Solutions architect
The data model, the integrations, and the build order are decided before a line of code, so the scope you see is the scope you get.
Traditional agencies bill by the hour, staff with a mix of seniority levels, and route your project through account managers before a line of code gets written. Lab Twelve is one senior engineer plus AI tooling: no overhead structure, published fixed prices, and a single person accountable for the full build. The tradeoff is real. Agencies can staff larger parallel teams for multi-product work. Lab Twelve runs one active build at a time with senior judgment on every decision. For a founder building v1, the tradeoff almost always favors the studio model.
One fixed price buys a whole product team in one: architect, designer, and AI-native engineer.
The data model, the integrations, and the build order are decided before a line of code, so the scope you see is the scope you get.
Interface, flow, and brand are designed for this build, not dropped onto a template. The finished app looks like it was meant to ship.
Senior execution at AI speed, in production with the source code in your hands. One builder with the range of a whole product team.
| Fixed price before checkout | Included |
|---|---|
| Senior execution on every task | Included |
| No discovery phase billing | Included |
| Source code ownership at handoff | Included |
| One point of contact for the full build | Included |
Fixed price before checkout: Agencies quote ranges; Lab Twelve quotes numbers
Senior execution on every task: No junior handoff or offshore
No discovery phase billing: AI scope chat is free
Source code ownership at handoff: Not retained by the studio
One point of contact for the full build: No account manager layer
| Parallel teams for multiple streams | Not in base scope |
|---|---|
| Agency-scale enterprise contracts | Not in base scope |
| SLA-backed support contracts | Not in base scope |
Parallel teams for multiple streams: Lab Twelve runs one build at a time
Agency-scale enterprise contracts: MSA, SOW-heavy procurement not our model
SLA-backed support contracts: Dev lanes are async, not on-call
A representative ScopeSpec ticket. Yours is assembled live from the scope chat, priced by the engine, and locked before you pay.
Discovery phase billed
2–4 weeks of scoping at hourly rates before any code.
AI scope in one session
Fixed price locked in one conversation, build starts day 1.
Team ramp + handoffs
Account manager → PM → dev → QA chain adds latency.
One person, end to end
Architect, builder, and deployer is the same person. No handoffs.
No account managers, no project managers, no offshore handoff. One person with AI tooling does what a small agency team does. The overhead savings become the price difference.
Scope the full build at /start. If the scope exceeds what Lab Twelve handles, we say so early and can refer to partners.
You get a senior engineer's judgment on every decision, which many agencies cannot guarantee since they staff with mixed seniority. AI tooling handles boilerplate; Brian holds architecture and taste.
No agency to manage, no roster to assemble. The whole team, one number, source code in your hands.