How We Scope and Price an Engagement
CloudSpinx is an infrastructure and IT consultancy in Kenya working across East Africa and remotely beyond it, for internet providers, payment platforms, manufacturers, a national regulator and the businesses that depend on all of them. We take four shapes of engagement. This page explains which one fits, what sets the price, and what you get in writing before you commit to anything.
Free, and commits you to nothing · You speak to an engineer · No rate card, a written figure
Four ways to engage an IT consultancy
Most organisations arrive asking for one of these and leave on a different one, because the shape of the problem turns out not to match the shape they assumed. Getting this right before scoping saves more money than negotiating the rate ever will.
Advisory and architecture
You have a decision to make and want it made properly: which platform, whether the design holds, why the last vendor’s proposal feels wrong. We review, design and write it up. Sometimes the deliverable is a recommendation not to spend the money.
What this coversProject delivery
A migration, a build, a platform stood up and handed over. Scope, acceptance criteria and the milestone schedule are agreed in writing before anyone touches a console. Cloud migrations, virtualisation platforms, mail systems, ERP rollouts.
What this coversManaged service
We run it. Monitoring, patching, backups with tested restores, incident response against agreed times, and a report you can take to your board. This is the shape for infrastructure that has to be somebody’s job at 2am.
What this coversCo-managed and embedded engineering
Your team keeps the floor and the institutional knowledge. We take escalation, the deep platform work and the on-call rota. The most common shape for organisations that already employ good engineers and need specific depth beside them.
What this coversHow an engagement runs, from scoping call to handover
Five steps, and the commercial gate sits at step three. Nothing is billed before scope is agreed in writing, which is the part most buyers want confirmed before they take a first call.
- 01 You get An honest read on whether we are the right people
Scoping call
Thirty minutes with the engineer who would run the work rather than a salesperson. Bring what is breaking and what it costs you when it does.
- 02 You get Remediation named and priced separately
Assessment
For anything substantial we look at what you actually have. Undocumented estates, unpatched hosts and untested backups surface here instead of in month two.
- 03 You get One figure that holds for the term
Written proposal
Scope and explicit out-of-scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, the milestone schedule, the named engineers, assumptions, your dependencies and the risks we can see.
- 04 You get No surprise line items
Delivery
Projects bill against the milestone schedule in the proposal. Scope changes are quoted and approved before work starts, so nothing reaches an invoice you have not already seen.
- 05 You get You can run it without us
Handover
Architecture diagrams, runbooks and credentials in your own vault. Whether we then operate it for you is a separate decision, never an assumption.
Seven things that move an IT consulting quote in Kenya
We do not publish a rate card, and the reason is in the FAQ below. What we can do is show you the whole pricing model, so you can predict your own quote to within a sensible margin before anyone gets on a call.
What the system is worth when it stops
The first question, and the one that sets everything after it. An internal file server and an ISP’s core routing carry the same rack space and completely different engineering. Criticality decides redundancy, response times and how senior the person answering at 3am is.
Scope of the estate
Sites, systems, integrations and how much of it talks to something else. Two hundred endpoints in one building is a smaller job than forty across six branches with a VPN mesh and a legacy application nobody has documentation for.
Hours of cover
Business hours is the default. Extending to genuine 24/7 on-call is the single change that moves a monthly figure the most, because it costs a rota rather than a licence. We would rather you bought it only for the systems that need it.
The state of what already exists
Undocumented estates, unpatched hosts and backups nobody has restored carry real remediation work in the first two months. We price that separately and name the number before you commit, instead of folding it into a monthly fee that quietly never comes down.
Compliance and audit obligations
Kenya Data Protection Act scope, PCI-DSS, or an auditor who will read the output. Regulated work is heavier: more evidence, more documentation, tighter change control. If a regulator is downstream of the deliverable, we say so in the proposal rather than discovering it late.
Licences and hardware
Microsoft, VMware, Windows Server, control panels and endpoint agents pass through at cost and itemised. Hardware is quoted separately from the engineering. Neither gets marked up inside a service fee where you cannot see it.
How much stays with your team
Nearly always the biggest saving available to you, and the one most vendors will not raise. If you employ capable people, co-managed costs less than either a full outsource or another hire, and it keeps the knowledge in your building. We will tell you when that is the right answer.
How co-managed engineering worksWhat procurement gets in writing: proposals, RFPs and tenders
Every proposal we issue names the scope, what is explicitly out of it, the deliverables and their acceptance criteria, the milestone schedule, and the engineers who will actually do the work. Assumptions and dependencies on your side are listed, because most projects that slip do so on a dependency nobody wrote down.
For structured procurement we supply company and tax registration, technical capability statements, methodology, engineer CVs with current certifications, and client references. Send us the tender document and the deadline, and we will tell you before you spend evaluation time whether we are genuinely the right bidder for it.
Where the work touches personal data we scope it against the Kenya Data Protection Act from the start rather than retrofitting it, which matters if your board or a regulator will read the output. Our security and compliance practice carries that part of an engagement.
- Scope, and what is explicitly out of it
- Deliverables with acceptance criteria
- The milestone or billing schedule
- The named engineers who do the work
- Assumptions and your dependencies
- The risks we can already see
- A cheaper route where one exists
- Company and tax registration
- Technical capability statements
- Methodology
- Engineer CVs with current certifications
- Client references on request
When we tell you not to hire us
Three situations where the honest answer is a smaller invoice than the one you came for, or none at all. The questions buyers actually ask us, including which uptime figures we will commit to, are answered in the same spirit.
You already employ capable engineers
Do not replace them with us. Co-managed costs less than either a full outsource or another senior hire, and it keeps the institutional knowledge in your building. Your people run the floor, we carry escalation and the platform depth.
The whole ask is one migration
That is a project, not a retainer. Paying monthly for it means paying for eleven months of cover you did not need. Ask us for the project price instead.
You are five people on laptops
A small office on Microsoft 365 does not need a consultancy. It needs a few hours of proper setup, MFA everywhere, backups that work, and someone reachable when something breaks. We will do exactly that as a one-off and then leave you alone.
Saying this out loud is commercial as much as it is honest. Clients sold the wrong shape leave inside a year, and a client who stays four years is worth more than one oversold in month one.
Managed services agreement terms, billing and exit
You get one figure, agreed in writing before you sign, and it holds for the term. The whole of it, in the order procurement asks.
- Minimum term
- Three months on monthly engagements
- After that
- Month to month, 30 days written notice
- Exit penalty
- None, and no clause holding your systems
- Scope changes
- Quoted and approved before work starts
- Invoicing
- Monthly on the 1st, projects on milestones
- Payment
- Bank transfer, card or M-Pesa
- Pass-throughs
- Licences at cost, itemised. VAT where applicable
- Hardware
- Quoted separately from the engineering
- You keep
- Diagrams, runbooks, credentials in your vault
The handover is deliberate. A consultancy that makes itself impossible to leave is charging you for the lock-in rather than the work, and you can read how we apply that to day-to-day operations in the way we run managed IT.
What buyers ask before signing an IT support contract
01 What does IT consulting cost in Kenya?
It depends on the engagement shape, and any firm that answers with a single rate before scoping is guessing. Advisory work is a fixed fee against a defined deliverable. Projects are quoted per scope and billed against milestones. Managed services and co-managed engineering are monthly, priced on criticality, estate size, cover hours and compliance scope. What we commit to is a written figure before you sign, and that it holds for the term. The seven drivers above are what move it, and reading them will get you close to your own number before we speak.
02 Why do you not publish a rate card?
Because a published tier is a number you would hold us to before either of us knows the scope, and it prices the work rather than the outcome. We tried it. What happens is that the estate turns out to need twice the assessed work and somebody has to renegotiate in month two. A scoping call plus a written proposal gets you a usable budget figure in about a week, and a price we can both live with for the length of the contract.
03 What is in a CloudSpinx proposal?
Scope and explicit out-of-scope, the deliverables, acceptance criteria, the milestone or billing schedule, the named engineers who will do the work, assumptions and dependencies on your side, and the risks we can see. If there is a cheaper way to get the same outcome, including not doing the project, the proposal says so.
04 Do you respond to formal RFPs and tenders?
Yes. We respond to structured procurement and supply the documentation it asks for: company and tax registration, technical capability statements, methodology, named engineer CVs with certifications, and client references on request. Send the tender document and the deadline and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right bidder before you spend evaluation time on us.
05 How does an engagement start?
A scoping call with the engineer who would run the work, not a salesperson. For anything substantial we then do a paid or unpaid assessment depending on depth, and issue a written proposal. Nothing is billed before scope is agreed in writing. The first call is free and commits you to nothing.
06 Is there a minimum contract, and how do we exit?
Three months minimum on monthly engagements, then month to month on 30 days written notice. No exit penalty and no clause that holds your systems hostage. Project work is milestone-based rather than retained. Every engagement ends with documentation you keep: diagrams, runbooks and credentials in your own vault, so you can operate without us.
07 Can we combine ongoing cover with project work?
That is the usual shape. Most clients run a managed or co-managed engagement for day-to-day operation and commission projects on top as they arise: a migration this quarter, a security assessment next. Each project is scoped and priced on its own so the monthly figure stays predictable.
08 Do you work outside Nairobi and outside Kenya?
Remote engineering covers Kenya and the wider region at the same rate. On-site attendance is the variable: Nairobi is same day, Mombasa and Kisumu next day, and other locations are quoted per visit pattern. We deliver across East Africa and have worked with organisations well beyond it.
09 How do we pay?
Bank transfer, card, or M-Pesa where it suits you. Monthly engagements invoice on the 1st, projects bill against the milestone schedule in the proposal. VAT applies where applicable, third-party licences are itemised at cost, and hardware procurement is quoted separately from the engineering.
Bring us the problem, not the spec
Tell us what is breaking, what it costs you when it does, and what you have tried. A senior engineer scopes it and comes back with a written proposal. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
Send the document and the deadline. We will tell you whether we are genuinely the right bidder before you spend evaluation time on us.
Send a tender document