PER HOUR · BOOK ONE OR MORE

Senior deliverability engineer, 60 focused minutes.
For questions our products don't answer.

Some problems don't fit fixed-scope products. Architecture review on a system you're designing. Vendor evaluation between two ESPs. Post-mortem after a deliverability incident. Code review on your custom MTA wrapper. Strategic decision on multi-brand isolation. Migration sequencing for a complex stack. These are consulting problems, not product problems.

One hour with a senior engineer at €199. Telegram, Jitsi, or Whereby. Written summary delivered after, including any recommendations and any technical artifacts (sample configs, DNS records, architectural diagrams). Recording optional but available on request.

Book on Telegram → Is this what I need?

price €199 / hour

format Telegram / Jitsi / Whereby

deliverable Written summary

scheduling Within 48 hours

consulting vs other products

Decision matrix.

Tell us what you're trying to do. The matrix tells you whether consulting is the right fit or whether a fixed-scope product (or just a free tool) handles your case better.

What are you trying to accomplish?

what 60 minutes actually covers

Sample agendas, minute-by-minute.

Click any scenario to see how a typical hour breaks down. Real agendas vary; these are templates we work from based on the questions you raise during pre-call brief.

Architecture review · sample agenda

Customer designing or auditing a sending architecture for new product launch, scale-up event, or compliance review.

0-5 min

Context check

Confirm scope, expected volume, constraints (jurisdiction, budget, internal capability), what success looks like for the call.

5-25 min

Architecture walkthrough

You walk through your current or proposed architecture. Engineer asks targeted questions: per-receiver throttling, VMTA pool design, suppression discipline, multi-brand isolation, FBL ingestion path.

25-45 min

Specific recommendations

Engineer identifies 3-7 specific improvements ranked by impact-to-effort. Trade-offs discussed openly. Where there are multiple valid choices, the rationale for each is laid out.

45-55 min

Implementation guidance

For top recommendations, specific implementation paths discussed. Sample config snippets shared via screen-share. Common pitfalls flagged based on past customer experience.

55-60 min

Wrap and next steps

Summary of what was covered. Action items prioritised. Follow-up question window confirmed. Decision on whether ongoing engagement (audit, recovery, monthly retainer) makes sense.

vs DIY research

Cost-of-research calculator.

Set your hourly rate and how long you estimate it would take to research the answer yourself. The calculator shows the breakeven point. Often the case for consulting is brutal: the time saved is worth more than the fee.

Your hourly opportunity cost (€) €100/hour

What is an hour of your time genuinely worth, accounting for the work you're not doing while researching?

Estimated DIY research hours 10 hours

How long would you spend reading docs, forum threads, RFCs, and trial-and-erroring before reaching equivalent confidence?

Hours of consulting 1 hour

Most cases need 1-2 hours. Complex architecture reviews sometimes warrant 3-4 across multiple sessions.

DIY path

You research yourself

Time 10 hours

Opportunity cost €1,000

Plus the calendar time spread across days or weeks; consulting compresses the timeline to one hour plus 24-hour written summary.

consulting path

You book the hour

Your time 1 hour call

Cost €199

Includes pre-call prep time on our side, written summary delivered within 24 hours, 14-day follow-up window.

net difference

Time + money saved

Net savings €801

Time saved 9 hours

For most customer profiles, consulting is net positive in both time and money. The exception is when the question is genuinely simple (free tools answer it) or when you have specific deep expertise already.

Math: DIY time × your rate = opportunity cost. Consulting cost = €199 × hours. Net = DIY cost minus consulting cost. The calculator doesn't account for quality difference; in practice, DIY research often yields a partial answer ("here's what the docs say") whereas consulting yields applied recommendation ("for your specific volume and architecture, do X"). The quality difference is real but harder to put a number on.

honest fit assessment

Who books this, and who shouldn't.

good fit

Architecture review on a system you're designing. You have a draft and want senior engineering opinion before committing.
Vendor evaluation between 2-3 options. You've narrowed your shortlist and want unbiased input on which fits your actual constraints.
Post-mortem after a deliverability incident. Something went wrong. You want help understanding what happened, what to fix, and how to prevent recurrence.
Strategic decision. Migrate vs stay, build vs buy, single-domain vs multi-domain, in-house team vs outsourced. Senior counsel on the decision rather than just one of the answers.
Code or config review on custom MTA wrappers, DKIM signing logic, queue management code, custom bounce processors. Second pair of senior eyes.
Compliance evidence. You need documented expert input for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or similar audit trails. The written summary serves that purpose.
Pre-product engagement. You want to talk through your case before ordering a fixed-scope product (Audit, Recovery) to confirm fit and scope.

poor fit

You want operational work done. Consulting is conversation; products are work. If you need someone to publish DNS records, fix a blacklist, install PowerMTA, order the relevant product.
You want a written audit. The Audit (€299) is the documented assessment product. Consulting hours don't produce audit-grade reports; they produce conversation summaries.
You want unlimited follow-up. The hour is the hour. We include a 14-day window for one round of clarification questions; beyond that, additional hours are billable.
You want vendor-neutral counsel from the vendor. We're honest about our products' fit and we'll recommend competitors when they're better-fit, but we're not vendor-neutral in the strict sense. If vendor neutrality matters, hire an independent consultant.
Basic education on deliverability. Our wiki covers fundamentals at no cost. Spending €199 to learn what "DKIM" stands for is bad economics. Use the wiki first; book the hour for advanced application.
You haven't decided what to ask. The hour goes faster if you've thought about specific questions or specific decisions. Open-ended "tell me everything" wastes 20 minutes on framing.

scope of work

What's in the €199.

Pre-call brief

15 minutes of preparation by the engineer. We review whatever context you provide at booking: relevant configs, recent campaign data, architecture diagrams, previous correspondence, specific questions. The pre-call work isn't billed separately; it's how the hour you book gets used effectively.

For deeper preparation (multi-document review, code dive into unfamiliar codebase, vendor-specific research), pre-call brief extends and bills as additional time at the same rate. We quote that explicitly before doing the work.

60 minutes focused conversation

Telegram voice (most common), Jitsi, or Whereby. Cameras optional and we don't require them. The hour is structured around your specific question or decision; sample agendas in this page show how typical scenarios break down.

Live screen-sharing supported through Jitsi or Whereby for walkthroughs of configs, DNS records, headers, code, or architecture diagrams. Telegram voice doesn't have built-in screen-share but works fine for verbal architecture reviews and strategy discussions.

Senior engineer, not a sales rep

One of three deliverability engineers on our team, all with hands-on production experience operating PowerMTA, MailWizz, and dedicated infrastructure at scale. Not a generalist consultant, not a junior, not someone reading from a script.

Practical consequence: when we recommend something, we can also explain how to implement it because we run the same stack ourselves. When we're skeptical of something, the skepticism is grounded in operational experience rather than theoretical concerns.

Written summary

Delivered within 24 hours of the call. Documented summary of what we discussed, specific recommendations ranked by impact-to-effort, technical artifacts (sample configs, DNS records, architectural diagrams), and follow-up items.

The summary is yours. No watermarks, no DRM, no "for client X only" restrictions. Most customers send it to their CTO, agency, or compliance auditor. Some publish redacted excerpts in their own internal documentation.

Recording on request

Available for your team's reference. We don't keep recordings on our side after delivery. Encrypted file transfer or download link with 7-day expiry. If your compliance framework requires recording retention, you handle that on your side after we deliver.

14-day follow-up window

One round of clarification questions via Telegram included. Typically used for "you mentioned X during the call, can you elaborate?" or "I tried implementing your recommendation and hit Y, what now?" type questions. We respond within 24-48 hours during operating days.

Beyond one round, additional follow-up bills at the standard hourly rate. Most customers don't reach the limit; about 40% use the follow-up window for at least one question.

Multi-hour engagements

Some questions don't fit one hour. We handle multi-hour engagements at the same €199/hour rate. Common shapes: architecture review (1 hour) plus implementation review after they've made changes (1 hour, 2-4 weeks later); vendor evaluation (1 hour per vendor, max 3 hours total); complex post-mortem (1 hour discovery, 1 hour recommendations).

For 8+ hour engagements, we typically recommend a fixed-scope product instead. Audit (€299) handles most ongoing assessment cases more efficiently than 8 consulting hours.

Confidentiality

Mutual NDA available on request, sent via Telegram before the call. We don't quote consulting content publicly, in marketing, or to other customers. Standard practice.

The recordings, summary, and any technical artifacts produced are yours and confidential to the engagement. We retain anonymised observations (sometimes used as anonymised references in this product page or others) but never customer-specific details.

questions before you book

Frequently asked.

When should I book consulting vs a fixed-scope product?

Consulting fits questions and decisions; products fit operational work. If you need an answer or a recommendation, book the hour. If you need someone to do the work, order a product. The decision matrix on this page covers edge cases.

Common pattern: customers book a consulting hour first to scope what they need, then order the right fixed-scope product based on our recommendations. About 35% of consulting hours lead directly to a product purchase; the consulting hour fee is sometimes credited toward the product purchase within 30 days as part of the engagement.

Who delivers the consulting hour?

One of three senior deliverability engineers on our team. Not a sales rep, not a junior, not a generalist. The same engineers who deliver our audit and recovery work.

For specific niches (cold outreach strategy, multi-brand isolation architecture, custom MTA development), we route you to the engineer with the most hands-on experience in that area. Mention specifics at booking so we route correctly.

What if I don't get value from the hour?

Our policy: if you genuinely felt the hour wasn't useful, tell us within 7 days and we refund. We've had this happen twice across hundreds of consulting hours. Both times involved a misunderstanding about scope at booking, which we now try to surface in the pre-call brief.

We don't refund for "the engineer didn't agree with what I wanted to hear." Honest counsel sometimes means telling customers things they didn't want to hear. The refund is for "this hour was wasted on framing or off-topic discussion," not for "I disagree with the conclusions."

Can I record the call myself?

Yes, with a heads-up at the start of the call. Most call platforms (Jitsi, Whereby) have built-in recording. Telegram voice doesn't have native recording but you can record on your end with standard tools.

We also offer recording from our side at no extra charge; request at booking. We deliver via encrypted file transfer and don't retain copies after delivery.

Can I bring my team to the call?

Yes, up to 4 people from your side. The hour is the hour regardless of how many people from your side attend. For larger groups (5+), we recommend two consulting hours scheduled separately so smaller groups can engage with focus.

For multi-stakeholder calls (CTO + marketing lead + outside agency), the dynamic shifts toward consensus-building rather than technical depth. Mention the audience at booking so the engineer adjusts.

Do you offer monthly retainers?

Yes, on quote. €1,499/month for ~8 hours, €2,499 for ~16, includes priority scheduling, pre-allocated time, and multi-engineer access for specialised questions. For customers needing ongoing senior engineering input rather than ad-hoc hours, retainers make economic sense.

For most customers, ad-hoc hours are sufficient. Don't sign up for a retainer unless you've established a pattern of needing 6+ hours per month consistently. We'd rather have you on ad-hoc than locked into a retainer you don't use.

Will you share specific opinions on competitors?

Yes, with caveats. We have honest opinions on Mailgun, SendGrid, Mailchimp, Postmark, Twilio, AWS SES, Lemwarm, Smartlead, Apollo, Lemlist, Outreach, Salesloft, etc. We've seen them in production for customers and have observations about strengths, weaknesses, and fit cases.

What we don't do: trash-talk competitors. Honest assessment of fit, including cases where the competitor is better-fit than we are. The honest assessment is more valuable to you than partisan advocacy.

How does payment work?

Standard process: full payment (€199/hour × hours) on booking confirmation. Payable in any of our 11 supported cryptocurrencies. Self-hosted BTCPay, no third-party processor, no KYC. Refund policy detailed above.

For multi-hour engagements, we typically bill 50% upfront and 50% at the end. For monthly retainers, we bill monthly in advance with 30-day cancellation.

also relevant

Related services and references.

How our consulting engagements actually run

Consulting engagements typically start with a discovery conversation through Telegram or ticket where the operator describes their situation, current pain points, and goals. The discovery is free and produces either a structured engagement proposal or a recommendation that the operator does not actually need consulting (which happens often enough that we mention it explicitly; many situations resolve through documentation and self-service rather than billable engagement).

Engagements that proceed beyond discovery typically run as scoped projects with specific deliverables and timelines rather than open-ended retainer arrangements. The scoped pattern produces predictable outcomes for both sides: the operator knows what they are getting and when, we know what we have committed to deliver and can plan capacity accordingly.

Typical engagement scopes: deliverability audit (2-3 weeks, EUR 1,500-3,000 depending on operation complexity), incident response (immediate engagement, day rates EUR 800-1,200 depending on severity and access requirements), strategic consulting (4-6 weeks for major architecture decisions, EUR 5,000-15,000 depending on scope), ongoing advisory (monthly retainer EUR 800-2,500 for operators who want continuous access without committing to specific deliverables).

We do not pursue engagements where the right answer is the operator hiring full-time staff. Consulting is appropriate for time-limited expertise needs and specific project deliverables; ongoing operational responsibility is better handled through full-time or managed-service arrangements rather than consulting hours.

Consulting expertise areas and limitations

Our consulting expertise concentrates in the areas we operate in directly: email deliverability infrastructure, sender reputation management, authentication architecture (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI, MTA-STS deployment), PowerMTA and MailWizz operational tuning, multi-jurisdictional hosting architecture, cryptocurrency payment infrastructure for hosting operations.

We deliberately do not consult on areas adjacent to our expertise where we would be representing competence we do not have. Marketing automation strategy, copywriting and content optimization, customer acquisition strategy, sales operations, broader business strategy beyond infrastructure topics are outside our consulting scope. Operators looking for expertise in these areas should engage specialists in the specific domain rather than treating infrastructure consultants as general business consultants.

Within our scope, we provide direct opinions rather than abstract framework presentations. The operator typically wants specific recommendations grounded in our operational experience: should they migrate to dedicated IP at their current volume, which jurisdiction fits their threat model, whether their authentication setup will survive 2026 enforcement, how to recover from a specific reputation incident. We answer these directly with the reasoning behind the recommendation rather than producing analysis-paralysis frameworks that leave the operator no clearer about what to do.

The directness sometimes produces uncomfortable conversations. We tell operators when their plan will not work, when their infrastructure choices are sub-optimal, when their existing vendor is operationally weak, when the right answer is doing less rather than doing more. The discomfort is worth it because operators who pay for consulting expect honest assessment rather than validation of preconceived plans.

Engagement examples and outcomes

Some concrete examples of engagements we have completed, anonymized to protect customer confidentiality but preserving the operational substance.

Affiliate marketing operation hitting Spamhaus repeatedly across multiple sending IPs: 2-week engagement diagnosing list-acquisition quality issues, documented sourcing changes, rebuilt sending architecture with stronger isolation between high-risk and low-risk sources. Outcome: zero Spamhaus events in the 12 months following engagement, sustained 91% inbox placement versus the 73% baseline before engagement.

B2B SaaS company preparing for SOC 2 Type II audit: 3-week engagement reviewing email infrastructure controls, documenting authentication architecture, configuring log retention to audit standards, producing evidence packages mapped to specific SOC 2 controls. Outcome: clean SOC 2 audit with no findings related to email infrastructure controls.

Privacy-positioned media company migrating from US-based hosting to multi-jurisdictional offshore: 4-week strategic engagement evaluating jurisdiction options, documenting threat model alignment, planning technical migration including DNS coordination, BGP transit setup, content synchronization between clearnet and Tor mirror infrastructure. Outcome: successful migration with zero downtime, sustained operations through subsequent rights-holder enforcement attempts that the new architecture handled without operational disruption.

These outcomes are typical for engagements that match our expertise areas. Engagements where the right answer turned out to be different from initial scoping produce different outcomes; we have aborted engagements early when scoping revealed the operator needed different expertise than consulting could provide, and we have completed engagements with negative findings (the operator's plan would not work and we documented why) rather than producing artificially positive deliverables.

Engagement initiation and ongoing communication

Engagement initiation typically begins through Telegram conversation where the operator describes their situation. The conversation is informal and produces an assessment of whether consulting is the right fit. Operators who proceed receive a written engagement proposal with specific deliverables, timeline, and pricing; operators who do not proceed receive recommendations for self-service or alternative resources.

Ongoing communication during engagements happens through dedicated channels we set up per engagement: a private Telegram group with the operator and the specific consultants involved, plus shared documentation infrastructure for deliverables that need persistent reference. The communication pattern produces fast iteration without losing context that ad-hoc messaging would create.

Engagement completion includes final deliverable presentation, transition to ongoing operations (either through the operator team or through follow-on managed services if applicable), retrospective conversation to capture lessons learned. The retrospective is part of how we improve consulting quality over time.

Ready to book the hour?

Telegram booking takes 5 minutes. Pre-call brief happens within 24 hours. Call scheduled within 48 hours. Written summary delivered within 24 hours after the call. Most customers leave the hour with clear direction; some leave with confirmation that their existing direction was right.

Book on Telegram → Submit ticket

# Median Telegram response: 12 minutes during operating hours

Senior deliverability engineer, 60 focused minutes.For questions our products don't answer.

Consulting fits