Partnership — Retainer
Senior bandwidth, ongoing.
A monthly engagement that puts senior technical capacity on tap. Scope software, AI, marketing engineering, and architecture inside it each month — no per-project negotiation, no context-switching cost. Three packages, sized to your actual workload, with a 6-month minimum and 30-day notice after.
Three packages
Advisory · Partner · Resident
Same senior standard across all three — scope and access scale with the package.
Advisory
8 hrs / week
01team is your senior technical advisor — available for hard decisions, architecture questions, and hands-on help when you need it, without a daily presence.
Who it's for
Pre-CTO founders. Early-stage teams. Existing engineering teams that need a trusted senior counterpart for decisions but not a full working partner yet.
What you can scope inside it
- ▹Async architecture and code review
- ▹Vendor and stack selection
- ▹Hiring help (job specs, interview design, final-round technical interviews)
- ▹One small project per month or one ongoing advisory thread
- ▹Quarterly tech roadmap input
Partner
Most common16 hrs / week
01team is an active working partner — driving a meaningful workstream alongside strategy and advisory. Weekly rhythm, shared momentum, real delivery.
Who it's for
Teams in active build mode. Companies adding AI surfaces. Existing engineering teams that need a senior to lead one significant workstream while advising the rest.
What you can scope inside it
- ▹One named workstream (e.g., AI agent build, marketing-engineering build, regulated platform refactor)
- ▹Weekly architecture and code review
- ▹Active hiring leadership (tech screens, interview loops, references)
- ▹Live security or compliance posture work
- ▹Quarterly roadmap and retrospective
Resident
24 hrs / week
01team is effectively inside your company — direct Slack, near-full-time bandwidth, hands-on delivery and team leadership. The relationship is indistinguishable from a senior hire.
Who it's for
Teams that need a senior leading delivery. Pre- or between-CTOs companies that want the bandwidth without the equity conversation. PE / portfolio operators dropping leadership in.
What you can scope inside it
- ▹Two named workstreams with milestones
- ▹Real-time engineering leadership (standups optional, escalations available)
- ▹AI agent compliance tooling included in delivery (PTOI catalog work)
- ▹Hiring leadership end-to-end
- ▹Quarterly strategic review
All packages: 6-month minimum · 30-day notice after month 6 · monthly billing in advance, net-15 · founding-client discount up to 20% for first 3 months
Compare
Side-by-side, by dimension
The crisp differences between the three packages, in one table.
| Dimension | Advisory | Partner | Resident |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bandwidth | 8 hrs / week | 16 hrs / week | 24 hrs / week |
| Scoped projects per month | 0–1 small | 1 named workstream | 2 named workstreams |
| Sync calls | Monthly | Weekly + ad-hoc | Weekly + ad-hoc |
| Communication channel | Priority Slack channel | Direct Slack | |
| Response SLA (non-emergency) | Next business day | Same business day | Real-time during work hours |
| Strategic / quarterly review | — | Quarterly | Quarterly |
| PTOI Cloud seat included | Add-on | Add-on | Yes (1 seat) |
| Initial term | 6 months | 6 months | 6 months |
| Monthly fee | $7,500 | $15,000 | $25,000 |
What a typical month looks like
Plan → deliver → check → close
The same monthly cadence across all three packages — call frequency, channel, and bandwidth scale with the tier.
Week 1
Plan
Monthly priorities call (30–60 min depending on package). Confirm in writing the named workstream(s) for the month and the active advisory threads. Update the tracking doc.
Weeks 1–4
Deliver
Hands-on shipping on the named workstream(s). Async architecture and code review. Decisions documented as they happen — written decision records, not Slack threads.
Mid-month
Check
Mid-month adjustment if scope shifts. New requests outside the bandwidth target either replace something or get scoped as an add-on; we surface the choice rather than absorb it silently.
End of month
Close
End-of-month summary: what shipped, what decisions were taken, what's open going into next month. Invoice for the next month is sent on the agreed billing day.
What you can scope inside the retainer
Examples of work that fits
Not exhaustive. If your work isn't in our competence we say so directly and recommend a partner.
- ▹Tech strategy and quarterly roadmap input
- ▹Architecture, code review, and decision records
- ▹Software builds (web, internal tools, integrations)
- ▹AI initiatives — use-case selection, integration, evals, governance
- ▹AI agent compliance work using the PTOI catalog
- ▹Marketing engineering and analytics instrumentation
- ▹Hiring leadership: job specs, interview design, final-round technicals
- ▹Vendor and stack selection
- ▹Security, ops, and incident hygiene at a senior-judgment level
- ▹Technical due diligence
- ▹PE / portfolio company drop-in technical leadership
- ▹Internal documentation and runbook discipline
Which package?
A short decision tree
Read the one that matches you. We will recommend the same on the call — including 'don't pick a retainer' when that's true.
You're a pre-CTO founder or a small team
Start with Advisory. 8 hrs/week gives you a trusted senior voice for hard decisions and code review without pressure on runway. Move to Partner when you start running real workstreams.
You're actively building (especially with AI)
Start with Partner. 16 hrs/week absorbs one real workstream alongside the advisory layer. This is the most common starting point and the easiest to right-size from.
You need someone leading delivery, not just advising
Go with Resident. 24 hrs/week, direct Slack, two named workstreams. 01team functions like a senior hire inside your company — without the equity conversation.
You want fractional-CTO accountability and possibly equity
Look at [01]/cto instead. Resident is high-bandwidth partnership; [01]/cto is a different accountability frame with a longer term, delegated authority, and an optional equity component.
You only need one defined thing shipped
Look at Sprint instead. Retainers are sized for sustained leverage. If your need is one fixed deliverable, a sprint is faster and cheaper.
What's NOT included
Read this before you sign
Common assumptions that aren't in the retainer by default. Address them in the SOW or scope add-ons.
- ×24/7 on-call. Response SLAs are business-hours, non-emergency. Production incident response outside that window requires a separate add-on.
- ×Implementation work for your customers under our name (we work on your stack, not theirs).
- ×Persistent overage. If a month materially exceeds the bandwidth target two months in a row, we move to a higher package — we won't silently absorb scope creep.
- ×Work outside our competence. We will say so directly and either recommend a partner or scope around it.
- ×Hours roll-over. Unused hours don't bank to the next month — the retainer is sustained leverage, not a punch card.
- ×Replacing your team. We augment senior judgment; we don't onboard junior contractors under your retainer.
Terms
How retainers work
The same terms appear in the SOW. No bait-and-switch on the legal.
- Initial term
- 6 months. Retainers are sized for sustained leverage — not one-off help. A sprint is the right shape for that.
- Notice period
- 30 days written notice after the 6-month minimum. Month-to-month after the initial term, no auto-renew lock-in.
- Billing
- Monthly, in advance, net-15. First invoice on SOW signing (prorated if mid-month). Optional prepay discount if you pay the initial 6 months on signing.
- Scope changes
- Workstreams agreed monthly in writing. Tier upgrades take effect on the first of the next month. Material changes require a written change order.
- Founding-client pricing
- Up to 20% off, applied to the first 3 months. Capped to the first 3 clients to sign at any tier across the company.
- PHI / regulated data
- If your work touches PHI, we execute a BAA before access begins and apply minimum-necessary scope. Synthetic or de-identified data is the default for design work.
FAQ
Common questions
Next step
Talk through your workload
30-minute discovery call — what's in flight, what package fits, and what we'd scope in month one.