Carew vs a traditional software agency

The short answer

Use a larger agency for a public-facing product with many workstreams, or when you want branding, marketing and an app from one supplier.

Use Carew for the systems behind the business: operations, orders, valuations, stock and reporting. Each piece of work has one fixed price, agreed before it starts.

Side by side

Area	Carew	A traditional agency
Focus	Internal systems that run a business	Often websites, public apps and marketing as well as software
Pricing	One fixed price for each piece of work	Often day rates or time and materials, against an estimate
Getting a price	A written plan and price within one to two days of a first call	Often a paid discovery phase before a firm quote
Who you talk to	The people building the system	Often an account or project manager between you and the developers
Build time	Typically four to 12 weeks	Varies with the size of the programme
Changes	Each change agreed and priced before it is made	Usually through change requests against the contract
Ownership	You own the custom code once paid	Depends on the contract. Check the intellectual property clause

Agencies differ widely. This compares Carew with a typical larger agency, not any particular firm.

When a traditional agency is the better choice

If you are building a product for the public, with brand, marketing, mobile apps and a long roadmap, a larger agency can staff all of it at once. The same goes for programmes big enough to need several teams working in parallel.

When Carew is the better choice

If the problem is inside the business, such as a process run on spreadsheets, a subscription that does half the job or data re-keyed between systems, you need a focused team that understands operations and can build quickly.

Carew writes a plan, fixes the price and builds what was agreed, with progress you can see as it goes. You deal with the people doing the work, not an intermediary.

Questions