value after week six
MonthCapacity valueFee
0$0$35,000
3$51,000$35,000
6$102,000$35,000
9$153,000$35,000
12$204,000$35,000

AWS Cost Optimization

Recover the fee.
Keep the savings.

At the acceptance threshold

The six-week result condition is at least $105,000 in annualized savings. At that rate, the full fee is recovered in four months.

$8,750AWS savings per month
4 monthsto recover the full fee
Cumulative AWS savings versus the $35,000 fee$8,750 per month yields $105,000 over twelve months after week six. Benefit equals the full fee in 4.0 months.$0$75,000$150,000036912Months after the week-six measurement$35,000 fee4.0 months
Cumulative AWS savings$35,000 fee
Savings over 12 months after measurement$105,000

$8,750 saved each month × 12 = $105,000. That is 3× the $35,000 engagement fee. No percentage of your savings.

Model your monthly savings

Enter dollars with or without commas. The engagement is designed for AWS bills of $50,000 per month or more. Actual savings are verified on your Cost and Usage Report.

Four months begins once the savings are fully in place, after the six-week engagement. It assumes they persist. Annualized savings are a run rate, not savings already banked; workload, usage, and commitment costs affect the result.

Explore AWS Cost Optimization
View chart data and formula

Cumulative savings = measured monthly AWS savings × months after week six. Fee recovery = $35,000 ÷ positive monthly savings. The second half of the fee requires at least $105,000 in annualized savings at week six. If the Analysis finds less, the existing stop-at-week-two terms apply.

Cumulative AWS savings after week six
MonthSavingsFee
0$0$35,000
3$26,250$35,000
6$52,500$35,000
9$78,750$35,000
12$105,000$35,000

Six weeks to install and measure. Then the return accumulates. The charts start after the week-six measurement and assume the monthly benefit holds. They compare cumulative benefit with the full $35,000 fee, before taxes and financing. Your team’s time during the engagement is additional.

See the scope and result conditions

A breach has a price.
So does closing the gaps.

The six-week Hardening is $35,000. Put that beside the financial exposure of a breach, then decide what your security gaps are worth closing.

The cost of prevention,
in context.

IBM’s 2026 study reports a global average breach cost of $4,990,000. The selected engagement fee is 0.70% of the loss scenario below.

The Audit delivers verified findings and a remediation roadmap. Hardening adds critical fixes, identity controls, guardrails, detection, and runbooks. Its week-six re-scan checks the agreed critical findings; it does not measure an avoided breach.

Start with the published benchmark, or enter a loss scenario specific to your business. Neither establishes your likelihood of a breach.

See what the engagements deliver
One breach · loss scenario$4,990,000
Six-week Hardening · full fee$35,000

Both bars use the same dollar scale. Their lengths reflect the actual amounts.

143×Loss scenario compared with the engagement fee.
Cost comparison; no claim of ROI or risk reduction.
How to read this comparison

$4,990,000 ÷ $35,000 = 142.6. The engagement fee is 0.70% of the loss scenario.

A loss scenario is the cost if a breach occurs. Expected loss also depends on its likelihood. This comparison assigns no breach probability and makes no promise that this engagement prevents a breach.

Published benchmark, not your forecast. The global study average is context; your industry, size, data, and recovery needs may produce a very different loss. Source: IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026, reviewed September 30, 2026. The fee excludes your team’s time and any additional cloud or security-tool spend.

Read the scope and closure condition

Start here

What sounds like your week?

Choose the pressure point. Each path has the same fixed-price structure and a different measure of success.

Engineering LeverageYour board asked what the company is getting from Claude Code, and the honest answer is faster autocomplete.AWS Cost Analysis & OptimizationThe AWS bill grew faster than the business, and nobody can say who owns which line.AWS Security, Compliance & Governance AuditAn audit is coming, a customer sent a security questionnaire, or nobody can say for certain who can reach production.

The three engagements

Choose the problem.
The method is already clear.

Every engagement begins with a verified baseline and a written plan. The six-week version carries that plan into your systems and measures what changed.

A hydroelectric turbine hall at night, massive steel casings receding along a polished floor with an amber stripe.
AI-native engineeringAny cloud, language, or repository host

Engineering Leverage

More usable engineering capacity, from the team you already have. We give agents the codebase context they need, define repeatable workflows, and verify results with tests and review. Then we measure the change in your team.

In two weeks · $25,000

The Assessment

A measured baseline, an agent-readiness audit of your repositories, one live ticket, and the installation plan.

In six weeks · $35,000

The Embed

The constraint graph, gates, and agent workflows installed in your repositories, and measured at week six.

Half the fee rides on this result

The measured lift at week six is at least 3× your week-one baseline.

The value is in what your team can deliver. In the example above, a 20% usable capacity gain across six engineers produces $17,000 in monthly capacity value after added tools.

View the full engagement Download the Engineering Leverage brief (PDF, 7 pages, 252 KB)
A canal lock at blue hour, massive steel gates holding back still water, one amber lamp on the lock wall.
AWS costOne AWS bill of $50,000 a month or more

AWS Cost Analysis & Optimization

Lower recurring AWS spend, measured on your own bill. The six-week result condition is at least $105,000 in annualized savings against a fixed $35,000 fee. You keep every dollar saved.

In two weeks · $25,000

The Analysis

The spend baseline, the waste register, rightsizing and commitment plans, and the savings roadmap, every estimate with its evidence.

In six weeks · $35,000

The Optimization

The savings put in place through your own change process, the guardrails that keep them, and every change measured on your bill.

Half the fee rides on this result

The annualized savings in place at week six are at least three times the fee.

At the acceptance threshold, the fee pays back in four months. That starts once $8,750 in monthly savings is fully in place. The savings stay with you.

View the full engagement Download the AWS Cost Optimization brief (PDF, 7 pages, 160 KB)
An air traffic control tower at blue hour, its glass cab glowing amber above rows of blue taxiway lights.
AWS security · compliance · governanceOne AWS organization of up to 50 accounts

AWS Security, Compliance & Governance Audit

A breach can cost far more than the work to close known gaps. We audit your AWS organization, verify the findings, and fix the criticals through your repositories and review process.

In two weeks · $25,000

The Audit

A verified findings register, the identity and governance reviews, the compliance map, and the remediation roadmap.

In six weeks · $35,000

The Hardening

Every critical finding fixed as code, guardrails and detection on in every account, and the same scan run again at week six.

Half the fee rides on this result

Every critical finding from the audit is closed by week six, verified by the same scan.

View the full engagement Download the AWS Security Audit brief (PDF, 7 pages, 146 KB)
Charles Sieg

Your engagement, delivered personally

Meet the engineer
doing the work.

Charles Sieg brings more than 35 years of software experience, enterprise AWS architecture, and an extensive record of directing AI agents on his own product build.

Meet Charles and watch The Scale of the Work

A clear commercial shape

Know the scope before you sign.

The weeks, hours, deliverables, and result measure are written into the statement of work. You can stop with the plan or bring us in to execute it.

Two weeks

The two-week diagnostic

We measure where you are, verify what we find, and hand you a written plan you can run yourselves. If you stop here, the plan and everything we measured are yours.

$25,000
Charles’s time
Up to 40 hours, about 8 live
Invoiced
As its statement of work sets out
Beyond the cap
$450 per hour, by written change order
Six weeks

The six-week engagement

The diagnostic runs in the first two weeks. Then we carry out the plan inside your systems with the engineers who own them and take the same measurement again at week six.

$35,000
Charles’s time
Up to 110 hours, about 38 live
Invoiced
Half at signature, half on the measured result
Beyond the cap
$450 per hour, by written change order

The acceptance measure

How we know it worked.

The EmbedEngineering Leverage
The measured lift at week six is at least 3× your week-one baseline. Measured with Fulcrum, week one against week six.
The OptimizationAWS Cost Analysis & Optimization
The annualized savings in place at week six are at least three times the fee. Measured with your Cost and Usage Report, change by change.
The HardeningAWS Security, Compliance & Governance Audit
Every critical finding from the audit is closed by week six, verified by the same scan. Measured with the same scan, week one against week six.

What comes with every engagement

Senior work.
All the way through.

The person who scopes the work is the person in your systems doing it. The operating details are settled up front and documented for your team.

A glass-and-steel pavilion at blue hour on a still lake, one warm light glowing inside.Pavilion, your private engagement workspace

Charles, personally

Every engagement is delivered by Charles Sieg, inside your systems, with your engineers. There is no hand-off to a junior team.

Hours in writing

Up to 40 hours in a diagnostic and 110 in a six-week engagement, capped in the statement of work. Beyond the cap, $450 per hour, agreed before the hour is spent.

Pavilion, the workspace

A private workspace set up in week one: the calendar, every recording, the documents your sponsor accepts, the decisions, and the action items. At the close, one archive of all of it, yours.

Every session recorded

Meetings on Zoom, recorded with your permission, with transcripts and recaps, so the people who were not in the room get the whole meeting.

Everything left with you

Every deliverable lands in your repositories or your inbox, and you own it outright. Nothing of ours is left behind that you do not own.

A start within two weeks

Each engagement starts within two weeks of signature, once the access it needs exists. The calendar is set before week one.

Before you choose

Good questions deserve direct answers.

If a detail matters to your decision, ask Charles. You will get the answer from the person doing the work.

Why fixed price?

Because each engagement has the same shape every time, and because hourly engagements go through procurement. A fixed-price engagement with defined deliverables is a purchase a VP can make this week.

What does “measured” mean?

Each six-week engagement ends with the same measurement it started with: Fulcrum for engineering leverage, the same scan for security, and your own Cost and Usage Report for cost. Half the fee rides on that number, so the number is not ours to shade.

Can we stop after the two weeks?

Yes. Every diagnostic ends in a written plan you can run yourselves, and you keep everything it produced. The six-week engagement is there if you want the plan carried out with us.

Can we run more than one?

Yes, one after another. Each is its own statement of work and starts within two weeks of its signature.

Do we need to be on AWS?

For the security and cost engagements, yes: they are built on AWS’s own services and on fifteen years of AWS work. The leverage engagement works on any cloud, language, or repository host.

Who does the work?

Charles Sieg, personally, on every engagement. That is why the hours are capped in writing and the calendar is set before week one: they are real hours, and they are his.

Claude Code is a trademark of Anthropic, PBC. AWS is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Zoom is a trademark of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. Vantalect is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.

The next conversation

Let's define the result.

Tell Charles which challenge is in front of you. He'll scope the diagnostic or six-week engagement and make the acceptance measure clear before you sign.

Book a 15-minute intro call
info@vantalect.com 847.331.3649

Remote engagements nationwide.
Serving clients since 2020.