Fixed price or hourly rate: which fits a first version?
A fixed price holds the estimate risk with the studio; an hourly rate keeps it with the buyer. For a first version, where the scope is still being discovered, a fixed price is what keeps the decision small enough to make alone.
Who carries the risk in each model?
Under an hourly rate, the buyer carries it. Studios in Dubai bill AED 73 to AED 110 an hour, and the total is whatever the work turns out to require — which is knowable only once the work is done.
Under a fixed price, the studio carries it. The number is committed before the work begins, so an afternoon that takes longer than expected is the studio's afternoon.
Both models are honest. They answer different questions: an hourly rate suits a known build with a known scope, and a fixed price suits the moment before either of those exists.
Why does a first version favour a fixed price?
Because the whole purpose of a first version is to find out whether the idea is worth building — and paying by the hour to answer that question means the cost of the answer grows with how hard the answer is to reach.
A published price also removes an entire step from the process. A proposal, a scoping call and a revised proposal are the standard route to a five-figure engagement, and each one costs both sides a week.
The First 72 is AED 4,500, paid once, with the deliverables named in the contract. What arrives at the end of it is the thing an hourly engagement spends its first month producing: a scope worth quoting on.
What does a fixed build quotation commit to?
A single number for building the product in full, issued after the prototype exists and after the technical scope is written. It is a quotation on a defined thing rather than an estimate on a described one.
That order matters. A build price quoted before a prototype exists is quoted against an imagination, and every studio that issues one protects itself with a range, a contingency, or a change-request process.
Approving the quotation moves the project into engineering with the price already agreed. Holding it and deciding later is equally available — the quotation is a deliverable, and it belongs to whoever paid for it.
The First 72 · AED 4,500 · Delivered within 72 hours.
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Updated 2026-08-04