Commercial Product Debugging
Something broke in production and your developer isn't answering. We can help.
We diagnose and fix problems in live software: websites, web apps, plugins and integrations. We find what actually caused the problem, fix that, and write up what happened so the next person isn't starting from scratch.
Pricing at a glance
Custom quote
Quoted after a free 15-minute triage call
Emergency development work is often billed at
$150–$275/hr
ours: a flat quote before work starts
The problem
Something's broken and it's costing you
Your checkout, booking form or integration stopped working, and every hour it's down costs you money.
The person who built it can't be reached, or the agency wants to rebuild everything to fix one bug.
Emergency developers bill by the hour, and nobody can tell you what the final total will be.
What's included
What you get with Commercial Product Debugging
Free 15-minute triage
Tell us what's broken. We'll tell you what's probably wrong and what it will take. The call costs nothing.
A flat quote
You approve a fixed price before we touch anything.
The real cause, not a patch
We find out why it broke, fix that, and check for the same kind of bug elsewhere.
A written post-mortem
What broke, why, what we changed and how to stop it happening again, written down for whoever works on it next.
Inherited code is fine
Most of what we debug was built by someone who's moved on. We're used to finding our way around unfamiliar code.
In depth
What happens when you bring us a broken system
Step by step
- A free 15-minute triage call. You tell us what's broken, when it started and what changed around that time. We tell you what's likely going on and what it would take.
- Access. If you want to go ahead, you give us access to what we need, usually the hosting, the code and an admin login.
- Diagnosis and a flat quote. We find the cause and quote a fixed price for the fix. You approve it before we change anything.
- The fix. We fix the root cause, test it, and look for the same kind of problem elsewhere.
- The write-up. You get a short post-mortem: what broke, why, what we changed and how to stop it happening again.
What to gather before the call
The more of this you have, the faster we can help:
- What exactly is broken, and what it should do instead.
- When it started, as precisely as you can.
- Anything that changed around then: a plugin update, a new feature, a hosting change, an expired card on an account.
- Screenshots of any error messages.
- Who built it, and where the code and hosting are, if you know.
Don't worry if you don't have all of it. "It stopped working on Tuesday and we don't know why" is a perfectly normal place to start.
The usual suspects
A lot of production problems come down to a short list: an update to a plugin, library or platform that broke something; an expired API key, payment card or certificate on a connected service; a change at a third-party service the site depends on; or hosting that ran out of disk space or memory. Usually something changed, even if nobody touched the site itself.
Pricing
Priced to the job
Quoted after a free 15-minute triage call. The price is agreed in writing before any work starts.
FAQ
Questions about Commercial Product Debugging
Yes. A lot of what we debug was built by someone who's no longer around. We look at it first, quote a flat price, then fix it and document it so you're not stuck again.
It's 15 minutes on the phone. You tell us what's broken and when it started, and we tell you what's likely going on and what it would take to fix. There's no charge for the call.
Usually the hosting or server, the code repository and an admin login for the affected system. We only ask for what the fix needs, and you can remove our access when we're done.
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