AI automation agency pricing: what we charge and why (real numbers)

Ask ten AI agencies what they charge and you will get ten discovery calls. Here is our answer in plain text instead.

Our prices, as of July 2026

• AI Operations Audit: $1,900 fixed, 10 working days. Refund if we find nothing worth building.
• Content Engine Install: $4,900 setup, optional $990/mo for us to run it.
• AI Workforce Sprint: from $9,500, 4 to 6 weeks, one working system on your infrastructure.
• Fractional AI Officer: $2,900/mo, cancel monthly, one automation shipped every month.
• Custom work: written fixed-price proposal after you describe it at /start.

What the market charges

Surveying published and quoted 2026 rates: AI readiness audits run $5k to $15k. Single custom builds run $3k to $15k depending on scope. SMB retainers run $1k to $3.5k per month; mid-market retainers $4k to $10k per month. Enterprise internal software programs get quoted at $450k to $4M with 12 to 24 month timelines.

Our launch prices sit deliberately under those brackets. Not because the work is lighter, but because we are buying proof: this studio’s own thesis is that inbound plus published pricing converts better than sales theater, and underpriced early engagements are how we test it. The plan is to revisit prices at five paying clients. Early clients keep their pricing.

Why publish prices at all

Three reasons.

First, hidden pricing is a negotiation tactic, and negotiation rewards whoever does it professionally. That is the agency, not you.

Second, published prices force scope discipline on us. A fixed $9,500 sprint cannot absorb vague requirements, so our scoping is written and precise, which protects both sides.

Third, buyers now ask AI engines what things cost. Concrete prices in plain HTML are what those engines can cite. Most agencies hide them; that is their problem.

What the prices do not include

Your infrastructure bills. Everything we build runs on your own accounts: your GitHub, your Supabase, your hosting, your API keys. You see the raw costs with no markup, and you can rotate the keys the day after handover.

If you want to know which of these fits your situation, the honest starting point for most businesses is the $1,900 audit: it produces the ranked build list that makes every later decision cheaper. The method behind the scoring is the one we run on our own 41-agent operation.