Guide
What is a Systems Blueprint and when do you need one?
A Systems Blueprint is paid discovery that produces a document you could hand to any competent developer: the workflow mapped, the bottlenecks identified, the architecture, and a real build estimate. It costs $3,500, and the full fee is credited against a Goldstone implementation of $25,000 or more signed within 30 days.
What is a Systems Blueprint?
A Systems Blueprint is paid discovery that produces a document you could hand to any competent developer, including one who is not us: the workflow mapped, the bottlenecks identified, what should stay manual, the integration boundaries, a data and system architecture, an implementation roadmap and a real build estimate.
It costs $3,500. The full fee is credited against a Goldstone implementation of $25,000 or more signed within 30 days, so if you build with us it effectively cost nothing.
Why discovery is worth paying for
Free scoping is sales. It is time a company spends to win your project, which means it is calibrated to produce a yes rather than to produce the truth. It also stops the moment you say no.
Paid discovery changes the incentive. The deliverable is the document, so the document can say things a proposal cannot: that the project is smaller than you thought, that an off the shelf product would do, or that the real problem is a process rather than software. We have written all three.
If you do not build with us, you keep the document. It is written to be useful to whoever does the work.
When you need one
- The scope spans several systems and the order of work genuinely matters
- The requirements are unsettled, and different stakeholders describe the problem differently
- Significant data migration is involved
- Multi-location, where local practice and shared standards have to be reconciled
- AI feasibility is uncertain and depends on data you have not examined
- Several groups have to agree before anything can be signed off
- The implementation is large enough that being wrong about the shape is expensive
When you can skip it
If you know what you need and it is one well defined workflow, go straight to a build. The configurator prices a scoped project directly, and a focused system does not need a research phase to begin.
If you are not sure which of those you are, describe the problem. The preliminary plan that comes back includes whether a Blueprint is warranted, and it will say no when the answer is no.
The three levels
- Systems Blueprint, $3,500. One complex operational problem. The level that carries the published implementation credit.
- Advanced Systems Blueprint, $7,500. Multi-workflow, multi-location or custom application work, where several stakeholder groups and existing systems have to be reconciled before anything is designed.
- Enterprise Architecture Engagement, custom scoped. Where the architecture work is itself a project.
The Advanced Blueprint and the Enterprise Engagement are scoped individually and their commercial terms are agreed in that scope rather than published here.
What a Blueprint is not
It is not a proposal with a nicer cover. It is not a discovery call. It is not a guarantee of a price, because an estimate made before the work is an estimate; the final number is confirmed in writing before anything begins.
And it is not a substitute for real architecture on a genuinely enterprise system. An online planning experience and a few days of discovery do not replace that, and we would rather say so than sell a Blueprint into a situation that needs more.
What to do next
How the Blueprint works covers the process and what you receive. Describe your problem first if you want a free preliminary read on whether you need one.
Want the number for your build?
The configurator gives a real estimate in about two minutes: modules, timeline, and running costs. No form first, no email required.