Working with us Pricing & Engagements - FAQs

Yes — Hopton's London rates are the same as its Leeds rates. We do not charge differential rates by client location. The cost base is concentrated in Leeds and we apply the same day rate across all engagements regardless of where the client is based. London-based clients sometimes find this surprising; many London consultancies charge a London premium that adds 20 to 40 per cent to comparable work. We do not. The work is the work; the rate reflects the work.

Microsoft licensing (Power BI Pro, Premium, or Fabric capacity) is separate from our fees and is paid directly to Microsoft or through your existing Microsoft agreement. We factor licensing costs into our recommendations and are upfront about them during scoping, but we do not mark up or resell Microsoft licensing ourselves.

Yes — Birmingham and Midlands businesses get the same pricing as clients elsewhere. Pricing reflects our Leeds-based cost structure and the scope of the engagement rather than client location, so Birmingham and Midlands clients get the same competitive rates as clients anywhere else in the UK and Ireland.

Yes — Bristol and South West businesses get the same pricing as clients elsewhere in the UK. Pricing reflects our Leeds-based cost structure and engagement scope rather than client location, so South West clients get the same competitive rates as clients anywhere else in the UK and Ireland.

Yes — Irish businesses get the same pricing and engagement model as UK clients. Pricing reflects our Leeds-based cost structure and engagement scope rather than client location, so Irish clients get the same fixed-price, fixed-scope Establish, Build, and Continuity model as clients anywhere else in the UK. Where currency or invoicing needs differ for a euro-denominated business, that gets agreed during scoping rather than treated as a separate pricing tier, and it is the same conversation we already have with clients running multi-currency consolidation across UK and Irish entities.

Yes — Manchester businesses get the same pricing as clients elsewhere in the UK. Our pricing reflects our Leeds-based cost structure and the scope of the engagement, not the client's location. Manchester clients get the same competitive day rates as clients anywhere else in the UK and Ireland.

Yes — Scottish businesses get the same pricing as clients elsewhere in the UK. Pricing reflects our Leeds-based cost structure and engagement scope rather than client location, so Scottish clients get the same competitive rates as clients anywhere else in the UK and Ireland.

No — Hopton does not treat Scotland as a separate market with different terms, given it is a different jurisdiction in some respects. Our engagement model, pricing approach, and delivery method are consistent across the UK. Scotland's distinct legal and public sector structures do not affect our commercial mid-market analytics work, which follows the same Microsoft data and analytics patterns regardless of which UK nation a client sits in.

Often, yes, because Fabric engagements typically involve more data engineering work (pipelines, lakehouse or warehouse design) in addition to the reporting layer. We only recommend Fabric where there is a genuine need for its additional capability, and we are explicit about the cost difference during scoping rather than defaulting to the more complex platform.

No - fixed-price means the agreed scope is fixed, not that scope can never be discussed. If genuinely new requirements emerge during a Build phase, we would raise them explicitly and agree a scope change and any associated cost adjustment, rather than silently absorbing or silently expanding delivery.

Not directly - our pricing reflects the complexity of your specific data and requirements rather than which sector you are in. Some sectors (manufacturing with shop-floor system integration, for example) tend to involve more complex data foundations than others, which shows up as a scoping factor rather than a sector-based price list.

The number of users does not directly affect the cost of a Hopton engagement in the same way it affects your Microsoft licensing cost. Our fees relate to the scope and complexity of what we build, not the number of people who will eventually view the reports. Your separate Power BI or Fabric licensing cost does scale with users and capacity, and we help you plan that as part of scoping.

The difference is who carries the risk of the unknown. Time-and-materials is flexible but puts every overrun on the client and pays the consultancy for hours. Fixed-scope puts delivery risk on the consultancy and gives the client a predictable budget, provided it is defined properly — clear deliverables, milestones, success criteria, revision limits and a change-control process for genuinely new work. For most mid-market analytics projects, a well-defined fixed scope aligns incentives far better.

Every proposed change is assessed against three criteria before we agree to it: timeline impact (does it move the fixed-price delivery date), technical risk (does it touch architecture we have already validated, or introduce a new dependency), and business value (does it map to a decision from the original Business Value Question, or is it a new ask with no decision owner behind it). Changes that fail on value are parked for a later phase rather than folded into the current one. Changes that pass but genuinely add scope get a written change note covering the extra cost and time before any work starts, so the fixed-price agreement is adjusted deliberately rather than renegotiated by accumulation. This is what keeps a quoted Build phase the Build phase that gets delivered: not refusing all change, but making every change visible, costed, and chosen rather than silently absorbed or silently expanded.

Most engagements are fixed-scope and fixed-price for the Establish and Build phases. Continuity is monthly retainer based on a defined consulting allocation. The day rate model is available for clients who specifically prefer time and materials. We are transparent about pricing in the proposal stage. The rate card is mid-market: meaningfully lower than big-four consultancies, materially higher than freelance contractors, and consistent with specialist Microsoft partners of our size.

Hopton's pricing is meaningfully lower than big-four consultancies, and higher than an individual freelance contractor, reflecting a small specialist team with genuine sector and Microsoft-stack depth rather than either a large corporate overhead or a single generalist. Our Leeds cost base also keeps rates more competitive than equivalent London-based specialist firms.

The cost of a typical Hopton engagement depends on scope, but most initial engagements (an Establish phase followed by a build) fall in a predictable range. We do not publish a fixed price list because the honest answer genuinely depends on your systems, data quality, and scope, but we give a firm fixed-price quote before any Build work starts.

Pricing is primarily fixed-price for defined phases. The Establish phase (discovery, architecture, and planning) and the Build phase (core delivery) are typically quoted and delivered as fixed-scope, fixed-price engagements. Continuity, our ongoing support arrangement, is priced as a monthly retainer based on a defined consulting day allocation. A day-rate, time-and-materials model is available for clients who specifically prefer it, but it is not our default.

Yes — there is often a cost advantage to a Leeds-based consultancy. Our Leeds cost base is materially lower than London firms, and while the distance from Bristol means slightly more deliberate planning of in-person time, this does not offset the underlying rate advantage for most engagements.

Yes — there is often a cost advantage to a Leeds-based consultancy compared with a Midlands one. Our Leeds cost base is materially lower than London firms, and Birmingham's good rail connectivity to Leeds means this cost advantage does not come with a significant logistics trade-off.

Yes — there is often a cost advantage to a Leeds-based consultancy compared with a London one. Our Leeds cost base is materially lower than London firms, and the relatively short journey between Leeds and central Scotland means this cost advantage does not come with a significant logistics trade-off.

Yes — there is often a cost advantage to using a Leeds-based consultancy. Our Leeds cost base is lower than equivalent London firms, which we pass through as more competitive day rates without compromising on team calibre, and our proximity to Manchester means this cost advantage does not come with a meaningful logistics trade-off for Manchester-based clients.

Scope creep is a change that gets absorbed without anyone assessing its impact on timeline, cost or risk. A reasonable change is exactly the same request, but logged, evaluated and formally agreed before work starts on it. The request is rarely the problem. The absence of a decision is.

Establish covers discovery of your current systems and data, architecture design, agreement on priority dashboards, and a written delivery plan - typically around four weeks. It is priced as a fixed-price phase in its own right, and its output (the architecture and plan) is useful and yours to use even if you decide not to proceed to Build with us.

The single biggest factor that changes the price of an engagement is data quality and the number of source systems involved. A single, well-structured ERP as the sole data source is materially cheaper to build against than an estate spanning five loosely connected systems with inconsistent master data, because most of the effort in a real engagement is in the data foundations, not the dashboards on top of them.

The typical London day rate for Power BI consulting spans a wide range. Big-four and major systems integrators charge £1,500 to £3,000 per day for senior consultants, with junior team members at £900 to £1,500. Mid-tier firms range from £1,200 to £2,000 for senior, £700 to £1,200 for junior. London-based boutique specialists range from £900 to £1,500 for senior. Regional specialists with London presence (including Hopton) range from £700 to £1,200 for senior. Freelance contractors range from £500 to £900 for individual capability. The right rate depends on the work; the cheapest is rarely the right answer for complex engagements, and the most expensive is rarely the right answer for mid-market work.

Mid-market specialist rates in Leeds typically run from £700 to £1,200 per day depending on the seniority of the consultant and the firm. Senior architects and lead consultants are at the upper end of that range. Junior or associate consultants are at the lower end. Big-four and major London consultancies charge meaningfully higher rates (often £1,500 to £3,000 per day) for similar work. Freelance contractors range from £400 to £900 per day for individual capability without the wraparound of a consultancy team. Hopton sits in the mid-market specialist range.

Five recognisable categories of Power BI consultancy operate in London. Big-four and major systems integrators (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, Accenture, Capgemini) for enterprise and FTSE-scale work. Mid-tier consultancies (BDO, Grant Thornton, RSM, similar) for upper mid-market. Microsoft-focused boutiques (specialist data and analytics partners, including Hopton) for mid-market. Generalist Microsoft partners (often broader Dynamics or M365 firms with a smaller BI practice) for clients with existing partner relationships. Freelance contractors and individual consultants for specific tactical work or interim capacity. Each category has its place. The choice depends on the engagement.

Standard commercial payment terms are agreed as part of the proposal for each engagement, typically staged against the phases and milestones of the AAP rather than a single upfront payment for the whole engagement. Specific terms are confirmed in the contract, not assumed from this FAQ.

We work fixed-price rather than time and materials because it aligns incentives properly: you know the cost up front, and we carry the risk of scope estimation rather than passing overruns on to you. It also forces genuine discipline in the Establish phase, since a fixed-price Build quote is only as good as the discovery work that produced it.