Most firms make you sit through a sales call to find out. Here are the numbers instead: what the market charges in 2026, what actually drives the price up or down, what Bearagon charges, and the questions worth asking anyone you're considering — including us.
Published buyer's guides and industry coverage put small-business AI consulting in three tiers. The ranges below are what firms in this market are openly charging — useful as a sanity check on any quote you get.
A "readiness assessment" or "AI audit": someone studies how you work and hands you a report of recommendations — a scorecard, a roadmap, a tool list. Typically 2–3 weeks. Worth knowing: many audit-only firms stop here. The report is the product; building it is your problem.
Actually building something: connecting AI to your systems, custom development, testing, training. The wide range reflects how custom the work is — wiring up existing tools sits at the low end, building bespoke software sits at the high end and above it.
Ongoing support after the build: maintenance, tuning, fixing what breaks, adjusting as your business changes. Hourly consultants run $50–$150/hour as an alternative — cheaper to start, but the meter is always running.
Sources: 2026 pricing coverage including Aries Consulting Group's audit-cost breakdown and Forbes' reporting on small-business AI services. Individual quotes vary; treat these as the middle of the market, not a rule.
The single biggest factor. Building AI software from scratch costs tens of thousands. Connecting tools that already exist — to the inbox you answer, the invoices you chase, the calendar you book — costs a fraction, because the expensive part was already built by someone else.
One automation (say, chasing overdue invoices) is a small project. Six automations reporting to one place is a bigger one. Good news: they share the same plumbing, so the second workflow costs less than the first, and the sixth less than the second.
A clean start is the cheapest start. A drawer full of half-set-up tools that need untangling first adds work — that's the AI sprawl cleanup problem, and it's worth solving before adding anything new, not after.
Anything touching customer data, payments, or your books should be scoped to minimum access and reviewed before it runs. Some firms bill this as an add-on. Be suspicious of quotes where security isn't mentioned at all — that's not a discount, it's an omission.
We publish our numbers because we'd want the same courtesy. Here's the whole structure — there is no other page where different numbers live.
A 30-minute call and a one-page plan: what to keep, what to fix, what to cancel. Yours whether or not you continue — this is the part many firms charge $2,000+ for.
We build the automations, connect them to the tools you already use, and set the guardrails with you. Most setups fit the base rate; if yours is bigger, you see the quote before we start.
Everything maintained and tuned. Bigger asks are scoped, quoted, and billed transparently — the flat number stays flat.
Why the gap between us and the market ranges? We don't build AI from scratch — the tools already exist, made by other companies. We sort out what's worth keeping, wire it into how you run, and hand you one simple place to check the work. Skipping custom development is what removes most of the cost. No prompts to learn. No code. No complicated installs.
Whoever you talk to — us or anyone else — these four questions surface the real cost of an engagement faster than any pricing page.
Hourly billing looks cheaper until the scope grows — and AI projects grow. A flat number you can budget beats a low rate you can't. Our answer: flat monthly; extras quoted before they're billed.
If the tools, logins, and connections live in the provider's accounts, canceling means starting over — that's not a service, it's a hostage situation. Our answer: your accounts, your keys, revocable by you at any time. How we handle access.
An audit that ends in a PDF still leaves all the work ahead of you. Make sure the quote covers building, not just advising. Our answer: we create and deliver the automations; the plan is the free part.
If the answer is "log into five dashboards," the supervision cost lands on you and never shows up on the invoice. Our answer: one page, every morning, reviewed in bulk on your schedule.
Published 2026 rates cluster in three tiers: a readiness assessment or audit runs $2,000–$8,000, a first implementation project runs $10,000–$50,000, and ongoing support retainers run $2,000–$5,000 a month. Hourly consultants typically charge $50–$150 an hour. Prices climb with custom development, compliance requirements, and the number of workflows involved.
Because we don't build AI from scratch. The AI tools already exist — made by other companies. We curate them, wire them into the email, calendar, books, and payments you already use, and deliver the results in one simple place to check. Skipping custom development is what removes most of the cost. The assessment is free, setup starts at $2,000, and the ongoing plan starts at a flat $400 a month.
Keeping every automation running, maintained, and tuned as your business changes — connections that break get fixed, guardrails get adjusted, and what stops earning its keep gets cut. Bigger requests are scoped, quoted, and billed separately, so the flat monthly number stays flat.
Many firms charge $2,000–$8,000 for an audit that ends in recommendations. We do the assessment part free — a 30-minute call and a one-page plan of what to keep, fix, and cancel — because the plan is only the starting point. The paid work is the implementation: actually building the automations and handing over the results.
The ranges above are averages; your business isn't. The free assessment ends with a one-page plan and a real quote for your situation. Two ways in — talk it through with our assessment assistant, or type a couple of lines and send.