From time to time, a customer may request a feature, capability, integration, or user-experience improvement that is not currently part of the Tidy platform or scheduled in the product development roadmap.
Where a request is important to a customer and requires Tidy to prioritise development specifically at their request, Tidy may offer to develop the capability under an Advancement Fee arrangement.
What an Advancement Fee Is
An Advancement Fee is a customer-funded prioritisation mechanism that allows Tidy to temporarily re-prioritise its product development work in order to investigate and develop a specific capability requested by a customer.
An Advancement Fee is:
A fee paid by the requesting customer for Tidy to prioritise development of a specific feature
Not a consultancy engagement
Not bespoke or custom software development
Not a charge that reflects the full cost of development
Instead, it is a contribution that enables Tidy to allocate product development resources earlier than would normally occur within the product roadmap.
Why a Fee Exists
Even relatively small product enhancements often require work across multiple disciplines within the Tidy organisation, including:
Product planning and roadmap management
Technical architecture review
User experience and design work
Software engineering and development
Quality assurance and testing
Documentation creation
Training and knowledge resources via TidyAcademy
Because of this cross-team involvement, the true internal cost of developing product capabilities is often significantly greater than it may appear externally.
How the Fee Is Determined
The Advancement Fee is not calculated as a direct recovery of development cost.
Instead, Tidy determines a reasonable contribution level that:
Reflects the value of prioritising the work
Represents a meaningful commitment from the requesting customer
Covers maintenance, support, and training materials required for the feature’s continued success
Availability to Other Customers
Once developed, the feature becomes part of the Tidy product platform.
Other customers may access the capability where appropriate, typically by requesting activation or configuration. Tidy may choose to promote or incorporate the feature more broadly in the future as part of normal product evolution.
Important Clarifications
Advancement Fees do not create exclusive ownership of a feature.
Features developed under this model become part of the core Tidy platform.
Tidy retains full product design and implementation control to ensure consistency, performance, and long-term maintainability.
Payment of an Advancement Fee prioritises investigation and development, but specific delivery dates cannot be guaranteed.
Advancement Fees are non-refundable once development work has commenced, as the fee represents the prioritisation of product development resources.
In some cases, during investigation or design, Tidy may determine that the requested capability is not feasible or conflicts with platform architecture, security requirements, or long-term product direction.
