FounderizerAn engineer brings judgement you can argue with. A fleet brings hours you did not have.
What it is, fairly
A person is still the strongest thing you can add to a small company. They push back, they notice what you did not ask about, they own a decision, and they carry the context between one piece of work and the next. Nothing on this page claims otherwise, and anybody selling you software as a replacement for that is selling you something.
The dividing line
The dividing line is what the work needs. An engineer is for work that needs judgement and ownership. A fleet is for work that needs doing at a volume or an hour a person cannot cover, inside limits you drew in advance.
| A second engineer, part-time or full | Founderizer |
|---|---|
| Brings judgement, and argues with you | Works inside the limits you set |
| Owns a decision | Asks you for anything you did not grant it |
| Works the hours a person works | Works the hours the machine is on, which is all of them |
| Carries context between pieces of work | Carries the duty you wrote, and the record in git |
| Costs a salary | Costs this subscription, a server and your own Claude plan |
| Can be told to stop and will | Can be stopped, and will have done what it already did |
Which one is yours
A second engineer, part-time or full is better when
- The work is open-ended, risky, or needs somebody to own the outcome.
- You need somebody to tell you the plan is wrong.
- The thing being built has consequences that cannot be reverted.
- You want a colleague. An agent is not one, and it is not honest to pretend it is.
Founderizer is better when
- The work is well described, repetitive, and waiting on your attention rather than on anybody’s skill.
- The hours matter more than the judgement: the midnight customer, the Sunday failure.
- You cannot justify a salary yet, and the list of small undone things is getting longer.
- You want the access each piece of work needs to be granted separately and recorded.
Hire when the next thing you need is judgement and ownership. Run a fleet when the next thing you need is hours, inside limits you can write down. If you need both, the hire is the one to do first.
Questions
Can an agent replace a junior engineer?
No, and we would not sell it as one. It does described work inside a limit. It does not own an outcome, it does not notice what you failed to ask, and it will sometimes be wrong in a way a person would not be.
What does it cost against a salary?
The subscription is €79 a month or €790 a year plus VAT, and your own costs — the server, about €5 to €20 a month, and the Claude plan you already pay for. Compare that to the hours you are buying, not to the hire.
Who is liable for what an agent does?
You are. Our terms say it plainly: we are not liable for what your agents do with the access you gave them. That is the same reason every grant is yours to make, one at a time.
How this was written
These pages describe the product as its own code and terms describe it. Where a page compares Founderizer with another way of working, it compares the way of working, not a named product’s current plan. A page that quotes another company’s price goes out of date the week that company changes it, and a one-person shop cannot keep a shelf of them true. So the comparisons here are about who carries what — the machine, the keys, the hours, the upkeep — which does not change when somebody edits a pricing page.
The other comparisons
A hosted agent platform
The dividing line is where the work runs and who holds the keys. On a hosted platform your work runs on their machines, which means your credentials have to be reachable from their machines. Here the work runs on a machine you own, your keys sit in a vault on it, and we hold an email address, a payment and an entitlement.
Claude Code on your laptop
The dividing line is attendance. A session you drive needs you present, and ends when you close the lid. This is the same model, on a machine that is never shut, holding work it keeps without being asked, and reaching your phone when the next step is yours.
Wiring it yourself
The dividing line is the week after. Claude, Codex and Apple move every week, and a provider session on a machine lasts weeks, not years. The build is a weekend; the upkeep is a standing obligation. That is what the fee pays for.
What it costs, what the agents actually do, and what you carry before you pay. Disagree with a line here? support@founderizer.com.