All of them, in public
Fixed fee, agreed after the scope. No hourly rate and no day rate, so there is nothing to divide and nothing to negotiate.
Your band follows the number of people and the cost base inside the scope, written down before anything is quoted. A fixed deadline or several parties to convince pushes an engagement to the top of its band. Anything outside the scope gets a new fixed price before it starts, never a bill afterwards.
If you want us to run the selection of whoever does the work we do not do, ask and you get a fixed price for it before anything starts. We either bid for a piece of work or help you choose who gets it, never both on the same question.
What the same question costs elsewhere
| Who | Fee and time | What the fee also buys | Be aware of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy houses | €400,000 to €900,000 3 to 5 months |
A team on site, deep analysis, a stakeholder programme, and a name the board already trusts | Partner time is thin. Most of the work is done by a young team, and the answer often arrives as options rather than a recommendation |
| Big Four | €150,000 to €450,000 3 to 4 months |
Design down to role level, stakeholder engagement, and the same firm for legal, workforce transition and implementation | The breadth comes with a machine: more people to brief, more review layers, and a commercial interest in the implementation that follows |
| National boutique | €120,000 to €250,000 2 to 3 months |
Change management and leadership development, facilitation, and people who stay on afterwards | Strong on adoption, lighter on structural analysis. The process tends to produce agreement rather than a decision |
| Spine | €45,000 to €85,000 2 to 4 weeks |
One senior outside expert with their name on the recommendation, the options behind it and the reasoning, inside a month | No workshops, no role level detail, and nobody left behind to implement it. If you need those, you need one of the rows above |
That is not the same purchase, and it would be dishonest to price it as one. At those fees you also get a team on site, design worked down to role level, a programme that builds support while it runs, and one supplier who can carry on into the legal work, the workforce transition and the implementation. If somebody drops off the team, they are replaced the following week.
What we sell is narrower on purpose. One senior person, a high-level design, the options that were rejected and why, and a document your board can decide on. No workshops, no role level detail, and nobody left behind to run it.
So the question is not which is cheaper. It is which of the two you actually need. If you need the programme around the decision, the fees above are what that costs and they are not unreasonable. If what is missing is the decision itself, the rest of it is a very expensive way to arrive at one.
Ranges are indicative for a comparable mid-market question in Europe. Nothing here reaches European procurement thresholds, and Verdict and Brief sit below the internal thresholds most companies set before competing quotes are required.