Two engagement models. One promise — you own what we build.
Pick the partnership model and pay nothing upfront — we earn through revenue share or equity once your product is live. Or engage us on a traditional, fixed-scope SOW. The engineering team and delivery cadence are identical; only the contract differs.
Co-invest, or contract.
Partnership Model
Zero upfront. We co-invest in your product.
No development charges. We take revenue share or equity, and we win when you win — perfect for founders validating an idea or scaling without diluting cash.
- Founders validating a new product
- Established businesses scaling without diluting cash
- Teams that want a true engineering co-pilot, not a vendor
Traditional SOW
Fixed-scope SOW. Defined milestones. Predictable budget.
Fixed-price or T&M statements of work with annual support and managed-services contracts — built for enterprise procurement and conventional engagement governance.
- Enterprises with budget and procurement processes
- Regulated industries with strict vendor frameworks
- Teams that need a defined deliverable and timeline
How the two models stack up.
| Aspect | Partnership | SOW |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront engineering cost | $0 — we co-invest | Fixed-scope SOW or T&M |
| How we earn | Revenue share or equity | Invoices against milestones |
| IP ownership | Yours from day one | Yours from day one |
| Code repository | Your GitHub / GitLab org | Your GitHub / GitLab org |
| AWS account | Your account, your keys | Your account, your keys |
| Best for | Founders, scale-ups, P&L owners | Enterprises with procurement processes |
| Time to start | 2-week scoping, then build | Discovery, MSA, SOW, then build |
| Exit | Buy-out or vest schedule, written up front | Standard close-out, runbook handover |
You own everything we build. Both models. Always.
Revenue share asks you to trust us with shared upside. Trust starts with paperwork — so we put the principles below into every engagement letter we sign.
You own everything you pay for or partner with us on.
Source code, models, weights, indexes, dashboards, IaC repos — all yours. Assigned in writing at engagement kickoff.
No vendor lock-in.
Everything we build is delivered into your AWS account, your GitHub org, your domain, your monitoring stack. We bring the people, you keep the assets.
NDA-first, every engagement.
Mutual NDAs are signed before any technical or commercial detail is exchanged. We have NDA templates ready, or we sign yours.
Revenue share is contractual, not informal.
Percentages, exit terms, audit rights, and dispute resolution are all documented in a partnership agreement before we write a line of code.
Trust, terms, and edge cases.
Anything missing? Email us at info@costtrail.io and we will answer directly.
Pick a model. Start with a discovery call.
30 minutes. No slide deck. We will walk you through both options and tell you honestly which fits your product, stage, and risk appetite.