What does a NZ$5,000 prototype get you?

At Applicable, NZ$5,000 plus GST buys a two-week Prototype Sprint: two workshops with the senior people who would build your project, a clickable prototype of the key screens, a written scope, and a fixed price and timeline to build it. It is credited against the build if you go ahead, and you keep everything if you do not. It does not produce working software.

Is the prototype real software?

No. It is clickable screens: you can tap through the flows on a phone or a laptop and see what the app will do, but nothing is saved and nothing is connected. That is the point. Changing a screen costs an hour; changing built software costs a week.

John Halvorsen-Jones, Applicable's founder, and one designer or developer from the team that would build it. From your side, the person who owns the problem and one or two of the people who would use the result.

What if the fixed price is more than I expected?

Then you know before you have spent it. The scope shows what drives the number, and the usual answer is to build the one workflow that hurts most first. The prototype and scope are yours either way.

Can I take the prototype to another developer?

Yes. It is written in plain English with the screens attached, so anyone can quote from it. Some clients do exactly that, and a few come back.

Do I need a sprint for a simple website?

No. A brochure site with a contact form is quoted from one conversation. The sprint is for anything with a login, an integration, a booking or a workflow behind it.

What a NZ$5,000 Prototype Gets You (and What It Doesn't)

What you get

Two workshops. Day one maps the process with the people who do it: who uses it, what it connects to, what happens when it goes wrong. Day five walks the wireframes with the same people and changes them on the spot.

A clickable prototype. The key screens of the app or portal, linked so you can tap through the real flows on a phone or a laptop. Not every screen; the ones where the decisions are.

A written scope. What is in, what is out, what it connects to, what data moves where, and the risks we found when we checked your existing systems.

A fixed price and a timeline. Not a bracket. The number we will hold, and the weeks it takes. Websites start at NZ$4,000, single-workflow web apps at NZ$15,000, portals at NZ$30,000; the pricing page has the table.

A recommendation. Sometimes that is "a website builder will do this" or "buy that product". We say so, and the sprint has still paid for itself.

What you do not get

Working software. Nothing is built during the sprint.
A visual design. The prototype is wireframe-grade so nobody argues about colours before the flows are right. Design is part of the build.
A guarantee that the build will be cheap. It is a guarantee that the price will be known.

Why it costs NZ$5,000

Two senior people for the better part of two weeks, including two half-day workshops, plus the desk time to check your integrations and write a scope a developer can build from. Priced at the cost of the people involved. It is credited in full against the build, so a client who goes ahead pays nothing extra for it.

Who should skip it

Anyone who needs a brochure website. Anyone who already has a written scope from a previous project and just wants it priced. Anyone testing a founder's idea who wants the cheapest possible first version; a 14-day AI build shop is a better fit, and we say so in this guide.

What happens on day ten

You see the prototype, the scope and the price. Say yes and the build starts the following week. Say not yet and the documents are yours. Get a fixed price to start, or read how the sprint runs day by day.