What AI implementation actually costs in 2026

Most people asking this question have been quoted twice: once at four figures by someone who will connect two apps, once at six figures by a consultancy that will deliver a strategy. Neither number tells them anything, because neither is attached to a defined thing.

Here is the actual shape of the market, and our own numbers, in public.

Why nobody publishes

We surveyed roughly twenty-eight firms selling AI implementation and automation. Half publish no prices at all. The pattern is not what you would guess: what predicts publishing is not how much a firm charges, it is whether it sells a standardised unit. Firms selling repeatable packages publish. Firms scoping every project from scratch do not, because they genuinely cannot.

The second pattern is sharper. Above roughly $6,000 per unit, the firms that do publish switch from exact prices to floors — "starts at" with no ceiling. Exact, closed price lists exist almost exclusively below that line.

The bands you will actually encounter

Under $2,000. Connecting existing tools. A Zapier or Make workflow, a chatbot on a website using an off-the-shelf widget. Real work, genuinely useful, but it is configuration rather than implementation — and it will not survive contact with an edge case nobody planned for.

$5,000 to $15,000. One system, built properly and integrated: a voice agent wired to your calendar and payments, a booking flow end to end, an attribution loop from ad click to invoice. This is where most first projects land, ours included.

$15,000 to $60,000. Several systems working together, or one complex one — a full front office, a content factory with creative production, a custom build over your own data.

Above $100,000. Enterprise programmes, custom platforms, teams embedded for months. If you are an owner-run business, you almost certainly do not need this and should be suspicious of anyone steering you toward it early.

What moves the number

Integration depth is the main driver, not the AI part. Connecting to a modern API is quick. Connecting to the booking system a business has used for nine years, which has no API and one undocumented export, is the actual project. When a quote seems high for something that "sounds simple," this is usually why — and a good firm will tell you that on the first call rather than discovering it in week three.

The second driver is how much of your process exists only in someone's head. If the answer to "what happens when a customer asks for X" is "well, it depends, Maria usually knows," that has to be made explicit before it can be automated. That is real work and it is worth doing regardless.

Our numbers

Minimum engagement $5,000. Most first projects are a single system between $5,000 and $12,000. A full operator install runs $25,000 and up. An optional audit is $2,500, credited back in full against any build. Thirty days of tuning included. Support optional, never a lock-in.

Every price for every system is published at goncharai.com/pricing. We publish because the right client has already decided they need this — the question is fit, not price. And because a firm that quotes per client is quoting what it thinks you can pay.

The question to ask instead

Not "what does AI cost." Ask: **what is this specific problem costing me per year, and what would fixing it cost once?** If the first number is not comfortably larger than the second, do not buy anything. We tell people this on calls and occasionally talk ourselves out of work with it.