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08 /Compare · Studio vs. agency
Traditional agencies are built for procurement processes, not for shipping. We are the opposite: a deliberately small studio where the people who pitched you are the people who build for you.
Big agencies bill for hours. We bill for outcomes. Big agencies sell with senior people and deliver with juniors. The person who pitches you at Mahdius is the person who builds for you.
01 /Dimension by dimension
| Dimension | A traditional 30 to 100-person agency | Mahdius Studio |
|---|---|---|
| Typical engagement price | Enterprise project fees | Managed monthly or custom-scoped |
| Who you meet in the pitch | Senior partners | The actual team |
| Who actually builds it | Junior team, supervised | Same senior team that pitched |
| Typical project length | 4 – 9 months | 4 – 16 weeks |
| Decisions per week | Steering committees, weekly review boards | Direct — Friday demos, Monday decisions |
| Number of agency people on calls | 4 – 8 (account, strategy, design, dev, PM…) | 1 – 2 |
| Process documentation | Heavy — Confluence, Notion, decks | Light — code, Figma, Friday recordings |
| Vendor management | Roster of subs (frontend, brand, copy) | Full stack in-house |
| Procurement-friendly | Yes | Light contracts; we can adapt for enterprise procurement |
| When work runs over scope | Change orders, often substantial | Fixed-price; over-scope is on us |
When we are the right call
When we are not
03 /Honest answers
For unusually large engagements we sometimes assemble a small extended team — vetted freelancers we work with regularly. The accountability stays with Mahdius. The scale-up is invisible to you. If your project genuinely needs 30 people, we will tell you to hire an agency.
In specific verticals (pharma regulatory, financial-services compliance, deep-research B2B), yes. For 90% of engagements — SaaS, DTC, hospitality, agencies, local businesses, AI products — our specialists are deep enough. We will be honest if you fall into the 10%.
Two reasons. We do not pay for an account team that does not ship. And we do not pay for sales people who do not build. Most of an agency's rate covers people you never meet.
Contact · Start a conversation
Send us the brief. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit — or who is.
Fixed-scope proposal · You keep all IP · Milestone payments · NDA on request