Pricing

Three engagement modes

SleuthX covers the full ladder from $100/mo subscription to $50,000 multi-actor forensic investigation. The mode that fits your situation depends on whether you need an AI agent operating in one of three tiers (subscription), a scoped court-admissible deliverable (project), or open-ended senior-practitioner time (hourly). Most consumers start at the subscription tier. Most attorneys start at the project tier. Both are scoped on the free first call.

The personal pricing ladder

Each rung is roughly 2x the previous floor. The ladder is structured so that you only pay for the rung that matches your situation — most people do not need the highest rung. We start at the rung that fits the work, scope it in writing, and only escalate with a written scope update you authorize first.

1. Triage Assessment — $995 flat. Suspect compromise, harassment, or partner surveillance, and you do not know what is real. Used when something feels wrong but the picture is not clear yet. Flat fee, fixed scope, written triage report.
2. Single-Device Forensics — $2,500 to $4,500. Triage confirmed something real on one device (phone, laptop, tablet). Forensic acquisition, examination, written court-admissible report. Floor $2,500; typical $4,500; premium $7,500 for unusually complex single-device cases.
3. Multi-Device Divorce / Family — $5,000 to $15,000. Active divorce, custody dispute, family-law evidence work. Multiple devices, deleted-content recovery, account-activity timeline, chain-of-custody documentation, expert testimony coordination. Floor $5,000; typical $8,000; premium $15,000.
4. Active Harassment / Stalkerware — $5,000 to $10,000. Ongoing stalking, ex-partner harassment, active surveillance. Stalkerware investigation across all devices, account hardening, attribution work, evidence package for protective order or police report. Sliding scale routinely applied in DV cases.
5. Complex Multi-Actor — $15,000 to $50,000. Identity-theft rings, multi-actor harassment, layered scams (romance-to-crypto, executive sextortion, pig-butchering rings). Coordinated investigation across multiple devices, accounts, and jurisdictions. Often coordinated with breach counsel and law enforcement.
6. Expert Witness — $5,000 retainer + $400/hr. Your case proceeds to litigation. $5,000 engagement retainer; bills against the same standardized $400/hr that all our other forensic and advisory work bills at. Case review, deposition prep, deposition, and trial testimony all bill at the same rate. Available for rebuttal of opposing-side reports.

Hourly rate

One rate, every service. $400/hour for personal digital forensics, divorce and family forensics, hacked-account recovery, OSINT, breach-counsel support, and every bracket of expert-witness work (case review, deposition prep, deposition, trial testimony). The methodology, senior-practitioner involvement, and court-admissible documentation overhead are the same across every case, so the rate is the same.

Surge is reserved for active 24/7 incidents only — active ransomware, active BEC, active exfiltration, active harassment. Hourly engagements without a retainer carry a 4-hour-per-session minimum.

Payment

All standard payment methods are accepted via Stripe — credit card, debit card, and ACH bank transfer for US clients. For larger engagements (over $5,000) we prefer ACH or wire transfer to keep processing costs down for both sides. Subscription tiers ($200, $400, $600, $1,500/month) check out via Stripe Payment Links with a 7-day free trial. Project-based forensic engagements collect a $5,000 refundable retainer before any billable work begins; payment instructions go out in the engagement letter.

Cross-cutting policies

Free first call

The 30-minute consultationis free, NDA-protected, and confidential. If your case can be handled at the SleuthX Standard subscription tier, with the free version of SleuthX, or with a referral to a different specialist (police, IC3, a licensed Florida PI, breach counsel, the platform's own recovery process), we will tell you that and decline the engagement. We do not take cases for billing reasons. We take cases where forensic work is actually the right answer.

Written scope before any billable work

Every engagement is scoped in writing before any retainer is collected. The estimate names the hour range, the deliverables, and the milestone gateswhere scope is reviewed before additional time bills.

Refundable retainer

Project engagements use a $5,000 refundable retainer (proportional for larger work). The retainer is held against the rate card; unused balance is refunded at engagement close. Expert-witness engagements use a $5,000 engagement retainer that bills against the case-review / deposition / trial brackets.

Multipliers (when they apply)

• Surge 1.35x ($540/hr) — active 24/7 incidents only (active ransomware, active BEC, active exfiltration, active harassment).
• After-hours 1.5x ($600/hr) — nights, weekends, holidays at client request, non-surge work.
• Rush 1.25x ($500/hr) — client-driven turnaround under 5 business days, non-active-incident.
• Travel 0.5x ($200/hr) — door-to-door, plus expense passthrough.

Sliding scale for survivors

Domestic-violence survivors, active-threat cases, and victims of cyber crime where money is a barrier are eligible for sliding-scale pricing applied during the first call. No paperwork required. We do not publish the reduced rate publicly because it depends on the case. Tell us during the consultation and we will work it out. No survivor will be turned away for cost.

Attorney volume

Attorneys with 3 or more active cases per quarter receive floor pricing on subsequent personal-side cases (internal volume policy). The $995 triage anchor, surge work, and expert-witness rates are not discounted.

Need B2B, enterprise, or federal pricing?

SleuthX is the consumer-facing brand. Enterprise DFIR, vCISO, MDR, managed cybersecurity, SOC 2, CMMC, FedRAMP, HIPAA, ISO 27001, ITAR, red team, pentest, and federal advisory work runs through our sister brand at varcoe.ai. Same legal entity (Blueberry Security Global, Inc.), same Quinn, different brand voice for the B2B audience. The full B2B rate card lives at varcoe.ai/pricing.

What we will not do

• Bill for work outside the written scope without a scope update first
• Quote a low rate for senior-practitioner work and then deliver junior work
• Take a case where simpler steps (police report, IC3 filing, platform-native recovery, the SleuthX Standard subscription) would resolve the situation
• Promise outcomes we cannot guarantee
• Discount the $995 triage anchor or surge-rate work

How to schedule

1. Free first call. 30 minutes. NDA-protected. Book on Calendly or call (239) 241-8095.
2. Written scope and estimate. Within 24 hours of the call, you receive a written engagement letter naming the engagement mode (subscription, project, or hourly), the rate or rung, deliverables, and retainer.
3. Retainer + start. Project engagements start with a $5,000 refundable retainer (proportional for larger work). Unused balance is refunded at engagement close. Subscription engagements start with the 1 week free trial at sleuthx.ai/app.
4. Investigation, report, optional testimony. Court-admissible methodology, written report, expert testimony coordination if your case ends up in court.