Engagement protocols
Fixed fee. Senior only. No staff aug.
Three ways to work with Tracefox. All USD-priced, all senior-led, all with a defined exit. We don't sell hours — we sell the system that comes out the other side.
Engagement · 01
Diagnostic
2 weeks
USD 18,000 · fixed
Maturity baseline + 90-day roadmap. The cheapest way to find out whether you actually need us.
- check_circle Telemetry maturity profile (12-axis)
- check_circle Cardinality + cost audit
- check_circle Alert noise + paging review
- check_circle Prioritised 90-day roadmap
- check_circle Senior engineer · half-time
Recommended
Engagement · 02
Foundational
12 weeks
USD 96,000 · fixed
Full re-instrumentation. Telemetry redesign, OTel rollout, eBPF where it matters, two paired incidents before handover.
- check_circle Everything in Diagnostic
- check_circle OpenTelemetry collector + pipelines
- check_circle eBPF probe set for hot paths
- check_circle SLO catalogue + error-budget policy
- check_circle On-call runbook rewrite
- check_circle Two paired P1 simulations
- check_circle Senior engineer · 80%
Engagement · 03
Retainer
Monthly
From USD 12,000 / mo
Post-Foundational. We're on Slack, on-call escalation, and quarterly tune-ups. No long-term staff aug.
- check_circle Slack channel · 4-hr SLA
- check_circle Quarterly cardinality + cost review
- check_circle Incident retro support
- check_circle Architecture decision reviews
- check_circle First-call escalation (best effort)
Protocol matrix
What's included where.
| Feature | Diagnostic | Foundational | Retainer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maturity profile + roadmap | check | check | — |
| Cardinality + cost audit | check | check | Quarterly |
| OTel rollout | — | check | — |
| eBPF instrumentation | Optional | check | — |
| SLO catalogue + policy | Drafted | check | Reviewed |
| On-call runbook rewrite | — | check | — |
| Paired P1 incident drills | — | ×2 | Ad-hoc |
| Slack channel | Engagement-only | Engagement-only | check |
| Senior engineer allocation | 50% | 80% | On-demand |
Median outcomes · 14 Foundational engagements
The numbers we ship against.
Median results across 14 Foundational engagements (2023–2025). Your numbers depend on your starting point — we set the actual targets in week 2.
Avg. cost reduction
62%
$/active-series, vs. baseline
p99 latency drop
4.2x
Tier-0 user journeys
Alert volume cut
−81%
Pages per 30d, post-rebuild
Engagement.start()
Not sure which fits?
Tell us what's broken. We'll tell you which engagement (or none) makes sense.