Retainer · Limited seats

AI Department: your fractional AI team

Twenty hours a month of senior build time, plus the agents behind it: AI-visibility reporting, crawler monitoring, engine operations and a steady queue of improvements. For when the work should keep going after launch.

AI Department from €2,900/mo · $3,200/mo monthly · 3-month minimum
Build Bank €12,000 · $13,200 100 hours, valid 12 months

Ask about a seat → Book 20 min

Proof on file

CLIENT · NAME CHANGED

AI crawlers tracked by name

Corvane Legal’s engine counts AI crawlers by name every day and alerts when they stop coming. Reading those signals and acting on them is what the retainer covers.

observed 2026-10-05 · crawler module

Read the case →

03 Fit

Who this is for, and who it isn't.

Built for you if

You’ve launched with me and want it maintained, measured and improved.
You don’t have an in-house developer, but want a senior one on call.
You run an engine or agents that need someone watching budgets, crawlers and errors.
Your marketing lead wants monthly proof of AI visibility, not anecdotes.

Not for you if

You need someone full-time in your office or on your Slack all day.
You need a one-hour emergency SLA. I reply within one business day.
You want unscoped “do everything”. The queue works because each request is clear and estimated.
You have one defined project. Book it as a project; it’s cheaper than burning retainer hours.

04 The problem

Launch day is the start, not the finish.

Assistants change what they cite. Crawlers change their names. A CDN update quietly blocks a bot. A competitor publishes the page you meant to write. None of it is a project, all of it matters, and it’s exactly the work that falls through the cracks when the builder leaves.

An agency retainer usually buys meetings. I recommend buying output instead: hours in a queue you can see, each request estimated before work starts, and a report every month that says what moved and what didn’t.

It is deliberately small. I’m one person, so I take on at most 6 retainer clients, and when those seats are full there’s a waiting list instead of a junior.

Signs you need this

Your website hasn’t changed since launch, and you can tell.
Nobody checks whether AI crawlers can still reach you.
Small requests wait months because they’re too small for a project.
You pay for an engine or agents but nobody watches the budget.
Your best pages still show last year’s prices and proof.
You want a senior opinion on AI decisions without hiring.

06 Two ways in

Keep me on call, monthly or prepaid.

Monthly

AI Department retainer

A fixed slice of my time every month, plus the reporting and monitoring that keep your systems honest.

from €2,900/mo · $3,200/mo monthly · 3-month minimum

20 hours a month via an async request queue
Monthly AI-visibility report: 10 tracked prompts, crawler hits, citations
Crawler-access monitoring, engine ops and budget watch
Quarterly money-page refresh
30-minute monthly call, reply within one business day, WhatsApp line
Unused hours roll over one month; pause any month after the minimum

Ask about a seat →

Prepaid

Build Bank

Prepaid hours, no monthly commitment. The same queue, the same reply time, drawn down only when you need it.

€12,000 · $13,200 100 hours, valid 12 months

100 prepaid hours, valid 12 months
No monthly commitment and no minimum term
Ideal for a run of projects: new pages, tools, campaign pages
Every hour logged against a request you approved

Ask about the Build Bank →

07 What you get

Deliverables, tagged by the layer they fix.

What the monthly retainer includes. Build Bank hours buy the same work, without the reporting rhythm or the commitment.

20 hours a month

Worked through an async request queue. Each request is estimated before it starts; hours are logged where you can see them.

Layer: All layers
Monthly AI-visibility report

10 tracked buyer prompts across the major assistants, AI-crawler hits and citations, compared month on month.

Layer: Cited
Crawler-access monitoring

Alerts if AI crawlers stop reaching your site, or if a CDN or security change starts blocking them.

Layer: Found
Engine operations and budget watch

For anything I built: errors, output quality, provider costs and budget caps, checked every month.

Layer: Engine room
Quarterly money-page refresh

Your most valuable pages updated with new proof, prices and answers to the questions buyers now ask.

Layer: Chosen
Monthly call and a WhatsApp line

A 30-minute call each month, a reply within one business day, and WhatsApp for quick questions.

Layer: All layers

08 How it runs

How a month actually runs.

A predictable rhythm, so nothing depends on anyone remembering to ask.

Agents at work Human gate: nothing moves on until a person approves

Step 1: Week 1

Report

Prompts re-run, crawler logs read, budgets and errors checked. A short written report with recommendations.
- agent://researcher
- agent://watcher
Human gate You pick next month’s priorities from the report.
Step 2: Any time

Request queue

You add requests whenever they come up. Each one gets an estimate in hours before any work starts.
- agent://architect
Human gate You approve each estimate.
Step 3: Weekly

Delivery

Changes shipped with tests and a preview link; hours logged against each request.
- agent://builder
- agent://tester
Step 4: Monthly

Call

30 minutes on what moved, what didn’t, and what’s next.
Step 5: Quarterly

Money-page refresh

Your highest-value pages updated with fresh proof, prices and answers, every claim checked.
- agent://writer
- agent://fact-checker
Human gate You approve every change before it goes live.

09 Proof

The systems I’d be looking after already report on themselves.

Everything I build ships with its own monitoring: crawler counts, budget breakers, error alerts. The retainer is a human reading those signals every month and acting on them.

CLIENT · NAME CHANGED

Handed over Sept 2026

Corvane Legal: AI content engine

Now running in the firm’s own Cloudflare account: per-bot crawler analytics with an alert after a week without AI-crawler visits, and a €100 monthly budget breaker.

Monitoring
Engine ops

OWN PRODUCT · LIVE ↗

173 commits

Filyhost: run solo, every day

A live SaaS I build and operate alone, with 8 edge rate limiters, a budget guard and a daily ops email.

Operations
Spend control

Open the live product ↗

2014 independent since observed 2026-10-05 · self-reported

2006 first e-commerce shop shipped observed 2026-10-05 · self-reported

5 min✓ pipeline heartbeat observed 2026-10-05 · cron config

10 Price

What moves the price, and what it costs to run.

The retainer is from €2,900/mo · $3,200/mo (3-month minimum). The Build Bank is €12,000 · $13,200 for 100 hours, valid 12 months. Neither has hidden extras.

When you need more

More than 20 hours in a month: add Build Bank hours or a fixed-price sprint.
Large pieces of work are quoted as projects, not burned from retainer hours.
Additional domains or brands in the monthly report.

Built-in flexibility

Pause any month after the minimum.
Unused hours roll over for one month.
Build Bank hours stay valid for 12 months, with no monthly commitment.
Cancel with no exit fee after the minimum term.

Monthly running costs

Paid by you, directly to each provider, in your own accounts. I add no markup and no hosting fee.

What	How it works	Paid to
Your existing systems	Hosting, AI and email costs stay with the providers, in your accounts. I watch them; I don’t mark them up.	Your providers
Monitoring and reports	Run on my tooling as part of the retainer.	Included

11 Handover

What you own when we're done.

Same rules as every project: anything built in the retainer lands in your accounts the day it ships.

Everything built during the retainer your GitHub + Cloudflare
Monthly reports archive shared drive
Request log with hours per request shared queue
Prompt set used for AI-visibility tracking spreadsheet
Updated runbooks after every change docs/ in your repo

No licence fees to me, no lock-in, no proprietary platform. If I disappeared tomorrow, any competent developer could pick it up from the runbook.

12 Questions

Straight answers to fair questions.

Why are seats limited?

Because I’m one person. A small number of retainers at 20 hours each is what I can do well alongside project work. When the seats are full, there’s a waiting list rather than a junior doing the work.

What happens to unused hours?

They roll over for one month. After that they expire, which keeps the queue honest on both sides. If your needs are lumpy, the Build Bank is the better fit.

Retainer or Build Bank: which should we choose?

Choose the retainer if you want the monthly rhythm: reports, monitoring, a call and a fixed slice of my time. Choose the Build Bank if you have a run of projects coming but no need for ongoing reporting; the hours stay valid for 12 months and there’s no monthly commitment.

Can we pause?

Yes, any month after the minimum term. Monitoring alerts can stay on while you’re paused, so nothing breaks silently.

Do you work with our existing agency or developer?

Yes. I often handle the AI, crawler and engine side while an agency handles brand and campaigns. Requests can come from anyone you authorise.

What’s in the monthly AI-visibility report?

Ten buyer prompts you choose, run across the major assistants and compared with last month; AI-crawler visits by bot; new citations and lost ones; and three recommendations, each with an hours estimate.

Want to check if a seat is open?

20 minutes with me, not a sales rep. You leave with a clear next step — whether or not we work together.

Book 20 minutes Write to me instead WhatsApp

AI Department: your fractional AI team

Who this is for, and who it isn't.

Launch day is the start, not the finish.

Keep me on call, monthly or prepaid.

AI Department retainer

Build Bank

Deliverables, tagged by the layer they fix.

20 hours a month

Monthly AI-visibility report

Crawler-access monitoring

Engine operations and budget watch

Quarterly money-page refresh

Monthly call and a WhatsApp line

How a month actually runs.

Report

Request queue

Delivery

Call

Money-page refresh