Service
Advisory
Security leadership when you need it and not a day longer. Month to month, no minimum term, cancel whenever it stops being useful.
When this is the right thing
You have a decision to make and nobody in the building whose job it is to make it. A board paper, an insurer's questionnaire, a customer security review, a vendor selection, an incident that raised questions nobody can answer. Or you need someone accountable for security direction without hiring a full-time person you cannot yet justify.
An Australian full-time CISO costs $250,000–$400,000 before recruitment and on-costs. Most organisations at 50–2,000 staff need the judgement, not the headcount.
Time-boxed advisory
$2,000 per day ex GST, minimum two days. Scoped to a question with an answer at the end of it — a decision, a recommendation, a document you can act on.
Advisory retainer
From $3,500 per month ex GST, month to month, no minimum term, cancel any time. Ten to sixteen hours a month of security leadership: standing availability, decision support, board and insurer material, vendor and architecture review.
Because capacity is finite and the work is judgement rather than hands, we take a small number of retainers at a time. If we are full we will tell you, rather than take the work and do it badly.
Where we changed our mind
We used to rule retainers out entirely, and for engineering we still do — a retainer for build work bills you for our availability rather than your outcome.
Advisory is different, and we were wrong about it. Nobody hands over security leadership and walks away; they either employ someone or rent someone. Refusing to rent it does not protect you from dependency, it just sends you to someone else. So: month to month, no minimum term, and no lock-in anywhere it matters.