After your enquiry, Rafiki’s team will typically send you a proposal within 24 hours, depending on the specifics. You’ll receive profiles, rate ranges, and project fit summaries. Talent can start as early as 72 hours, though most projects begin within a week of approval, with contracts and onboarding handled immediately on sign-off. Should you wish to negotiate rates and contracts directly, we’re able to support this engagement too.

Engagements can start from as little as 2–20 hours per week or scale into full-time project coverage. You can hire individual specialists or complete micro-agency squads. Many clients convert successful fractional engagements into longer retainers or full-time roles, with Rafiki facilitating smooth contract-to-hire transitions when desired.

Should you need, Rafiki can provide Contractor of Record (CoR) or Employer of Record (EoR) services in 130+ countries.

Pricing varies by specialist, role, and region, but all fees are presented upfront with clear, transparent breakdowns. There are no hidden mark-ups. You receive consolidated invoices with full visibility into hours worked, deliverables, and supporting documentation where required.
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For teams that want fast and affordable cross-border settlement, Petl Pay supports payments across regulated fiat rails and stablecoin mechanisms. This includes invoicing and settlement in USD, EUR, and GBP, as well as direct cross-border payouts into ZAR and other supported African currencies.

Clients are invoiced through Petl Pay, which manages invoicing and payments securely for work delivered via Rafiki. Should you not wish to leverage Petl Pay, you will simply recieve and invoice with project-specific bank details. This payment will be redirected into the relevant wallet or bank details for the talent/s engaged automatically.

If you prefer to handle payments directly and transact off-platform, Rafiki can accommodate this and support coordination as needed.

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Rafiki focuses on experienced operators rather than open marketplaces. Engagements are clearly scoped upfront, and delivery expectations are aligned between client and specialist. Where needed, Rafiki can support ongoing check-ins and delivery oversight.

Rafiki Works places AI-leveraged fractional operators who deliver scoped outcomes across AI engineering, automation, GTM and growth. You can engage us three ways: managed delivery where we own the outcome, talent-to-business placement where you manage directly, or a full systems build with handover to a vetted specialist for ongoing iteration. The result is senior output without a senior salary or a six-month hire.

After your enquiry we typically send a proposal within 24 hours, with a ranked shortlist of profiles, rate ranges and fit summaries. Most engagements begin within a week of sign-off, and talent can start as early as 72 hours where the brief is clear. Contracts and onboarding are handled on approval.

Engagements can start from a few hours per week and scale to multi-day or full project coverage. You can bring on a single specialist or a small senior-led squad. Common shapes include fractional AI engineer, fractional GTM lead, automation build, and full systems build with handover. Many clients convert successful fractional engagements into longer retainers.

We take a three-stage approach to vetting every applicant. Following an application, top prospects are invited for an interview where we assess their skills, experience, and work aspirations. We prioritise skill and output over traditional degrees or titles, and we cross-check all references or testimonials before acceptance.

To date, fewer than 1% of applicants have been accepted into our Experts in Residence programme. This includes both individual specialists and sector-specific micro-agencies, teams experienced in delivering design, tech, and marketing solutions for early-stage startups, growth-phase businesses, and established agencies. Every approved expert is verified through ongoing project feedback and KYC compliance checks inside Petl, our payments provider.

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An agency bills project rates then hands you juniors. A marketplace leaves you to manage contracts, compliance and quality alone. A full-time hire is slow and the wrong shape for where most teams are. Rafiki gives you a small, senior, AI-leveraged team that owns the outcome, and gets faster and cheaper as the models improve. You are swapping a vendor, not running a reorg.

The majority of our bench uses tools like Claude Code and ChatGPT as daily working tools, and our management team builds production AI systems, including the MCP server that powers our own talent pool. It matters because the human brings the judgement and taste while AI absorbs the rote work, so you get senior-quality outcomes faster and at lower cost than a traditional hire.

Yes. Our Talent MCP server is live and available by enquiry. Once connected to your Claude account or set up as a custom GPT, you can search the pool, filter by skill, rate and availability, and request a ranked shortlist from a natural-language brief. End-to-end invoicing and instant settlement from chat are in private beta.

We work with experienced operators rather than open marketplaces. Every engagement is scoped upfront with clear delivery expectations agreed between you and the specialist, and we provide as much or as little oversight and project management as you need. On managed engagements we own delivery, reporting and outputs.