Four inputs.One grade.One date.
The grader doesn’t guess from a title. It reads the request against your actual codebase and a rubric built from real delivery data, then scores four things. None of them is how long it takes me.
- Input 01
Scope
How many surfaces the change touches, and how much of it is genuinely new versus a variation on something that already exists.
- Input 02
Unknowns
The parts nobody can spec yet — undocumented third-party behaviour, data that has to be inspected first, decisions still open.
- Input 03
Integration surface
Every system the work has to shake hands with: payment providers, auth, webhooks, other people's APIs, your existing schema.
- Input 04
Testing burden
What has to be proven before it ships — edge cases, money paths, migrations, and anything that would be expensive to get wrong in production.
Three bands, no fine print.
Four scores collapse into one grade, and the grade carries a delivery date you can put straight into a roadmap.
It’s usually three requests in a trenchcoat.
Split it and each piece gets its own grade and its own date, so the first one is committed while the rest are still being shaped. Tell me and we’ll talk it through. If the grader got it wrong, I’ll override it.
“Rebuild the customer dashboard”
Heavy · 2–3 weeks- Light · 1–2 daysShip the new layout shell
- Standard · ~1 weekRewire the data layer
- Standard · ~1 weekAdd billing & usage views
Same total work, three dated deliveries instead of one. You see the shell before the rest is built, and you can reorder what follows once it’s in front of you.
- 1On submit
The grader scores it
A grade and an estimated delivery date land in your portal alongside the request.
- 2A few business hours
I confirm or adjust it
A human reads every grade before it becomes a promise. Adjustments come with a reason attached, not a shrug.
- 3Then the clock starts
The date is locked
The grader produces the estimate. The commitment is mine, and I hold it.
Put a real request through it.
Start with the intake chat. Ten minutes, no sales call, and I come back within one business day on whether it’s a fit.