The RIVER Retainer
Your AI team. One monthly fee.
Most firms sell you a project, and when it ends so does the help. We don’t. Start with nothing built, and we build it with you, month by month. From $5,000 a month + GST.
Month to month, one month’s notice, and you can move up or down at any time. Not a licence: you own your data, your workflows and your IP.
Three kinds of work. You choose the mix.
We build
AI-first apps, workflows, integrations and automations. Real software running in your business, on the systems you already have.
We coach
Your team gets properly good at AI: the right work done well, the boring stuff handed off. On your own workflows, not a course.
We lead
Where to start, what pays off first, and the ROI to make the business case. Direction set with real numbers, not opinions.
Some months are mostly building, some are mostly the team, and the month before an audit is mostly governance. You point us. Nothing gets re-quoted.
What actually happens.
Weeks 1 to 2
Your roadmap
We sit down and build it with you, then agree what “delivered” looks like before anything starts. You add to it whenever you want. No statements of work, no change requests, and no quoting every idea before anyone knows whether it is a good one.
Weeks 3 to 6
First delivery
Something you can name that was not there before: something running, a session your team keeps what they built in, or a document you can act on. Not a meeting, not a status update, not work in progress. Your tier sets how quickly the second one follows.
Weeks 7 to 12
The rhythm
We keep working the roadmap and you keep adding to it, and we sit down on your review cadence to check it is still the right roadmap. Showing up is our job rather than yours: if you go quiet the commitment still stands, and after two unused months we will flag it and offer to move you down a tier.
Pick the speed you want to move at.
You know how fast you want to go, so that is what the table asks.
| Tier | Per month | Where you are | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retainer | $5,000 | “AI should be taking real work off our team this year.” | Something new every 3 to 4 weeks. A named RIVER team, in a shared channel with yours. Review every 3 months. |
| Retainer+ | $7,500 | “We’re serious, and we need someone senior driving it.” | Something new every 2 to 3 weeks. A senior AI lead in your leadership meetings. Review every 2 months. |
| Retainer Black | $10,000 | “We’re running the business on this.” | Something new every 1 to 2 weeks. Board reporting, and a say in what we build into the platform next. Review every month. |
| Enterprise | Quoted | “Multiple entities, regulated, or sovereign.” | Scoped with you. |
Exact prices rather than “from”, because the guarantee attaches to the tier. Prices exclude GST.
Need to move faster one month? Add a sprint, from $5,000 + GST, priced on the work. It stops when the work does. Rather go quiet for a while? RIVER Support keeps everything live and builds nothing, from $2,000 + GST a month. Drop to it any month, and come back up any month.
We deliver, or we work for free.
On a retainer that is monthly: if we don’t deliver something in a month, that month is free.
“Something new delivered”means something running that wasn’t running, a session your team keeps what they built in, or a document you can act on - a roadmap, a governance framework, a board paper. The test is that you can name it at your review, unprompted. Not a meeting, not a status update, not work in progress.
The list is what defines delivered, so nothing has to be renegotiated each month. It assumes agreed access, your data, and one nominated owner on your side, which is the part we can’t do for you.
This is the brand promise applied monthly. We take the risk. You take the leap.
RIVER helped us validate our market and launch our platform, and they haven't stopped since. They've been with us every step.
Mike CollinsFounder, iMatch Sport · 2025Start where it makes sense, not where it suits us.
If ChatGPT or Copilot already does what you need, use them. When you’re ready to run your business on AI, that’s where we come in.