Prices by service
| Service | Most Kansas City engagements land between | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|
| AI Readiness Assessment | $2,500–$6,000 | 2–3 weeks |
| Workflow automation project | $5,000–$25,000 (scoped per set of workflows) | 3–8 weeks |
| Training: half-day workshop | $1,500–$3,500 (up to about 20 people) | 1 day |
| Training: role-based series | $4,000–$10,000 | 4–6 weeks |
| Custom AI assistant | $4,000–$20,000 to build, plus $200–$800 per month to run | 3–6 weeks |
| Copilot or Gemini rollout | $3,000–$12,000, plus licenses | 3–6 weeks |
| AI policy & governance package | $2,000–$5,000 | About 2 weeks |
| Fractional AI lead | $2,500–$8,000 per month (half-day to one day a week) | Monthly, 3-month minimum |
Full-day workshops and leadership briefings are quoted per group.
What a typical first year looks like
Most clients don't buy everything. Here are three common paths. These are illustrative combinations built from the ranges above, not results from specific clients.
| Company profile | Typical path | Approximate first-year consulting spend |
|---|---|---|
| 12-person office, Google Workspace, one big time sink | Policy package + half-day workshop + one automation project | $8,500–$33,500 |
| 45-person company, Microsoft 365 | Assessment + Copilot rollout + role-based training series + policy package | $11,500–$33,000 |
| 150-person company, several departments | Assessment + two automation projects + one custom assistant (with a year of running cost) + training series + six months of a fractional lead | $37,900–$143,600 |
The ranges in the right-hand column are simple sums of the service ranges above, before licenses. Your number will differ. In practice, most companies land in the lower half of each sum, because later projects reuse the discovery, documentation and training from earlier ones. The wide spread mostly reflects how many systems and departments are involved.
Ways to keep the cost down
- Start with the assessment. It costs less than a build and stops you from paying for the wrong project first.
- Use what you already pay for. Gemini is included in current Google Workspace business plans, and many CRMs have automation built in. Turning those on is cheaper than adding new tools.
- Do the prep yourself. Gathering documents, listing common questions and naming one owner per project all shorten our time.
- Batch related work. Two automations that share the same systems cost less together than apart.
- Train once, properly. A role-based series costs more than a single workshop but usually avoids paying for a second round of training six months later.
What moves the price up or down
Lower:
- One location, one department, one main software system
- Clean, organized documents and file permissions
- A clear first target (you already know which job you want automated)
- Your team handles some of the prep, such as gathering documents
Higher:
- Several departments or locations
- Older software with no API, or data spread across many systems
- Years of loose file sharing to clean up before a Copilot or Gemini rollout
- Regulated data (health, legal, financial) that needs extra controls and review
- Customer-facing assistants that book, quote or connect to your CRM
What's included and what isn't
Included in every project price:
- Discovery and scoping
- The build, configuration or training itself
- Testing on real examples from your business
- Plain-English documentation for whoever maintains it
- A support window after handoff
- A results report against the baseline we set at the start
Not included:
- Software licenses. Copilot, ChatGPT Business, Claude Team, Gemini, Zapier, Make and similar tools are billed by the vendor directly to you. If we supply a license as part of a project, it's itemized separately so you can compare it with buying direct.
- Major data cleanup or software migrations. If a project needs either, we scope it separately so you can decide.
- Legal review. We write AI policies; your attorney reviews them.
How payment works
Project work is fixed-price, with the payment schedule spelled out in your proposal before anything starts. Larger projects can be split into milestone payments. Fractional retainers are billed monthly.
There's no open-ended hourly billing on project work. If scope changes, we agree on the change and the price in writing before doing the extra work.
Why we publish prices
Three reasons.
It saves everyone time. If our range doesn't fit your budget, you should know that before a 30-minute call, not after a two-week proposal process.
It's how small businesses buy. You'd never hire a contractor who wouldn't give a ballpark. AI consulting shouldn't work differently.
It keeps us honest. Published ranges mean we can't quote one client three times what we quote another for the same work.
Want to compare our ranges with the broader market? Our guide to what an AI consultant costs covers hourly, project and retainer rates. To see whether a project could pay for itself, multiply the hours a task takes each week by your loaded hourly cost and by 52. If automation can take back even a third of that, the math usually works within a year.
Frequently asked questions
Why are your ranges so wide?
Because a 10-person office and a 200-person company are both in our market. An automation for one intake form is a very different job from connecting five systems across three departments. On the free call, we can usually narrow the range for your situation to within a few thousand dollars. The fixed quote comes after scoping.
Do you charge for the first call?
No. The 30-minute assessment call is free, with no obligation. We'll ask what's eating your team's time, tell you whether AI is the right fix and give you a rough sense of which services and price range fit. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you that too.
Do you offer hourly work?
For small follow-up tasks after a project, yes, in prepaid blocks. For new projects, we prefer fixed prices so you know the cost before we start. Ongoing work usually fits better on a fractional retainer, which is more predictable for both sides than open-ended hourly billing.
How much should we budget for AI software on top of this?
It depends on seats and tools. Business AI assistants commonly list around $18 to $30 per user per month, and many automation tools add tens to a few hundred dollars a month at small-business volumes (estimate; check current vendor pricing). We give you a seat-by-seat license estimate during the assessment.
Can we start small?
Yes. Many clients start with a policy package or a half-day workshop, both at the low end of our ranges, and add projects once they see results. The readiness assessment is also designed as a contained first step. Nothing commits you to a second engagement.
How does this compare with other AI consultants?
It's hard to compare, because most firms don't publish prices. Our guide to AI consulting costs covers the market and what drives the differences, and our guide on how to choose an AI consultant lists the questions that make proposals comparable.
Get a range for your situation
Tell us your team size, your tools and the work you want to fix. We'll tell you which services fit and where in the range you're likely to land.