Questions people ask first.

Simple4u is an engineering firm — embedded full-stack technical partner for digital-native businesses. We run a piece of your operation: software development, AI infrastructure, creative production, SEO and content, ongoing operations. Not an agency selling deliverables. Not a SaaS product you subscribe to. Not a project shop.

Agencies sell projects with fixed scope and deliverables. We embed across quarters with shared instrumentation and shared memory. Engagements typically run 12+ months. The work compounds as the team builds context — a vendor restarting on every project loses that. Retainer aligns incentives on outcomes (does the business grow?) instead of deliverables (did we ship the spec?).

Full-time engineering hires take 3–6 months to recruit, cost $200K+ loaded, and require ongoing management. Embedded engagement starts in week one at $10–15K/mo and includes a senior multi-disciplinary team. For digital-native SMB, this hits the right ROI band before in-house engineering becomes viable. Many clients eventually hire full-time and we hand off — that's a successful outcome, not a loss.

Those are general-purpose tools you prompt manually. We build, deploy, and operate custom AI agents inside your stack — Telegram, Slack, web — wired to your specific data and tools. The agent runs proactively without you asking. ChatGPT is a tool; an embedded AI agent is a system. We use ChatGPT too; it doesn't replace what we ship.

Single monthly retainer at $10–15K/mo. Five capabilities (Software, AI, Marketing, Creative, Operations) bundled into one bill. Each engagement weights these differently — most lean into two or three, with the others available when called for. 3-month minimum, then month-to-month. No setup fees. Add-ons priced per service line.

Three factors: capability mix (one heavy line vs balanced across three), integration complexity (greenfield vs legacy stack with migrations), and team load (single-product business vs multi-channel concurrent priorities). Settled in the first call, not auctioned. There's no "premium tier" upsell on top.

3-month minimum, then month-to-month. The first month is real onboarding work — instrumentation wiring, audit, first deliverable. By month three, the rhythm is real and you have data to evaluate. Cancellation is a 30-day notice, no exit fees, no clawback.

No. Embedded engagements don't have onboarding fees because the first month is the onboarding. You pay one monthly retainer from day one, and the first month's work is heavily front-loaded toward audit, instrumentation, and quick wins. Anyone charging a separate $5–25K "setup" on top of an ongoing retainer is double-billing.

Yes, in one specific format: a Starter engagement — 4–6 week bounded sprint with one deliverable (SEO audit, MVP build, AI agent setup, marketing-bot deployment, technical due diligence). Fixed scope, fixed fee ($5–10K), no obligation to continue. See /pricing for the structure.

It's intentionally narrow because our default is embedded retainer. If you need pure project-shop work (multiple parallel projects, fixed milestones, no ongoing relationship intended), we'll point you to project-based shops we trust. We're not a fit for that mode.

Weekly sync (30 min) with the engagement lead. Monthly written report (numbers + interpretation, not raw dashboards). Async via Slack or Telegram. Quarterly roadmap review. We embed in your existing rituals; we don't impose ours.

Python (FastAPI, aiogram), TypeScript (Next.js, React), Postgres, Redis, Docker. AI: Claude API, OpenAI, self-hosted models via llama.cpp. Hosting: Vercel, AWS, DigitalOcean. We pick boring, well-supported tooling — not chasing tech fashion. If you have an existing stack, we work within it; we don't migrate for the sake of preference.

Yes. Code is yours from day one. We don't keep IP rights on client work. Engagement output is all yours under standard work-for-hire terms. The underlying open source platform (SAE4U Agent, sae4u-memory) is Apache 2 / MIT — free to self-host or fork.

Code, data, knowledge bases, and infrastructure are all yours. Self-hosted setups stay on your VPS. Managed setups can be transferred to your DevOps. The underlying platform is open source. 30-day notice, full handoff documentation, no lock-in. We've never had a contentious exit; we've had clean handoffs and clients who came back later.

Small. We're picky about engagements so each gets real attention. The team page has the full roster — six humans plus one AI team member (SAE4U Agent itself, dogfooded inside the firm). For any given engagement, you work with 2–3 people directly, and the rest of the firm is bench depth for specialty work.

Your choice. Self-hosted deployments keep data on your infrastructure (your VPS, your AWS, your DigitalOcean). Managed deployments live on Simple4u-managed infrastructure with per-tenant isolation. Either way, no shared infrastructure across clients, no third-party data brokers in the loop.

Standard Data Processing Agreement — we sign one with every client. Covers data residency, access controls, incident response, sub-processor list, deletion-on-request. Available before contract signing if you want legal review. See /dpa for our standard text.

Engineering-grade rigor. Secrets in vaulted env vars (1Password, Doppler, or your secret manager of choice), never in code, never in chat logs. OAuth2 for tool integrations whenever supported. TLS for all in-transit. We validate against the SHAITS standard we publish — see /standard.

SAE4U Agent is the AI agent platform we built for client engagements, open-sourced under Apache 2 on GitHub (Simple4uhq/sae4u-agent). Multi-tenant control plane + per-tenant runtime template. The platform you self-host is identical to what we ship to clients. Free to use, fork, sell.

Three reasons. First, technical credibility — code people can audit beats marketing claims. Second, it's the right defaults for trust — when you can self-host, vendor lock-in concerns evaporate. Third, distribution — developers find us through the repo, then engage when they want the firm to run it for them.

Yes. The repo is fully usable as a self-hosted product. README has setup docs. We won't bill you for it. If you later want help with custom integrations, scaling, or ongoing operations, that's when we engage. Many users self-host indefinitely; that's fine.

Digital-native businesses with $1M–10M ARR, agencies running multiple client operations, SMB founders who need senior engineering judgment without a full-time CTO. Common denominator: revenue exists, scaling is the question, in-house engineering team is small or absent.

Pre-revenue startups (we don't take equity-only deals at this stage). Pure project-shop needs (you'd resent the retainer model). Enterprises with internal engineering teams and procurement processes (we're not built for 6-month sales cycles). Local services businesses (plumbers, contractors — we don't have ICP fit there).

Capability mix is renegotiable quarterly. If marketing is heavy this quarter and you need software emphasis next quarter, we shift the team allocation. Retainer stays in the $10–15K band unless scope materially expands (then it's an explicit conversation, not surprise invoices).