AFRICABRIDGEConsulting (ABC) Group
Engagement models & investment

Fixed fees, priced against the value at stake.

Every AfricaBridge engagement is a fixed fee tied to milestones — never hourly. You get cost certainty; we absorb scope risk; and the fee is judged the only way it should be: against the contract, funding, or cost exposure the engagement protects. Senior practitioners lead every mandate. There is no pyramid, and you are never billed for one.

Consulting mandates

Four engagement models.

Ranges are published deliberately: the exact fixed fee is set in each proposal after scoping. Negotiation happens on scope — never below the integrity of the work.

MODEL 1

Intelligence & Decision Products

Counterparty and partner due diligence, market-entry studies, buyer and funder landscapes, competitive and incumbency analysis, executive decision briefs — every claim tagged Verified, Likely, or Unconfirmed with sources named.

$2,500 – $7,500 · 1–3 weeks
$2,500–3,500 — single-subject brief (one counterparty, one landscape, one decision) · $4,000–5,500 — full market-entry or sector study, one market · $6,000–7,500 — multi-market comparative, index-grade scoring, or investor-memo depth.

MODEL 2

Diagnostic & Design Engagements

An ambiguous mandate in; a proven operating answer out. Governing question, tested hypotheses with stated kill conditions, a financial model your team can operate, operational design, and a capability handover tested by your team running it unaided.

$18,000 – $45,000 fixed · 6–12 weeks

MODEL 3

Government Capture & Proposal

Per-pursuit proposal responses — solicitation shred, compliance matrix, win themes, volume-structured drafting, red-team review — plus an optional capture retainer for pipeline, teaming, and bid discipline.

$4,500 – $15,000 per pursuit · retainer $2,500 – $6,000/mo
Pursuits: state/local & ToR responses at the lower band, multi-volume federal at the upper. Retainer scope: $2,500 — monthly pipeline + bid/no-bid on up to 3 targets · $4,000 — biweekly pipeline, teaming strategy, 5–6 targets · $6,000 — continuous capture across a full portfolio with registration and recompete management.

MODEL 4

Retained Executive Advisory

A senior thinking partner on call for a defined leadership team: standing strategy sessions, decision briefs on demand, and priority access for time-sensitive calls.

$3,500 – $7,500 / month · scope = defined access
$3,500 — one executive, monthly strategy session + one decision brief/mo · $5,500 — leadership team, biweekly sessions + two briefs/mo · $7,500 — board-facing cadence, weekly access + priority same-week turnaround.

Market context: the equivalent big-firm diagnostic is a $150K–$500K engagement staffed mostly by junior teams. AfricaBridge mandates are senior-led end to end — the structure the consulting market is repricing toward.

Funding & grant mandates

From funder intelligence to submitted application.

Full detail, including the Funding Office retainer, on the Funding & Grant Advisory page.

TIER 1

Funder Fit & Intelligence Brief

Who this funder actually funds — award history vs. published mandate, the realistic path in, and an honest go / no-go, including “don’t apply.”

$1,500 – $2,500 · credits toward Tier 2
$1,500 — one funder, one program, foundation or state · $2,000 — multi-program funder, federal NOFO complexity, or expedited · $2,500 — federal/DFI funder, invitation-only pathway mapping, or a ranked comparison across 2–3 candidate funders.

TIER 2

Complete Application Package

Intelligence, capture plan, narrative in the funder’s own priority language, results framework, compliant budget with verified arithmetic, drafted partner letters, and a simulated reviewer scoring the application before submission.

Foundation $4,500 – $7,500 · Federal $8,500 – $15,000

TIER 3

Annual Funding Program

A managed pipeline, a defined number of applications per year, and all funder reporting — continuous capacity without building an internal grants department.

$1,500 – $5,000 / month · scope = defined annual capacity
Foundation $1,500 — pipeline + up to 2 foundation applications/yr · Growth $2,500 — 4–6 applications incl. one federal-class · Institutional $5,000 — 8–12 applications across programs + all funder reporting. Detail on the Funding & Grant Advisory page.

Which model fits?

Start from your situation.

Pick the sentence that sounds like you — it sets the estimator below to the right engagement model.

Scope estimator

Check the scope. Watch the fee.

Every fee is derived from scope — this shows the derivation. Check what applies; the estimate and the included-work list update live. The final fixed fee is confirmed in a 30-minute scoping call, inside the band you see here.

Estimated fixed fee
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Included at this scope
    Discuss this scope →

    Estimates follow our published bands. Fees are fixed and milestone-triggered; never hourly, never a percentage of award. Outcomes are never guaranteed.

    How fees are set

    Four factors move a fee within its range.

    Every quote is derived, not improvised. The exact fixed fee lands after a scoping conversation, driven by the same four factors every time.

    SCOPE

    Breadth

    One subject, funder, or market sits at the low end; comparative work — multiple funders ranked, multiple markets scored — sits at the top.

    COMPLEXITY

    Jurisdiction & rules

    Foundation and state work is lighter; federal, DFI, and multilateral work carries heavier compliance, deeper paper trails, and stricter formats.

    DEPTH

    Deliverable grade

    A decision brief, a full study, and an investor-grade memorandum are different products; the deliverable named in scoping sets the band.

    SPEED

    Turnaround

    Standard timelines price at the base of the band; compressed timelines price above it — senior attention is the constraint.

    Why these fees hold: boutique specialists bill $250–$400 per hour — the senior analysis inside any of these products exceeds its fixed fee at market rates. And a $1,500 funder brief that returns “don’t apply” saves the $6,000+ application it would have preceded and sixty staff hours besides. Intelligence is the cheapest engagement we sell and the most expensive one to skip.

    Our fee ethics

    We never charge a percentage of your grant or contract.

    Commission and success-fee pricing violates the Grant Professionals Association and Association of Fundraising Professionals codes of ethics, is prohibited by most funders — including federal agencies — and can put an awarded grant at risk. Every AfricaBridge engagement is a transparent fixed fee, payable from operating funds, exactly as funders require. We follow your funder’s rules before we’ve met your funder. Funding and contract outcomes are never guaranteed.

    Milestone-triggered paymentFees are tied to signed phase gates and accepted deliverables — never to calendar dates.
    Scope, not discountsWhen budgets are tight we adjust the scope, never the integrity or the price of the work.
    Evidence you can auditEvery research claim we deliver is tagged Verified, Likely, or Unconfirmed, with sources named.
    Senior accountabilityEvery deliverable is reviewed and signed by the principal before it ships. Our platform accelerates the work; it never replaces the judgment — and you are buying the judgment.

    Bring us the decision, pursuit, or funding mandate.

    A 30-minute scoping conversation determines the right model — including telling you when a lighter one is enough.

    Discuss a confidential mandate →
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