Ironstack
SOVEREIGN INFRASTRUCTURE · THE FRESH BUILD
The Ironstack Stack is the build for a fresh start: CRM, files, projects, invoicing, automation and monitoring, installed on your own server, wired together, and configured for how you work. A fixed setup fee in the proposal, then the monthly retainer from €150, excl. btw.
I · THE PROBLEM
A new company, a new branch, a spin-off, or a business that has simply outgrown the shoebox-of-free-tiers phase: this is the one moment you get to choose your foundations without moving anything. Most companies spend that moment signing up for the same six subscriptions as everyone else, and by year three they are welded in, paying per seat for tools that hold their entire operation hostage to the next price increase.
You do not have to start there. For the price of a modest server and one deliberate setup, the same categories of tooling can run on ground that is yours, from day one, with nothing to unwind later.
This is not idealism. It is the cheaper path in the long run, and the audit-grade numbers are on the stack register page: my own register runs on one server for under €20 a month, where the rented equivalents start around €80 a month for a single seat.
II · WHAT IT IS, CONCRETELY
The Stack is not a bundle; it is a composition. The core is the same stack that runs Ironstack itself, every piece of it in daily production, and the selection is configured to your business: a workshop needs different systems than a law firm.
The usual composition
On your server · under your accounts · wired together
“Wired together” is the part that separates a stack from a pile of installs: a lead from your website lands in the CRM, a won deal becomes a project, a finished project becomes an invoice, and the monitoring watches all of it. Email goes to an EU provider on your own domain rather than the stack server, because self-hosted email deliverability is a risk I recommend against, and I put that in writing.
Setup usually takes two to four weeks through a lighter version of the five-phase method. You hold the server, the accounts, the documentation, and a system your team has actually been trained on. A fixed setup fee in the proposal, billed 50% on signing and 50% on go-live, then the monthly retainer under Managed Sovereignty from €150; both numbers are known before anything starts, and neither moves.
See the full price register for how the Stack compares with a migration and with the retainer tiers.
III · A FAIR MATCH
IV · WHERE IT SITS
The Stack is one of the two builds. Where Migration moves an existing environment, the Stack starts clean, which makes it the faster and cheaper of the two. A short audit still precedes it when there is anything to inventory; both builds run through the five-phase method and end in Managed Sovereignty, where I stay responsible for what we built.
And once the stack runs, the AI & Automation layer has a home: assistants and automations work best when they can reach every system, and here they can, because every system is on the same server, under your keys.
Whatever your business needs, drawn from a core of proven pieces: CRM, file storage and sharing, project management, invoicing, an automation layer, and monitoring. The core is the same stack that runs Ironstack itself; the composition is configured to how you work, not sold as a bundle.
The Stack is the build for a fresh start: little or nothing to move, so no parallel-running and switch-over choreography. It is faster and cheaper than a migration for the same reason a new house is easier than a renovation.
A fixed setup fee, quoted in the proposal after a free discovery call and in the same range as the migration tiers on the price register. Then the retainer under Managed Sovereignty from €150 a month. All excl. btw, billed 50% on signing and 50% on go-live, and neither number moves. The server itself is yours, typically under €20 a month at an EU provider, billed at cost with no markup.
Usually two to four weeks from kickoff to handover, since there is little to migrate. The five-phase method still applies, just lighter: design, build, validate, hand over.
Yes, and without per-seat fees. New team members cost nothing; new systems are added to the same server or a second one when the time comes. The architecture is documented, so growth is a plan, not an archaeology project.
Email goes to a specialized EU provider on your own domain rather than the stack server, because self-hosted email deliverability is a risk I recommend against. You get EU jurisdiction and portability without gambling your inbox placement; if you insist on self-hosted mail, I will build it with the trade-off in writing.
Tell me what you are building and what should run underneath it. You will get a straight answer. Sometimes the honest answer is that you do not need me.