Why we charge for Discovery
Most agencies skip diagnosis entirely. They ask enough questions to write a proposal and send over a timeline and a number. It feels like progress. It isn't.
We charge for discovery before any project starts. Here's why.
There's no such thing as free discovery
When an agency doesn't charge for a diagnostic phase, they're not offering it for free. They're just not doing it at all. The understanding of your situation goes only as deep as the proposal requires, which means it stops exactly where their commercial interest begins.
That's not a criticism of individual agencies. But an agency that earns its fees from the project that follows diagnosis has every incentive to reach a conclusion quickly.
The proposal that arrives on day one is a warning sign
You speak to an agency. They listen, ask some questions, and come back within the week — scope, deliverables, and a number. It feels decisive. It feels like they've done this before.
They have. That's the problem.
What looks like confidence is pattern recognition. They've seen something that looks like your situation, and they're applying the same answer. The proposal is fast because the thinking stopped early. Speed here isn't efficiency — it's a signal that they've stopped asking questions, not that they have the right answers.
Sometimes it works out. Often it doesn't. By the time you find out, you're six months in.
This isn't a quote
Paying for a diagnosis can feel like paying for a quote.
A quote tells you what something costs. It assumes the scope is understood, the solution is known, and the only remaining question is price.
Clarity — our diagnostic phase — tells you what's actually going on. It identifies the real constraint. It tells you whether replatforming is the right answer. And it gives you a sequence. Conflating the two leads to expensive projects that solve the wrong problem.
Where Clarity leads to a project with us, we offset the cost against it. You're not paying for a diagnosis on top of everything else — you're paying for it first, before you commit to anything larger. If the diagnosis concludes that a major project isn't the right move, you've spent a fraction of what that project would have cost to find out before it started.
“If we do it with you, we'd have to do it with everyone”
This objection assumes Clarity is something you'd run with every agency during evaluation. It isn't.
Discovery isn't a step you add to a procurement process. It's what you do instead of running five agencies through a pitch and choosing the best presentation.
You wouldn't run Discovery with five agencies. You'd run it with one — after you've decided they're worth working with, and before the scope is set.
What Clarity is
Clarity is our structured diagnostic phase — paid, fixed scope, and how every Strawberry engagement begins. Find out how it works.
The agency that skips diagnosis isn't being efficient. They're being optimistic on your behalf.
When it goes wrong, you pay the cost.
