The most common objection to a retainer isn’t “you’re too expensive.” It’s “I’m not ready to commit to that timeline.” A 6-month engagement asks a buyer to trust someone they’ve never worked with for half a year. That’s a high bar, even for buyers who need exactly what you offer.
Sprints remove the commitment barrier. A 1-week engagement with a clear deliverable and a fixed price asks for a small decision, not a large one. Buyers who wouldn’t approve a $15,000 retainer without hesitation will approve a $1,500 sprint in the same meeting.
The conversion data is clear: buyers who do a sprint convert to longer engagements at 50-70% higher rates than buyers who were cold-pitched a retainer. Sprint-first, retainer-second is both easier to sell and produces better long-term clients.
Here’s the complete 5-sprint catalog, what to offer, how to scope it, who it’s for, and how to price it.
Sprint 1: The Audit Sprint
Price: $1,500 | Timeline: 5 business days
The audit sprint is your entry point. It’s the lowest-risk purchase a buyer can make and the highest-converting top-of-funnel offer you can have.
What it includes:
- 15-question intake form (completed before sprint begins)
- 2-3 days of analysis
- A 5-section audit report: current state, key findings (top 3), prioritized recommendations, quick wins, 90-day roadmap
- 60-minute delivery call to walk through findings
What it does not include:
- Implementation of any recommendations
- Ongoing advisory access
- Follow-up revisions to the report after the delivery call
Who it’s for: Buyers who have a defined problem area but aren’t sure of its root cause, or buyers who want to validate whether the problem is large enough to justify a larger engagement. Common buyer moment: “We’ve been trying to fix [X] for 6 months and it’s not working, we need fresh eyes.”
Upsell path: Delivery call → “Want to talk about what it would look like to address the top finding together?” → Strategy Sprint or retainer proposal.
Sprint 2: The Strategy Sprint
Price: $3,000 | Timeline: 5 business days
The strategy sprint moves from diagnosis to plan. Where the audit identifies problems, the strategy sprint produces the detailed plan to address the most important one.
What it includes:
- 20-question intake form
- 2 days of research and analysis
- 2 days of strategy document development
- 1 deliverable: a 10-15 page strategy document covering the specific problem area (go-to-market plan, content strategy, funnel architecture, pricing model, whatever your niche demands)
- 60-minute presentation and Q&A call
What it does not include:
- Implementation
- Ongoing advisory
- Revisions beyond one round within 5 business days of delivery
Who it’s for: Buyers who know their problem and are ready to address it but lack the internal expertise to build the plan. Common buyer moment: “We know we need a [content strategy / go-to-market plan / pricing model], we just need someone to build it for us.”
Upsell path: Strategy presentation call → “Most clients at this stage find it useful to have someone guide implementation for the first 60-90 days. Would that be valuable?” → Build Sprint or retainer proposal.
The 5-sprint catalog gives every type of buyer an on-ramp that matches their readiness level. The $1,500 buyer becomes the $3,000 buyer becomes the $5,000 buyer, not because you upsold them aggressively, but because each sprint produced results that made the next one obvious.
Sprint 3: The Build Sprint
Price: $5,000 | Timeline: 10 business days
The build sprint is for buyers who have the strategy and need the execution. It’s the most hands-on sprint, you’re building a specific thing, not just analyzing or planning.
What it includes:
- Full intake and brief (30-60 minute kickoff call acceptable here)
- 8 days of build work
- 1 named deliverable: something specific that exists at the end (an email sequence, a sales deck, a content program, an onboarding flow, a data model, whatever you build)
- 60-minute handoff call with documentation
What it does not include:
- Revisions beyond 2 rounds
- Ongoing management or optimization after delivery
- Training beyond the handoff call
Who it’s for: Buyers who have internal bandwidth to run something after it’s built, but not the specialized skill to build it. Common buyer moment: “We know what we want, we just don’t have anyone internally who can build it.”
Upsell path: Handoff call → “Would it be useful to have someone keep an eye on performance over the first 60 days and make adjustments?” → Optimization Sprint or retainer.
Sprint 4: The Optimization Sprint
Price: $3,000 | Timeline: 5 business days
The optimization sprint targets something that already exists and isn’t performing well. You come in, diagnose the performance gap, make specific changes, and leave with a documented account of what was done and why.
What it includes:
- Baseline audit of the existing thing (funnel, sequence, content program, process, whatever you optimize)
- Specific interventions: up to 5 documented changes made directly to the thing
- A change log and rationale document (explaining each change and the hypothesis behind it)
- 45-minute debrief call
What it does not include:
- Strategy work (the system’s goals and architecture are assumed to be sound)
- Rebuilding (if the existing thing needs to be replaced, that’s a Build Sprint)
- Ongoing monitoring
Who it’s for: Buyers who have something in place that isn’t working as well as it should. Common buyer moment: “Our [email onboarding / sales deck / content program] used to work and now it doesn’t, something changed, or something needs to change.”
Upsell path: Debrief call → “This should hold for the next 60-90 days. Set a reminder, if performance doesn’t improve to [specific benchmark], it’s probably structural and worth a deeper look.” (That deeper look is a Strategy or Audit Sprint 90 days later.)
Sprint 5: The Training Sprint
Price: $2,500 | Timeline: 5 business days
The training sprint transfers your expertise to an internal team. Instead of doing the work yourself, you build the team’s capacity to do it themselves.
What it includes:
- Pre-sprint assessment: review of the team’s current skill level and knowledge gaps (via a 30-minute call or intake form)
- 2 live training sessions (90 minutes each) + Q&A
- A written playbook document (the key frameworks and processes covered in the sessions, in a reusable reference format)
- 30 days of email access for follow-up questions
What it does not include:
- Individual coaching sessions beyond the 30-day window
- Custom curriculum development (the training covers your standard framework, adapted to their context)
- Ongoing support or consulting
Who it’s for: Buyers who want to build internal capability rather than ongoing external support. Common buyer moment: “We’ve been relying on consultants for [this type of work] and we want to bring it in-house, we need someone to upskill our team.”
Upsell path: End of 30-day window → “How is the team applying the framework? A 90-minute check-in 60 days after training is something most teams find useful, it catches early application errors before they become habits.” → Mini optimization session at $750.
Building Your Sprint Catalog
You don’t need all five sprints to start. Pick the two that best fit your current service type and build those first. A content strategist might launch with Audit Sprint + Strategy Sprint. A developer might launch with Audit Sprint + Build Sprint.
Test each sprint with 3 clients before publishing it publicly. After 3 runs, you’ll know:
- Whether the timeline is realistic
- Where the scope edges cause confusion
- Whether the price produces yes without friction
The catalog page on your website:
List all your sprints side by side in a comparison format: Sprint name, who it’s for (one sentence), what you deliver, timeline, price. Buyers can self-select the right entry point.
The comparison format also shows the progression, Audit Sprint leads naturally to Strategy Sprint leads naturally to Build Sprint. Buyers who see the progression understand how the engagement model works, which shortens the sales conversation.
Add a “Most clients start here” tag on the Audit Sprint. It directs uncertain buyers to the lowest-risk option and starts the relationship at the point where you can demonstrate your thinking most efficiently.
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