How we quote it.
There is nothing here to pick from.
We stopped publishing prices because a published price is a guess about a business we have not met yet. It makes small jobs look expensive and large ones look impossible, and it quietly pushes every brief toward whichever number was easiest to print. So we ask what you actually need, we price that, and we show you the line items. You get a real number, in writing, from a person.
A tier card prices the tier, not the work. Somebody always overpays for a plan they only half-use, and somebody else gets told their project “doesn’t fit” because it needs one thing the box does not have. So we stopped printing boxes. Every project is quoted from your own brief. No packages, no tiers, and no published price to reverse-engineer your scope from.
A real number, in writing.
Four steps, none of them automated. You never talk to a calculator, and nothing is priced on the spot.
You describe the job
In your own words, at /get-started. What the business does, what is broken or missing, and what a win looks like. No form full of dropdowns that only fits the projects we have already built.
We ask what we still need
Usually a handful of questions, by email. How many people will use it, what it has to talk to, what data has to come across, how fast you need it. If the brief is already clear we skip straight past this.
A person writes the quote
Not a calculator, and not a template with your name pasted in. You get the number, the line items behind it, the timeline, and which of the three ownership lanes it sits on. In writing, so you can read it twice and forward it to whoever else has to approve it.
You decide, or you push back
If the number is more than you want to spend, say so. We cut the scope with you and re-quote it honestly. Nothing is signed on a call, nothing is priced automatically, and there is no checkout to click through by accident.
Turnaround is usually one business day. A small, clear brief comes straight back as a quote. A platform with integrations and a data migration behind it normally takes one round of questions first, because guessing at that scope helps nobody.
The bit most studios bury.
Three lanes. Your quote names which one it is on, before you sign anything, and the hard part is written on the front of it rather than three clicks into an agreement.
Buy it once
Buy it once and you own it. On completion and full payment the project is yours. We keep a limited right to get in and fix bugs, patch security, and make the changes you ask for, and you can end that access in writing at any time.
No minimum term, because there is nothing to leave. The handover is the code repository, the design files, and the written content.
Subscribe, nothing down
On a subscription, Mule owns and runs the project until you buy it out. That is the trade for paying nothing up front. You hold a licence to use it while the plan is paid and current, and if you cancel before you have bought it out, that licence ends and the project comes down.
The buyout price falls every month. Part of every payment pays down the build, so what is left to buy shrinks each month until it reaches zero, and then the project simply becomes yours at no cost. Your quote names the month yours hits zero.
We look after what you already own
If we are only hosting and maintaining a site you already own, nothing changes hands. We did not build it, so it never becomes ours, and there is nothing to buy out.
Hosting, security patches, backups, uptime monitoring, and someone who answers when it breaks. Nothing is built, so the ownership question never comes up.
The part we are not going to soften.
On a subscription, if you cancel before you have bought the project out, your licence ends and we take it offline. You will not be able to keep using it, because it is not yours yet. That is the trade for paying nothing up front, and you are owed it in plain English on the page rather than in a clause.
We never hold your domain or your data hostage. They are yours on every plan, and we hand them over whenever you ask. Your domain and your data are yours on every plan, whatever happens. We do not hold a domain or your customer records as leverage, not even if you stop paying. Ask and we hand your data over.
Finishing the 12-month minimum term ends your commitment to keep paying. It does not hand you the project. Buying out inside the minimum term also settles the rest of that term.
Already on one of our old plans? If you already subscribed with us, nothing about your deal changes. You are owner of record from day one, exactly as we told you, there is nothing for you to buy out, and we are not touching it. If your subscription started before 14 July 2026 you keep the terms you signed, for as long as you stay. The lanes above apply to new work only.
Six things move the number.
These are the questions we will ask you anyway, so there is no reason to keep them to ourselves. They are also the levers: if the quote comes back higher than you expected, one of these is why, and most of them can be staged.
A website is usually driven by the first item on this list and almost nothing else. Software, meaning a tool, a portal, a platform, or an app, is driven by all six, which is why nobody can put a number on it from a homepage.
Scope
What the thing has to do, and how much of it. One page or forty. One workflow or the whole operation. This is the biggest single lever and it is the one you control.
Integrations
Every other system it has to talk to. Accounting, payments, a scheduler, a CRM, the machine on the shop floor. Two systems with real APIs are straightforward. One with no API is a different conversation, and we will say so rather than promise a fragile workaround.
Data migration
How much data has to come across, and what shape it is in. A clean export is a morning. Fifteen years of spreadsheets with three spellings of every customer name is not, and pretending otherwise is how a project slips.
User roles
How many kinds of person use it, and who is allowed to see what. One role is simple. An owner, a manager, a technician, and a customer who logs in to see only their own records is four sets of screens and a permissions model underneath them.
Working offline
Whether it has to keep working with no signal. A tool used in a basement, a barn, or a truck cannot assume a connection, and building for that changes the architecture rather than adding a feature.
Locations
One site, or twelve, each with their own staff, stock, hours, and numbers. Multi-location is not a bigger version of single-location, it is a different build, and it is worth naming early.
After those: whether we write the content, whether we come and shoot the photography and video, how many languages it ships in, and how much of it we keep running afterwards. All of it is itemised. None of it appears on the invoice as a surprise.
Why doesn't Mule Digital publish prices?
We stopped publishing prices because a published price is a guess about a business we have not met yet. It makes small jobs look expensive and large ones look impossible, and it quietly pushes every brief toward whichever number was easiest to print. So we ask what you actually need, we price that, and we show you the line items. You get a real number, in writing, from a person.
How much does a project cost?
There is no price list, and there are no packages to sort you into. You describe the job, we ask a few questions, and a person writes back with a quote and the line items behind it. Buy the project once and you own it on completion. Subscribe with nothing down and we own and run it until you buy it out, on a buyout that falls every month until it reaches zero. If you already own a site and only want it hosted and maintained, nothing is built and nothing changes hands, so it stays yours.
How quickly do I get a quote?
Usually within one business day of describing the job, and it comes from a person. A small, clear brief comes back as a written quote with line items straight away. A bigger one, a platform with integrations and data migration, normally needs one round of questions first, because guessing at that scope helps nobody. There is no sales call in the way.
If I subscribe, do I own my project?
Not yet, and we would rather say that plainly than bury it. On a subscription, Mule owns and runs the project until you buy it out. That is the trade for paying nothing up front. You hold a licence to use it while the plan is paid and current, and if you cancel before you have bought it out, that licence ends and the project comes down. The buyout price falls every month. Part of every payment pays down the build, so what is left to buy shrinks each month until it reaches zero, and then the project simply becomes yours at no cost. Your quote names the month yours hits zero. Your domain and your data are yours on every plan, whatever happens. We do not hold a domain or your customer records as leverage, not even if you stop paying. Ask and we hand your data over. If owning it from day one matters to you, buy it once instead and it is yours on completion. If we are only hosting and maintaining a site you already own, nothing changes hands. We did not build it, so it never becomes ours, and there is nothing to buy out.
How does the buyout work?
The buyout price falls every month. Part of every payment pays down the build, so what is left to buy shrinks each month until it reaches zero, and then the project simply becomes yours at no cost. Your quote names the month yours hits zero. Finishing the 12-month minimum term ends your commitment to keep paying. It does not hand you the project. Buying out inside the minimum term also settles the rest of that term. Keep subscribing after the buyout reaches zero and you are paying for hosting and care on something you now own, never for access to it.
I already have a website. Can you just host and look after it?
Yes, and it is the simplest lane there is. If we are only hosting and maintaining a site you already own, nothing changes hands. We did not build it, so it never becomes ours, and there is nothing to buy out. You pay for the care only: hosting, security patches, backups, uptime monitoring, and fixes when something breaks.
Is there a minimum term?
Subscriptions run a 12-month minimum term, then continue month to month. Leaving inside the term means settling what is left of it. Finishing the 12-month minimum term ends your commitment to keep paying. It does not hand you the project. Buying out inside the minimum term also settles the rest of that term. There is no minimum term on a one-time build.
Why do some projects cost more to run than others?
On a subscription the project runs on Mule's infrastructure, which means the database, the bandwidth, and the compute are on our bill, not yours. A brochure site costs us almost nothing to run. A dashboard holding a hundred thousand records for twenty staff does not, and pretending otherwise is how a flat fee quietly turns into a worse service. So heavier projects carry a data allowance, written into your quote with the number attached before you sign, rather than appearing later as an overage. Buy the project once instead and it runs on your own accounts, so the question does not arise.
What happened to the Tend, Grow, and Lead plans?
We stopped advertising fixed plans because they priced the tier rather than the work. Every quote is now built from what you actually describe. If you already subscribed with us, nothing about your deal changes. You are owner of record from day one, exactly as we told you, there is nothing for you to buy out, and we are not touching it.
Do you discount?
No. The number is what it costs to do the work properly. When it is more than you want to spend, we cut the scope with you and re-quote it honestly, we do not quietly do less work for the same money.
Describe it. We'll price it.
Type what your business needs in plain English. We’ll ask the questions that matter, then a real person writes back with an itemised quote and the lane it sits on.