GoodWork by Ultrabasic
The price drops.The standard doesn't.
GoodWork is how this studio gives its time to organisations doing something worth doing. Four full builds a year at no cost, and half our normal rate for everyone else who qualifies.
What you pay
Two ways in,
and one of them is free
One application covers both. Tell us what you need and we will tell you which one you are getting, in writing, before anything starts.
Four a year
Freein full
A whole build, given
The same team a paying client gets, the same weekly demos, the same standard of finish.
- You pay
- Nothing
- Slots
- Four a year
- Scope
- A working first version
- Typical length
- Eight to twelve weeks
Open to everyone eligible
50%off, standing
Half rate, for good
If the free slots are taken, or the work is bigger than one of them. Qualify once and the rate stays.
- You pay
- Half our normal rate
- Slots
- No cap
- Scope
- Anything the studio does
- Typical length
- However long the work takes
One application covers both.
Eligibility
Who this
is for
Written plainly so you can decide in a minute rather than write in and wait. If you are close to the line, apply anyway and let us make the call.
Registered nonprofits and NGOs
Any size, any country. Bring the registration number and we will not ask you for much else.
Social enterprises
Companies that make money and put it back into the thing they exist for. Being a business is not a problem here.
Schools, clinics and libraries
Public services running on a budget that was set before software was on it. State funded counts.
Community groups with no paperwork
Not registered as anything, and doing the work anyway. Tell us who you help and how we can check it.
Companies whose product is the good
For profit, but the thing you sell is the help itself. Accessibility, care, climate, safety, and the rest of that list.
Research and open source
Public research groups, and open source projects that other people already depend on and nobody is paying for.
And who it is not
Not political parties or campaigns
Advocacy on an issue is welcome. Anything attached to a party, a candidate or an election is not, in any country.
Not the large and well funded
Some charities have bigger technology budgets than our clients do. If you can pay for this properly, we would rather you did, and the slot goes to somebody who cannot.
Why we do it this way
Nobody at the other end of this can tell whether it was paid for. That is the whole standard.
What you get
A real product,
not a favour
The whole point is that you are still running it in three years. Everything below comes with a GoodWork build, free or half rate, without being asked for.
Something that works, in the open
A live product with real users on it, not a prototype and not a slide. If it is not usable by the end, we have not finished.
Design that is actually yours
Type, colour and a small component set, drawn for you and written down. Nonprofits get handed grey templates constantly. Not here.
The code, in your name
Your repository, your hosting account, your domain, your database. We hold nothing you would have to ask us for later.
Two people on your side trained
Sessions with whoever will run it, recorded, plus a written guide in plain language for the person who joins after them.
A year of fixes, at no cost
Anything broken that we built, we repair for twelve months after launch. New features are a separate conversation, and an honest one.
The running costs covered for a year
Hosting, the database and the domain, paid by us for the first twelve months, and set up cheaply enough that you can carry it afterwards.
Before you apply
The questions
everyone asks
Yes. No fee, no deferred fee, no equity, and no clause that turns into an invoice later. We cover the first year of hosting as well. The only thing we ask is that we can write about the project and show it as work.
You wait. Free slots are chosen once a month and there are four a year, so the honest answer is that most applicants get the half rate rather than a free build. The half rate has no queue.
No. Same team, same weekly demos, same review before anything ships. A build we gave away is the one people judge us on hardest, which is a good reason to keep it at the same standard.
Often, yes. Rescuing something is usually more useful than starting again, and it is cheaper for everyone. Send us what exists and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth keeping.
Yes, straight away, and you get the real reason in writing rather than a polite no. Timing and the four slot limit account for most of it.
You own everything, so nothing has to happen. If you want us to keep going, the half rate stays for good. If you want to move to your own developer or another studio, we will help them pick it up.
Tell us what
you are
trying to fix
One form covers both the free build and the half rate. Applications are read on the first Monday of each month, and everybody gets an answer.
- Takes
- About fifteen minutes
- Next reading
- First Monday of next month
- Questions first
- goodwork@ultrabasiclabs.com