Services and pricing
Four steps. Prices on the page. Stop whenever.
Expona Services is the consulting practice inside Expona. Each step is useful on its own. Prices are published because it saves both of us an hour: if the ranges do not work, you know before we talk.
The problem
The expensive part is never the decision
Ask an estimator how long it takes to decide whether a job is worth bidding and they will say a couple of minutes. They are right. Then ask what has to be true before they can decide, and you get a list, and the list takes forty minutes.
That gap is the whole business case, and it never shows up in a budget because nobody bills for it. It is spread across four people, six systems and a spreadsheet built in 2019 by someone who no longer works there. The same shape shows up wherever a company decides who to pursue. Which RFQs to quote. Which lanes to go after. Which accounts get a rep this week. Which leads are worth an hour.
- Assembly, once
- 39minFive steps, timed by the estimator who does them.
- Times a week
- 20Invitations that get a real look. Their count, not ours.
- Hours a year
- 62439 × 20 ÷ 60 × 48 working weeks.
- Loaded cost
- $59kAt $95 an hour fully loaded. Show your team the arithmetic, not the conclusion.
Now the honest part. That $59,000 is not sitting in a bank account waiting to be freed. Some of it turns into capacity you already needed and some of it turns into nothing at all. When we model this for you we count half of it by default, and we show you the year one number with our fee inside it, which is sometimes negative. If a case only works at a hundred percent, it does not work.
The ladder
Four steps, and you can stop after any of them
Nothing here requires the next thing. Plenty of people take the assessment, get their number, and go build it themselves. That is a fine outcome.
Step one
The assessment
You answer a handful of questions about the recurring decisions in your business, usually about who to pursue, what to bid and where to spend. You get back an annual hours figure, a dollar figure and a ranked list of where the preparation cost sits. It will tell you when the answer is no.
- Estimated annual assembly cost
- Recoverable range, discounted for readiness
- Decisions ranked by cost and tractability
- Where not to start
FreeRight nowAbout five minutesStep two
The line map
We sit with the people who actually do the work, time the steps, follow the data to where it really lives, and come back with your decisions ranked by what they cost and how buildable they are. You get a build list, a do not build list, and the reason for each. It is yours either way.
- Up to 8 interviews and 3 timed walkthroughs
- 8 to 12 mapped and scored decision lines
- Build first, fix first and do not build lists
- A written report and a 60 minute readout
$3,500 to $7,000Credited against a buildTen working daysStep three
The build sprint
Four to six weeks on one decision. Automation runs in your own environment under your own accounts, not on our server, and the workflows are yours. Your team gets trained on the thing while it is being built, not after. We measure the same steps again at the end and compare them to the map.
- A working system that prepares the decision
- Runs on your infrastructure and credentials
- Team training during the build
- Before and after measurement against the map
$15,000 to $35,000Fixed, per decisionFour to six weeksStep four
Standing help
Monthly. Somebody owns the thing you built, keeps it running when the source systems change, and works the next decision down the list. This is also where governance sits, so you have a written policy and a register instead of eleven people quietly pasting customer data into a chatbot.
- Monitoring and upkeep of live systems
- The next decision on the list, worked
- AI use policy and a tool register
- A quarterly go or no go review
$3,500 to $7,500Per monthThree month minimum
Fee credit
The line map pays for itself if you build
If you start a build sprint within 90 days of the readout, the full line map fee comes off the sprint price. If you do not, you keep the report, the maps and the do not build list. Either way the money bought something you can use.
Example
- Line map
- $4,000
- Build sprint
- $24,000
- Credit, within 90 days
- −$4,000
- You pay in total
- $24,000
The method
We build up to the line and stop
Every recurring decision has preparation above it and a judgment call below it. We automate everything above the line and nothing below it, and we score every decision before we recommend building anything.
How the method worksWhere we stop
The things we will not sell you
Most of what goes wrong with AI in a mid sized company goes wrong because somebody automated across the line instead of up to it. These are the lines we hold, and you should hold us to them.
We will not automate the judgment call
If a person is accountable for the outcome, a person makes the call. We make the call cheap to make, well evidenced and fast. We do not make it for you.
We will not build on a system you cannot see into
Everything runs in your accounts, on your infrastructure, with your credentials. If we part ways, nothing turns off.
We will not price a case on time you cannot recover
Freed hours only count as money if the hours turn into something. We discount for that by default and we say so in the model.
We will not recommend a tool without telling you what we own
Expona Services is the consulting practice inside Expona, and Expona also makes an intelligence and content platform. When your problem is intelligence or content, that platform is one of the options on the table, and we say so in writing and name two alternatives you can contract with directly. Everything else we build runs on agentic platforms picked for your stack and your team. It is in the engagement terms, not just on this page.
We will not start with a strategy deck
You do not have an AI strategy problem. You have four decisions that cost too much to prepare for, and the fastest route to a strategy is fixing one of them.
We will not take the engagement if the answer is no
Some processes are too variable, too rare, or too dependent on data nobody can reach. The map tells you that, and we would rather hand you a short list than a long invoice.
Who we work with
Same method, a different decision in every room
The function is marketing and business development. The industries are ones where we have run B2B marketing ourselves, so you will not spend the first meeting explaining how your business wins work.
Construction and specialty trades
Bid or no bid.
Read the invitation and addenda, check history with the GC, check backlog and crews, pull margin on the last three like it, check bonding and prequal. Then two minutes deciding.
Manufacturing
Which RFQs to quote.
And which accounts are worth developing, when the answer lives across the ERP, the CRM and an estimator's memory.
Distribution and logistics
Which lanes and shippers to pursue.
Rate history, capacity, margin by lane and who the shipper already works with, assembled before anyone picks up the phone.
Life sciences suppliers
Where the rep's week goes.
Which accounts and territories get attention, based on what is actually moving rather than what was true last quarter.
Home builders and home services
Which leads are worth an hour.
Triage that happens every morning, usually by the most expensive person in the building.
Owners and finance leaders
Which growth spend is returning.
And what it costs every month to assemble that answer for the leadership meeting.
Who it fits
Good fit, bad fit
This tends to work
- $5M to $25M in revenue, somewhere between 25 and 250 people.
- A pursuit or spend decision that repeats weekly and has a name inside the company.
- A decision somebody already complains about by name, without being asked.
- A CRM, an ERP or a bid board with an API, or at least an export somebody already runs.
- An owner who wants the thing built, not a report about building it.
This tends not to
- Under $5M in revenue, where the honest answer is usually cheaper software rather than a build.
- A decision that comes up four times a year, where the arithmetic never closes.
- Data locked in a system the vendor will not open, with no export anybody can run.
Founding engagements
Two line maps, at no charge, in exchange for the numbers.
The bid or no bid example on this site is illustrative. It is built the way a real line map is built and the arithmetic is real, but it is not a client. We are running the first two line maps at no charge for companies willing to let us publish what we find. You get the full two weeks, the report, the readout and the do not build list. We get a case study with real numbers in it.
Questions
What people ask first
Is this an AI consultancy?
Not in the usual sense. We do not start from a tool and go looking for a use case. We start from a decision somebody is accountable for, time the work in front of it, and build only what the numbers justify. Sometimes that is AI, sometimes it is plain automation, and sometimes it is a spreadsheet somebody should have fixed years ago.
Why are your prices on the website?
Because publishing them saves both of us an hour. If the ranges do not work for you, you know before we talk. If they do, the first call can be about your business instead of our rate card.
What do you mean by the decision line?
Every recurring decision has preparation above it (pulling history, checking systems, writing the summary) and a judgment call below it. We automate up to the line and stop. The person who owns the outcome still makes the call, with the evidence already assembled.
Which platforms do you build on?
Whichever agentic platform fits your systems, your data and the people who will own it. We recommend from several and explain the tradeoffs. We do not resell software and we do not push one stack onto every client.
Where does the automation run?
In your accounts, on your infrastructure, with your credentials. You own the workflows. If we stop working together, nothing turns off.
What if the line map says there is nothing worth building?
Then you get that in writing, with the reasons, and the fee has still bought you a clear map of where your team's time goes. We would rather hand you a short list than a long invoice.
Do you work outside Utah?
Yes. Most of the work runs remotely. Walkthroughs and readouts can be on site, with travel billed at cost outside Utah.
Talk to us
Bring one decision. We will map it in twenty minutes.
No deck, no discovery process, no proposal to review. Tell us one thing your team decides most weeks and we will walk it backwards on a call until we find where the time is. If there is nothing there we will tell you and we can both get on with our day.