Your own senior developer. One flat monthly rate.
I design, build, and ship custom software in C# and WPF — the same developer on your project every day, for a flat $6,000/month retainer. No agencies, no markup, no surprise invoices.
2014
Studio founded
9+
Products shipped
1
Developer, end to end
$6k
Flat monthly retainer
The Problem
Every way to get custom software built has a catch
The Agency
$150–250/hr
- You pitch to a senior partner, then juniors do the work
- Every conversation goes through an account manager
- Scope changes mean change orders and renegotiation
- Easily $25k+ per month before anything ships
The Freelance Marketplace
It's a lottery
- No way to verify skill until you've already paid for it
- Projects abandoned mid-stream with no recourse
- Communication across time zones and language barriers
- You become the project manager, QA, and architect
The Full-Time Hire
$130k+ /yr loaded
- Months of recruiting before a single line of code
- Salary, benefits, equipment, payroll taxes
- A bad hire costs you a year, not a month
- Overkill if you need a product built, not a department
The retainer model fixes all three: senior-level work, full-time focus, and a price you can actually budget for — without hiring anyone.
Why RedZone
Why custom development is better with me
You talk to the developer
No account managers, no telephone game, no markup on someone else's hours. The person you email is the person writing your code — every requirement lands exactly as you said it.
A decade of shipping my own products
I've run RedZone Studios since 2014, shipping software and games that I had to live with after launch. I build your product the way I build mine: to still be maintainable five years from now.
Game-developer polish
Game development is unforgiving — players notice every dropped frame and clunky screen. I bring that same obsession with responsiveness and detail to business software, where most of the industry settles for "good enough."
Deep C# and WPF expertise
Desktop and business applications in C#, WPF, and .NET are my home turf — line-of-business tools, real-time systems, and polished UIs that non-technical users actually enjoy using.
One person, zero handoffs
Architecture, implementation, testing, deployment — one accountable person owns the whole thing. Nothing gets lost between a designer, a backend team, and a contractor.
Code you actually own
Clean, documented source delivered continuously to your repository. If we part ways, any competent developer can pick it up — you're never held hostage by your own codebase.
Pricing
One number. That's the whole pricing page.
No hourly tracking, no tiers, no estimates that double halfway through. You get a full-time senior developer for a flat monthly retainer.
The Retainer
$6,000/month
A full-time senior developer, dedicated to you
- Full-time, dedicated development — your project is my day job
- Senior-level work across the whole stack: UI, business logic, data, deployment
- Direct line to me — email, phone, or your team's Slack. No account managers.
- Working builds delivered weekly, not status decks
- Requirements, architecture, documentation, and support included
- You own 100% of the source code and IP from day one
- Month to month. No long-term contract. Cancel anytime.
Compare: a typical agency team runs $25k+/month. A loaded senior hire runs $11k+/month — after months of recruiting.
How It Works
From first email to first build
- 1
Email me
Tell me what you're trying to build, in plain English. A paragraph is plenty.
- 2
Free scoping call
We talk through goals, constraints, and timeline. You get my honest read on what it takes — even if the answer is "you don't need me for this."
- 3
Start within a week
No procurement cycle, no onboarding theater. The retainer starts and so does the work.
- 4
Working software, fast
You see real builds in the first weeks and every week after. Priorities shift as you learn — that's the point of a retainer.
FAQ
Fair questions
Why a retainer instead of a fixed-bid quote?
Fixed bids force both sides to pretend the spec won't change — then punish you when it does. A flat retainer means you can reprioritize any week without renegotiating a contract. You get a full-time developer pointed at whatever matters most right now.
Who actually writes the code?
I do. Jeff King, founder of RedZone Studios. Nothing is subcontracted, offshored, or handed to a junior. The work you see is the work I did.
What if I only need a few months?
Then hire me for a few months. The retainer is month to month with no minimum term — many projects are a 3–6 month push, and that's fine.
What technologies do you work in?
Primarily C#, WPF, and the .NET ecosystem — desktop applications, business tools, services, and the databases behind them. If your project fits that world, I'm likely the right fit.
Do I own the code?
Completely. All source code and IP are yours from day one, delivered to a repository you control.
One retainer client at a time gets my full attention
That's the whole model — which means availability is limited. If you have a project in mind, the scoping call is free and the honest answer is guaranteed.
jeff@redzonestudios.com