For organizations

Crisis exercise vs the consultancy retainer.

A bespoke tabletop from a crisis consultancy averages around thirty thousand dollars for a single afternoon. For comparable spend, a Force Majeure crisis exercise runs as a rerunnable program on your real footprint, refreshed quarterly and scored into a board-ready report.

The short answer

Same budget, an afternoon or a year.

A custom tabletop built by a consultancy averages around thirty thousand dollars, and roughly one in five buyers pays more than fifty thousand. That spend typically buys a single facilitated afternoon on a scenario written for the occasion. It is well-run work, and the advisers are good. The structure is the limit: when the day is over, the exercise is over, and a fast-moving risk picture has nowhere to go but stale.

Indicative Force Majeure pricing covers the same range and turns it into a program. A full bespoke exercise on your footprint is about thirty to fifty thousand dollars, and an annual readiness package with quarterly exercises, a standing scenario library, and a board briefing is about eighty to one hundred fifty thousand a year. The exercise is rerunnable, generated against your real sector and country footprint, scored on a published rubric, and written into a board-ready after-action report. It positions itself as the first simulation to score financial and cultural decisions together, the two skills that decide who survives a high-risk market. Pricing is indicative for scoping.


The cost case

What the average spend really buys.

The headline number is similar on both sides, so the question is what sits behind it. A one-off bespoke tabletop concentrates the whole budget into a single event: discovery, a facilitated session, and a debrief, delivered once. Rerun it next year and you are paying close to full price again, because the deliverable was the afternoon, not an asset you keep.

A Force Majeure exercise spreads the same kind of budget across a program. The scenario set is built once on your footprint, then refreshed each quarter at low marginal cost, so the second run and the tenth cost far less than the first. The judgment inside it was pressure-tested in the hardest markets on earth and calibrated to a 2021 Harvard Business Review study by the founders, which found community-embedded firms were about three times more likely to stay profitable and nine times more likely to survive a crisis. That is what turns comparable spend into a standing capability rather than a one-time cost.


Side by side

What a risk team gets from each.

What matters to a risk teamForce Majeure crisis exerciseOne-off consultancy tabletop
Indicative costAbout $30k to $50k bespoke; $80k to $150k a year for a programAverages around $30k; a fifth pay more than $50k
What it buysA rerunnable program, refreshed quarterlyA single facilitated afternoon
Cost to rerunLow marginal cost each quarterClose to full price again
ScenarioBuilt on your real sector and country footprintCustom for the day, then frozen
OutputBoard-ready after-action report on a published rubricA debrief and a deck
What you keepA standing scenario library and a readiness recordThe memory of one session

Cost figures are indicative and reflect the productized supply we surveyed. Specific vendors and retainers differ; we are happy to map Force Majeure against whatever you run or budget for today.


What the buyer receives

A program, not an afternoon, scored into a report.

A standing program

Run on a cadence, not once.

An annual readiness package delivers quarterly exercises and a standing scenario library on your real footprint, so readiness is exercised on the cadence the risk actually moves.

Built on your map

Your sectors, your countries.

Scenarios are generated against your real operating geography and calibrated to real data such as V-Dem and ACLED, rather than a script written for one occasion and shelved.

Documented

A board-ready report.

Every run is scored on a published rubric and written up as a board-ready after-action report, plus an annual board briefing a committee can report against.

Treat Force Majeure as an upgrade or a complement: it does not retire a trusted adviser, it gives the relationship a rerunnable exercise underneath it. We are glad to map the program against whatever consultancy or retainer you run today.

See the enterprise briefing →

Common questions

Crisis exercise and the consultancy retainer, briefly.

How much does a bespoke consultancy tabletop cost?

A custom one-off tabletop built by a crisis consultancy averages around thirty thousand dollars, and roughly a fifth of buyers pay more than fifty thousand. That buys a single facilitated afternoon. Indicative Force Majeure pricing for a full bespoke exercise is about thirty to fifty thousand dollars, and an annual readiness program with quarterly exercises is about eighty to one hundred fifty thousand a year. Pricing is indicative for scoping.

What do I get for comparable spend with Force Majeure?

Instead of one facilitated afternoon, a rerunnable exercise on your real sector and country footprint, refreshed quarterly, scored on a published rubric, and written into a board-ready after-action report. The same budget buys a standing program rather than a single event.

Is this a replacement for our crisis consultancy?

It complements one. A consultancy retainer adds senior advisers and live incident support, which Force Majeure does not. Force Majeure supplies the rerunnable exercise itself: a footprint-specific, quarterly-refreshed program scored into a report. Many teams keep an adviser relationship and use Force Majeure as the standing exercise underneath it.

Read about geopolitical risk training, the board crisis readiness brief, or see the enterprise briefing.

Next step

Tell us your footprint and your budget. We reply with a scoped brief and indicative pricing.

Request a corporate brief