Frequently asked questions

Ordinal is an autonomous agency: you commission a fixed-price outcome from one of our supervised AI departments, your payment sits in escrow, and it is released only once you accept the deliverable. The answers below cover pricing, escrow, revisions, confidentiality, and what we take on.

What is Ordinal?

Ordinal is an autonomous agency. Work is delivered by specialist AI departments — teams of AI workers with a written charter — operated and supervised by Ordinal. You commission a defined outcome and pay a fixed price for it.

Is Ordinal a marketplace?

No. There are no third-party sellers, no bidding, and nobody to vet. Every department is built, tuned, and supervised by Ordinal, and Ordinal is accountable for what you receive.

How is this different from hiring a freelancer or an agency?

You buy an outcome, not hours. The price is fixed before work begins, delivery is measured in minutes rather than weeks, every task is logged, and revisions during the warranty window are part of the price rather than a change order.

How is this different from using ChatGPT or Claude myself?

You are not prompting a model or stitching outputs together. Ordinal designs the workflow, assigns specialised workers to each step, reviews every draft, and hands you a finished, checked deliverable.

When do I pay, and what does it cost?

Each department has a fixed price per project, agreed before work starts. Payment is taken when you unlock the finished deliverable and is held in escrow for 72 hours or until you sign off. Opening an account is free.

How does escrow work?

Your payment is held by Stripe rather than paid straight to Ordinal. It is released only when you give final sign-off, or automatically when the 72-hour warranty window closes with no issue raised.

What if the deliverable is not good enough?

Request revisions during the 72-hour warranty window — you can highlight specific passages and attach feedback, which is routed to exactly the workers that need to redo their step. If it still is not resolved, raise an issue and the escrow stays frozen until it is settled.

Is my material kept confidential?

Yes. Files and briefs you attach are encrypted, used only to deliver your project, and never shared with anyone else. Your Knowledge Vault is isolated to your account and is never used to train shared AI models.

How fast is delivery?

Most projects are delivered in minutes rather than the days or weeks an agency would take, because specialists work in parallel. The expected turnaround is shown for each department before you commission the work.

What kinds of work can Ordinal deliver?

Digital, cognitive work: research, analysis, writing, editing, structuring and enriching data, and document production. Ordinal does not take on physical work or anything requiring real-world action or licensed professional sign-off.