Key takeaways
- AI consulting prices fall into five engagement types, and the type matters more than the rate.
- Small-business specialists now commonly publish their prices. Large firms rarely do.
- Hourly pricing puts the estimation risk on you. Fixed pricing puts it on the consultant.
- Provider licence and usage costs are separate from the consulting fee and should be estimated in the proposal.
Most articles on AI consulting costs quote ranges so wide they are useless: anywhere from 100 dollars an hour to a million-dollar programme. This one uses prices that firms actually publish, grouped by the kind of engagement you are buying, so you can tell whether a quote in front of you is in the normal range.
Sources. Figures below are drawn from consultancies' own published pricing pages in October 2026, in the US and Australia. They are indicative, not an exhaustive survey.
The five engagement types
| Type | What you get | Published price range |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly advice | Time with an adviser, open scope | About 100 to 300 USD an hour at small-business firms. 150 to 350 AUD in Australia |
| Assessment or roadmap | A review of where AI fits and a plan | Free to about 1,500 USD for small businesses. 5,000 to 10,000 AUD for two-week diagnostics |
| Fixed rollout or quick win | One defined outcome delivered end to end | About 2,500 to 10,000 USD. 5,000 to 8,500 AUD plus GST for Australian pilots |
| Retainer or fractional adviser | Ongoing advice across initiatives | About 1,500 to 8,000 USD a month |
| Programme or transformation | Multiple workflows, custom builds, embedded team | Tens of thousands upward. 40,000 to 100,000 AUD at mid-market firms |
What drives the price
Whether anything gets built
Configuring a business-tier assistant is quick, repeatable work. Building a custom agent that reads your systems, makes decisions and writes back is engineering, and costs accordingly. The biggest jump in any quote is the line where "set up" becomes "build".
Number of workflows
Automation-focused firms often price per workflow. Published figures range from a few hundred dollars for a simple automation to several thousand for a complex one. A quote for ten workflows is not ten times a quote for one, but it is not far off.
Seniority and leverage
At small firms you usually get the senior person. At large firms the rate reflects a mix of partner, manager and junior time. Ask who will do the work and for how many days.
Sector risk
Regulated sectors such as health, financial services and legal cost more to advise, because the policy and data work is heavier. That premium is often worth it.
Pricing models and your risk
- Hourly: you pay for time. If it takes longer, you pay more. Suits genuinely open problems.
- Fixed fee: you pay for an outcome. If it takes longer, the consultant absorbs it. Suits knowable scope, such as a first rollout.
- Retainer: you pay for availability. Suits ongoing advice, and needs a monthly check that you are using it.
- Outcome or guarantee based: some firms refund fees if agreed outcomes are not met. Read exactly how the outcome is defined.
We set out the case for fixed fees on first rollouts in fixed-price or hourly AI consulting.
The costs that are not the consultant's fee
- Seats: roughly 20 to 30 US dollars per user per month for mainstream business assistants on annual billing.
- Usage: API calls, agent runs and premium usage, billed by consumption. Cap it.
- Internal time: the hours your staff spend in meetings, testing and training. Shorter projects use less of it.
- Ongoing maintenance: for custom builds, often quoted at 15 to 20 percent of the build cost a year.
For the full picture of what AI costs a business, including worked examples, read how much AI costs a business, or try the AI cost calculator.
Is a quote fair? A quick test
- Can you list exactly what will be working at the end? If not, the price is for effort, not outcome.
- Is the fee within the published range for that engagement type? If it is several times higher, ask what is different.
- Are provider costs estimated separately? If they are bundled, ask for the split.
- Is there an end date? Without one, a fixed fee is not really fixed.
Frequently asked questions
What is the hourly rate for an AI consultant?
Small-business specialists publish rates of roughly 100 to 300 US dollars an hour. In Australia, published rates are commonly 150 to 350 AUD. Senior consultants at large firms charge considerably more, often as day rates.
How much does an AI readiness assessment cost?
Published prices for small-business assessments range from free, through around 1,000 to 1,500 US dollars, up to 5,000 to 10,000 for a two-week diagnostic at firms targeting mid-sized businesses.
How much does it cost to implement AI in a small business?
A governed rollout of an AI assistant with configuration, spend caps and training can be done for a fixed fee in the low thousands. Workflow automation is typically priced per automation, from a few hundred to several thousand dollars each. Multi-workflow programmes run into the tens of thousands.
Is a fixed-price AI consultant cheaper than an hourly one?
Not always on paper, but usually in practice, because a fixed price removes the risk of scope drift and makes the consultant responsible for finishing on time. For work whose scope is knowable, fixed price is the better structure.
Get a straight answer for your business
The Clarity Package gives you a written business case and a detailed implementation plan for 500 USD. The Implementation Package does the whole build, live in 30 days, for a fixed 5,000 USD.