Straight answers.

We design, build, and run custom software for growing companies: web and mobile applications, the data and reporting behind them, and AI where it earns its place. The problems we see most often:

• a software project that has gone sideways
• a system the business has outgrown
• a new product or platform that needs to get built
• numbers nobody trusts
• manual work that should be automated
• technology decisions with no one to own them

Growing, privately held companies, many of them backed by private equity, usually with a few hundred to a few thousand employees. Most are in industries that run on people and information: construction, logistics, financial services, healthcare, professional services, energy, hospitality and entertainment, and others. Technology is critical to how they operate even though they are not technology companies. See the industries we work in.

College Station, Texas. We work with clients across Texas and around the country. Most of the work happens inside your environment on video and in your systems, and we come to you in person when it matters: the Deep Dive, kickoff, and the moments where being in the room saves a week.

Since 2005. We are a team of 50+ strategists, designers, and engineers, and we have completed hundreds of projects for 100+ middle-market and enterprise companies, with a 96.5% project success rate, more than 3X the industry average. More about the firm and the people who run it.

No. The team is our own and it is based in Texas. Your project is never handed to people in another country after you talk to someone local, and everyone on the team, junior to senior, can talk to you directly. We do not put someone new in front of a client without an experienced lead alongside them.

Six things, in our clients’ words more than ours: we stay tied to your needs, we are efficient with your budget, we hate surprises, we never offshore or outsource, you get the whole team, and we are easy to work with. The long version is on Why Frogslayer, including how we compare to consulting firms, IT providers, agencies, and hiring in-house.

The hard ones. High-uncertainty, ill-defined, never-done-before problems; solutions that need research and validation before anyone writes code; large, multi-faceted systems that demand real engineering discipline; aggressive deadlines; and responsible budgets with an ongoing-investment mindset. We are not the best fit for low-uncertainty, cookie-cutter work, build-to-spec order-taking, projects that start and stop, or budgets that are not serious about the outcome.

A few things, on purpose:

• Build to spec without questioning it. We are consultants, not order-takers.
• Only development or only QA. You get the whole team or none of it.
• Staff augmentation, contract-to-hire, or placing our people on your site under your direction. Staffing firms do that well; we do not.
• Offshore or nearshore delivery.

With a 30-minute Discovery Call. You tell us what is going on, we ask questions, and we tell you straight whether and where we can help. If there is a fit, the next step is a Deep Dive with the people closest to the problem. Here is the whole process, step by step.

The Discovery Call is usually within days. A planning engagement typically starts within a few weeks of signed paperwork, and a build starts when its planning step ends. The real date depends on the team the work needs, so we give it to you on the call rather than guess here.

Sometimes, when the situation is familiar enough. What we will not do is put a fixed number on a project nobody has looked at. After the Deep Dive you get two things: a ballpark range for the whole effort, so you know early whether we are in the same neighborhood, and a fixed fee for the first step. Why we work this way.

We would rather talk first. Most RFPs describe a solution before anyone has examined the problem, and a bid against one is a guess. Send it over and we will respond with a conversation before a document. If you are writing one, here is how to write an RFP that gets you useful answers.

No. Come ready to talk about what is going on, and if you can show us the spreadsheet, the system, or the report that is causing the trouble, even better. It helps to have thought about who lives with the problem, what you would want to change, and roughly what you could invest, but none of it needs to be written down.

Yes. Ask on the Discovery Call and we will connect you with clients in a comparable situation before you sign anything. Our case studies and verified Clutch reviews are the public version.

Almost certainly. Hundreds of projects since 2005 across a dozen industries, from a two-person startup product to fifteen-system integrations inside enterprise operations. Ask on a call and we will point you to the closest comparable work.

Yes. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either new or stretching the definition of success. In nearly every case ours came down to communication: different views of the scope, or a gap between what was being built and what was needed. What we changed as a result is most of how we work today: the Validation, Design & Planning step before any new build, estimation that puts risk first, and the weekly rhythm that surfaces a problem while it is still cheap. We are happy to talk through the hard ones on a call.

It depends on how well the problem is defined, and we recommend the model after the Deep Dive rather than asking you to pick from a menu.

• Fixed budget, controlled scope is our default: the budget and the quality are fixed, and we prioritize together every week to get the most value out of the money.
• Fixed price, fixed scope when the planning step produced a scope we both believe in.
• Time and materials with a monthly cap when the work is still taking shape or is ongoing.
• A dedicated team at a fixed monthly fee when you need sustained capacity.

Typical budgets by type of project are on the pricing page.

It ranges widely, from a narrow internal tool to a platform a business runs on. Rather than repeat the numbers here, the pricing page shows typical budgets and schedules by type of project, along with how we handle your money. Every engagement starts with a fixed-fee step that produces a real cost before you commit to a build.

It usually is, and the total cost usually is not. A lower rate buys more hours: rework, missed requirements, and management time on your side. A good share of our work is repairing projects that started with the cheaper quote. We work to a fixed budget with controlled scope, so the number you agree to is the number you pay. Judge us on the final invoice against a working system, not on the rate. The true cost of offshore development walks through the math.

Start with the planning step. A System Evaluation or a VDP Sprint is a fixed fee, and you leave with a plan and a cost you can take anywhere, including to your board or to another firm. If the work is not worth doing at the budget you have, we say so before you spend more. How we set a project budget.

No. On a fixed budget the number does not move; the scope flexes inside it, and you make the trade-offs with us every week. On time-and-materials work there is a monthly cap and weekly visibility into hours. You hear about a problem from us before you notice it.

A standard master services agreement, then a short statement of work for each engagement. Fixed-fee work is billed in installments tied to milestones, with part of the fee up front. Retainers are billed monthly in advance. Invoices are due in ten days. You own everything we build once it is paid for.

Higher than an offshore or freelance quote, and most of our work is not billed by the hour. Time-and-materials work is billed by role with a monthly cap, and the ranges are on the pricing page. For projects, the number that matters is the fixed budget or fixed fee we agree on, not the rate behind it.

Yes, entirely: the code, the designs, the documentation, and the data, in your repositories and your cloud accounts, once it is paid for. No licensing, no per-seat fees on your own product, no lock-in.

Yes, and we plan for it from the first week. The code lives in your repositories, the documentation is written as we go, and your team is in the reviews. A product you cannot run without us is not finished.

No. We build on mainstream, well-supported technology chosen for your platform and for the team who will live with it, and we are not tied to any vendor. Our approach to technology.

Yes. We are SOC 2 Type 2, and security, access control, and audit trails are designed in from day one rather than added for the audit. We work inside your environment, so your data stays yours.

Yes. We have built systems that handle protected health information, regulated financial data, and audited compliance workflows. When your industry has rules, the system enforces them rather than relying on process. For data that cannot leave your walls, we can run a private language model inside your environment.

Yes. Ask on the Discovery Call and we will have one in place before the Deep Dive.

Yes, as a tool inside a professional workflow, and senior engineers direct the work and review all finished work before it ships. Your code lives in your repositories with tests, environments, and monitoring around it. How we use AI in our own work.

Our own team, in Texas: strategists, designers, and engineers, all highly qualified. You know who is on the work before it starts, and everyone on the team can talk to you directly. You never go through a manager to reach the people doing the work.

A delivery lead who is your single point of contact, plus a strategist, a designer, engineers, and QA sized to the work. Roles roll on and off as the project needs them. You can talk to anyone on the team directly, and the delivery lead makes sure nothing falls between the chairs.

Short cycles, a shared backlog you can see, working software at the end of every cycle, and a weekly touchpoint to prioritize and surface risk. We do not ceremony for its own sake. The point is that you see real progress every week and can change course while it is still cheap. How we run the work.

When it is built, tested, reviewed with you, and running in an environment you can use. Not when the code is written. You accept each piece of work as it lands, so there is no big reveal at the end and nothing is “done” that you have not seen.

It goes back into the queue and gets fixed inside the budget. Where we disagree about what was asked for, we sort it out at the weekly priority meeting rather than in a change order. The shared backlog and the working software every cycle exist so this is rare.

Tell us. Fit matters, and we would rather hear it in week two than month four. We can rotate in a new team member when someone is out, moves on, or the work needs different skills, and the delivery lead handles the handover so you do not have to.

The right ones for your platform and for the team who will live with the system: mainstream web and mobile frameworks, the major public clouds, and AI where it earns its place. We are technology-agnostic on purpose. We hire for fundamentals and the ability to learn fast, not for one stack. Our approach to technology.

Yes. Most business apps are built once for both with a cross-platform framework, which keeps the cost and the maintenance to one codebase. We go native when the app needs hardware access or performance that justifies it. Mobile app development covers the trade-offs.

Phases. A strong first release that solves the most valuable part of the problem, in use and earning before the next phase starts. It costs less up front, it de-risks the rest, and what you learn from real users changes what the next phase should be. Software is never done.

Sometimes, and rarely by adding people. What actually speeds a project up: fast decisions on your side, access to systems and people on day one, and a first release scoped to what matters. When the work genuinely calls for more capacity, a larger dedicated team costs more per month and the pricing page shows what that looks like.

Documentation is written as we go, not at the end: architecture, setup and environments, runbooks, and the decisions behind them, all in your repositories. User training and materials are scoped to the system and the people who will use it. Both are part of the handover we plan from the first week.

More at the start, less as the work runs. The Deep Dive needs the people closest to the problem in the room. During the build we need someone who can make decisions and a short weekly touchpoint to prioritize. The projects that go best are the ones where the client treats the team as their own.

Every week at least. Regular touchpoints to gather feedback, surface risk, and plan ahead, and working software you can see at the end of every cycle, not a reveal at the end.

A weekly priority meeting where you see working software and choose what is next, a shared backlog you can open any time, a Slack or Teams channel with the team, and a delivery lead as your single point of contact. Anyone on the team can talk to you directly; the lead makes sure nothing falls between the chairs.

They will, and the plan changes with them. On a fixed budget with controlled scope we re-prioritize together and the number holds. No change-order theater, no starting over. How we run the work.

The planning steps are short: a System Evaluation runs one to four weeks and a VDP Sprint three to four. Builds are sized so a strong first release ships in weeks to a few months, then grow from there. Typical schedules by type of project are on the pricing page.

Your call. Many clients keep us on for Managed Hosting & Support: hosting in your cloud accounts, monitoring, and support, with the people who built the system on the other end of the line. Others hand it to their own team, and we plan the handover from the first week either way.

During the project, defects are fixed inside the budget; that is what testing at every stage is for. After launch, fixes run under Managed Hosting & Support or a reserved-hours agreement, and we help you budget for maintenance from the start so it is never a surprise. Who pays for bugs covers the details.

Yes, on the major public clouds, in your accounts, with monitoring and security in place. We can also host and support systems we did not build, which is common after a takeover or a rescue.

Hosting in your cloud accounts comes with automated backups, monitoring, and a recovery plan sized to how much downtime your business can tolerate, which we agree on up front. The specifics, including how far back we can restore and how quickly, are written into the hosting agreement so nobody has to guess in the moment it matters.

Under Managed Hosting & Support, yes. Monitoring runs around the clock, and after-hours on-call coverage is an option for systems that cannot wait until morning, quoted per system. Managed Hosting & Support.

Yes. Retainers have no minimum term; give us 30 days’ notice. Fixed-budget projects can stop at any milestone, and because everything lives in your accounts, leaving means changing a password, not negotiating a handover.

You will know early, because you see working software every cycle and hear where budget, schedule, and scope stand every week. If we are not earning it, you can stop, and everything built to that point is yours. We do not hold clients hostage, and we would rather lose an engagement than win one that fails.

Yes, it is a large share of what we do. It starts with a System Evaluation: an independent look at the architecture, code, infrastructure, and security, with a prioritized plan and a fixed proposal for the next step. That includes systems built by freelancers, offshore teams, and AI coding tools.