StaqPilot
About Fly

We've been doing this long enough to know what goes wrong.

Fly is a MarTech consultancy. We work with B2B and nonprofit marketing teams on CRM, marketing automation, web, and technology strategy. StaqPilot is what happens when you run enough platform selections to know the questions that actually matter.

Fly team working with a client

CRM and marketing automation is what we do most.

We've selected, implemented, migrated, and rescued CRM and marketing automation platforms across B2B technology, professional services, financial services, cybersecurity, and nonprofit sectors.

That experience is what's encoded in StaqPilot. The questions we ask, the dimensions we score against, the categories we exclude — these come from watching platforms fail in specific, predictable ways, and from understanding the structural mismatches that cause those failures before they become expensive.

CRM & Marketing Automation

Platform selection, implementation, migration, and optimisation.

Website UX & Engineering

Digital experiences built for speed, scalability, and conversion.

Tech & Transformation

Systems and processes built to scale without adding headcount.

Nonprofit & NFP

Commercial-grade technology strategy for mission-driven organisations.

"Fly are without a doubt, the best contemporary marketing and technology thinkers you could hope to have the good fortune to be referred to and work with."

Gavin Keeble

SecondNature

How we think about platform selection

The martech landscape has grown from around 150 tools to over 15,000 in 14 years. Every vendor has a green checkmark. Review sites are structurally biased toward whoever pays to be on them. Peer references assume identical operating realities that rarely exist.

Our view is that good platform selection starts with the structural shape of the business — how it generates revenue, who it sells to, what its team can actually operate. Architecture mismatches are harder to recover from than feature gaps. Adoption failure is more common than capability failure. Pricing models matter more than price points when you're projecting two years ahead.

These aren't opinions arrived at theoretically. They're patterns we've seen repeat across enough engagements that they've become the foundation of how we evaluate every platform, for every client.

What we deliberately exclude — and why that matters

Before scoring a single platform for business fit, we exclude entire categories. A recommendation is only as good as the field it's drawn from.

Enterprise-first platforms

Built for governance models and specialist admin structures most SMEs cannot sustain. The total cost of ownership — consultants, licences, customisation — routinely exceeds what small teams can justify or maintain.

Zombie and sunset-risk platforms

Technically alive but quietly accumulating migration risk. Slowing investment and stalled roadmaps are warnings most SMEs only notice when it's too late to switch without pain.

Closed systems and walled gardens

Easy to enter, hard to exit. Proprietary formats and restricted integrations constrain your future options without advertising that they do so.

Immature platforms

Promising features, unproven durability. SMEs are not well-positioned to beta-test infrastructure. The cost of being an early adopter on a platform that doesn't make it is a forced migration under pressure.

DIY and canvas-first platforms

Flexible databases that can technically be shaped into a CRM. Long-term data model drift and governance dependency make these a structural risk as the business grows.

Hyper-niche platforms

Excellent inside a narrow context, risky as a central system of record for businesses that expect to grow or evolve beyond that context.

What our users say

"StaqPilot confirmed what we suspected — HubSpot was the right choice, but for different reasons than we thought. The dimension breakdown changed how we approached the vendor conversation."

SJ

Sarah Jones

Head of Marketing

"We were about to sign with a platform we'd demoed twice. StaqPilot showed us an integration depth gap we hadn't considered. Saved us a painful migration six months later."

JW

James Wilson

CEO, TechStart

"Finally something built for buyers, not vendors. The exclusion report alone was worth doing the diagnostic — it explained why enterprise platforms weren't right for us in a way no review site ever could."

DL

David Lee

VP Operations

"Took 4 minutes. The recommendation matched what a consultant told us after 3 weeks. Not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed that we spent £12k on the consultant."

MT

Michael Thompson

CEO, GrowthCo

"StaqPilot confirmed what we suspected — HubSpot was the right choice, but for different reasons than we thought. The dimension breakdown changed how we approached the vendor conversation."

SJ

Sarah Jones

Head of Marketing

"We were about to sign with a platform we'd demoed twice. StaqPilot showed us an integration depth gap we hadn't considered. Saved us a painful migration six months later."

JW

James Wilson

CEO, TechStart

"Finally something built for buyers, not vendors. The exclusion report alone was worth doing the diagnostic — it explained why enterprise platforms weren't right for us in a way no review site ever could."

DL

David Lee

VP Operations

"Took 4 minutes. The recommendation matched what a consultant told us after 3 weeks. Not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed that we spent £12k on the consultant."

MT

Michael Thompson

CEO, GrowthCo

"The team readiness dimension was a wake-up call. We were picking a platform based on features we'd never use because we didn't have the team to operate them."

AL

Amy Liu

COO, Meridian

"I shared the results with my co-founder and we aligned on a platform in one meeting. Before StaqPilot, we'd been going back and forth for two months."

RK

Raj Kumar

CTO, BuildStack

"The budget fit score was the most honest assessment I've seen. It didn't just compare list prices — it factored in what we'd actually need to spend to get value from each platform."

EP

Emma Pearce

Finance Director

"Used the validation call after getting my results. 15 minutes with someone who actually understood the nuances. No pitch, no pressure, just clarity. Refreshing."

TN

Tom Nguyen

Founder, NovaBrand

"The team readiness dimension was a wake-up call. We were picking a platform based on features we'd never use because we didn't have the team to operate them."

AL

Amy Liu

COO, Meridian

"I shared the results with my co-founder and we aligned on a platform in one meeting. Before StaqPilot, we'd been going back and forth for two months."

RK

Raj Kumar

CTO, BuildStack

"The budget fit score was the most honest assessment I've seen. It didn't just compare list prices — it factored in what we'd actually need to spend to get value from each platform."

EP

Emma Pearce

Finance Director

"Used the validation call after getting my results. 15 minutes with someone who actually understood the nuances. No pitch, no pressure, just clarity. Refreshing."

TN

Tom Nguyen

Founder, NovaBrand

Who we work with

We do our best work with B2B and nonprofit marketing teams that have a single-digit headcount. Typically scaling companies in technology, professional services, cybersecurity, and financial services — and well-established nonprofit organisations navigating the same CRM and automation challenges as their commercial counterparts.

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Find out which platform actually fits your business

Scored across 11 dimensions. Revenue model-aware. No signup. No sales pitch.

Consultant-grade rigour. Self-serve speed.