Pricing
Fixed prices agreed before work starts. The ranges below are real, from real projects — not an anchor to be negotiated away from.
What things cost
Indicative ranges, not an offer. Your number is fixed in writing before work begins. All figures exclude VAT, GST or sales tax, which is added where applicable to your jurisdiction. Third-party service costs are billed at cost.
| Engagement | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Consultation and assessment | $1,500 – $4,000 | One to two weeks. Written assessment, feasibility check, build-versus-buy advice and a prioritised roadmap. Credited against a project if you proceed. |
| Small scoped build | $2,500 – $8,000 | Two to three weeks. A single well-defined feature: a grounded chatbot, one automation, an integration, or an evaluation suite for something you already run. |
| Production AI feature | $8,000 – $35,000 | Four to ten weeks. RAG knowledge bases, agents, document pipelines, or an AI feature inside an existing product — including evaluation, monitoring and hand-over. |
| Full product or MVP | $18,000 – $60,000 | Eight to sixteen weeks. A complete application: authentication, billing, admin tooling and the AI capability at its centre. |
| Monthly retainer | from $3,000 / month | Ongoing iteration, monitoring, model updates and evaluation runs. Priced below project rate, minimum three months. |
What moves the price
The AI is rarely the expensive part. Cost is driven by how many systems the work must touch, how clean your data is, and how many people must approve a decision.
The cheapest project is always the one scoped down honestly at the start. We would rather deliver one workflow that works than five that half-work.
- Number of systems to integrate
- Data quality and consistency
- Permission and compliance requirements
- Approval layers on your side
- Accuracy bar the system must clear
- Whether an existing codebase must be worked in
Frequently asked questions
Why fixed price rather than hourly?
Hourly billing rewards slow work and makes your budget unpredictable. A fixed price puts the estimation risk on us, which is where it belongs, and lets you approve a number rather than watch a meter.
What is included in every project?
Scoping, build, testing, deployment to your infrastructure, documentation, a hand-over session and two weeks of post-launch support.
What are the ongoing costs after launch?
Model usage and hosting, both billed by the providers directly to your accounts, never marked up through us. We estimate these during scoping — for most projects it is tens to a few hundred dollars a month.
Do you require payment upfront?
Typically 40% to start, 30% at an agreed midpoint and 30% on delivery. For first projects under $5,000 it is usually 50/50.
Do you offer a discount for longer engagements?
Retainers are priced below the equivalent project rate because the scoping overhead is lower and the work is predictable. Beyond that, no — a discount usually means the scope was padded to begin with.
Tell us what you are building.
Send a short description of the problem and we will reply within one business day with an honest view of scope, cost and whether we are the right person for it.
Or email directly: contact@hire-ai-dev.com