Performance That Improves Every Month
A monthly retainer embedding performance engineering into your development cycle — continuous profiling, CI/CD performance gates, monthly P99 review, and proactive bottleneck identification before users notice.
You might be experiencing...
A performance retainer solves the fundamental problem with one-time performance sprints: architecture changes continuously, and the performance profile you optimised three months ago is different from the one you have today. Every new feature, new dependency, and new traffic pattern can introduce regressions that undo previous work. Continuous engineering prevents that drift.
The highest-leverage component of the retainer is CI/CD performance gating: automated checks that run performance benchmarks against every significant deployment and block regressions before they reach production. A deployment that increases P99 latency on a critical endpoint by 20% is caught in staging, investigated by the developer who made the change, and fixed before users experience it. This shifts performance responsibility left — from a specialised retrospective investigation to a normal part of the development process.
Monthly P99 trend analysis provides engineering leadership with a concrete, objective measure of whether the system is getting faster or slower over time. Endpoints that are trending upward get proactive attention before they become user-facing problems. Endpoints that have been stable for 90 days at good performance levels are deprioritised, allowing effort to focus where it matters. The retainer produces the data needed to make these decisions confidently.
Engagement Phases
Monthly Performance Review
We review the previous month's performance trends from your APM and profiling data, identify regressions correlated with specific deployments, and investigate the top 3 performance issues for the month. We prepare pull requests for quick wins implementable within the month.
CI/CD Gate Maintenance
We maintain performance gate thresholds in your CI/CD pipeline, adjusting baselines as the system evolves and adding new gates for new critical paths. We review gate violations from the previous month and tune thresholds to reduce false positives.
Reporting & Planning
We deliver a monthly performance report with P99 trends by endpoint, regression analysis, and a recommended optimisation backlog for the next quarter. We attend your engineering review to present findings and align on performance investment priorities.
Deliverables
Before & After
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| P99 latency trend | Degrading gradually | Improving monthly |
| Regressions caught | Post-deploy (user reports) | Pre-deploy (CI gate) |
| Performance budget compliance | 0% (no budget) | 95% endpoints in budget |
Tools We Use
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a performance budget and why does it matter?
A performance budget is a set of thresholds for key metrics — P99 latency per endpoint, bundle size, Lighthouse score — that your application must stay within. CI/CD gates enforce the budget automatically: a deployment that would push an endpoint's P99 above threshold fails the gate and is blocked. Performance budgets create a shared standard that makes performance everyone's responsibility, not just a specialist's.
How much engineering time does this require from our team?
We aim for minimal demand on your team's time. The monthly review requires a 1-hour meeting with an engineering lead and a technical contact to discuss findings. PR reviews for our changes follow your normal review process. We do not require a dedicated point of contact — we work asynchronously and escalate only when we need a decision.
Can you help us define a P99 SLA for a customer contract?
Yes. After 3 months of retainer, we have enough trend data to define defensible P99 commitments based on measured performance under realistic load. We can produce a performance baseline document that specifies P50/P95/P99 by endpoint category, measurement methodology, and the monitoring that enforces the SLA. This is frequently requested by fintech and enterprise SaaS clients.
Your P99 Deserves Better
Book a free 30-minute performance scope call with our engineers. We review your latency profile, identify the most impactful optimization target, and scope a sprint to fix it.
Talk to an Expert