AI Automation Cost
How much does AI automation cost? Typical ranges for PoC, production, and enterprise deployments with realistic timelines.
What drives Cost
AI automation cost varies with scope, integration count, and compliance. A narrow back-office workflow can ship for under twenty thousand, while a production-grade multi-tenant rollout with SOC2 and SLAs sits well above one hundred thousand. The numbers below reflect what we see in real engagements - LLM inference, integrations, observability, and handover all priced transparently against a fixed statement of work, not a mystery retainer.
- 01Scope and integration count across SaaS, databases, and internal APIs
- 02Compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOC2, GDPR, ISO 27001)
- 03Model choice and monthly inference volume
- 04Observability, evals, and human-in-the-loop tooling
- 05Team seniority and whether onshore or offshore delivery
- 06Ongoing support, incident response, and model retraining
Typical pricing tiers
- Single workflow scope
- Base LLM (GPT-4o / Claude)
- Demo environment
- Stakeholder walkthrough
- Multi-workflow orchestration
- Observability and evals
- Role-based access
- Handover documentation
- Multi-tenant architecture
- SOC2 / HIPAA compliance
- 24x7 SLA support
- Dedicated delivery squad
No surprise line items
Every engagement is scoped against a written statement of work. Changes are logged weekly and priced transparently. You always know where the number is going before it gets there.
A statement of work with deliverables, acceptance criteria, and a timeline before we start.
Every scope change is logged and priced within a week of being raised. No end-of-quarter surprises.
You own the code, prompts, weights, and infra-as-code. Standard work-for-hire clauses, no lock-in.
Runbooks, architecture diagrams, and a support retainer so your team can take it from here.
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Pricing questions
Is AI automation cost a one-time or recurring expense?
Build is one-time. Inference, hosting, observability, and maintenance are recurring - usually 15-25 percent of build cost per year for healthy deployments.
Can we start small and scale up?
Yes. Most clients start with a PoC, validate ROI, then expand to a production MVP. We write PoCs so the code is reusable if you move forward.
What drives cost overruns most often?
Scope creep around integrations and edge cases. A tight statement of work and a weekly change log keep the number honest.
Do you offer fixed-price engagements?
Yes for well-scoped PoCs and MVPs. Enterprise work is usually time and materials with a capped monthly burn.
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